Greetings, First Friday Book Club Members:
Our March meeting revolved around The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, and our discussion touched on many of the powerful elements woven throughout this story.
The novel includes some dark and challenging topics, but the author keeps the reader engaged, involved and, ultimately, emotionally attached to the characters.
This is a novel written for young adults but the complexity of the structure, setting and language kept most of us intrigued right to the bitter end.
If you are not quite ready to leave Liesel, Hans, Rosa, Max and Rudy, this three-minute video tells the "hidden true story" behind the book and the movie:
An in-depth interview (for the movie release) with Marcus Zusak is available here:https://www.mindfood.com/article/interview-markus-zusak-author-of-the-book-thief/
"I thought this would be my least successful book. I thought it would sink like a stone because it was a 580-page book set in Nazi Germany, narrated by Death. Try to imagine recommending that to your friends."
Was there a specific inspiration for the story and for the character of Liesel? It is interesting because my mother was a foster child. So I’m often asked, “Is Liesel your mother?” And I say, “Well no,” because the moment I fictionalized her she was not my Mum anymore. My Mum was separated from her brother but he didn’t die. I had heard a story of a little girl who died on a train and her mother had to bury her at the side of the tracks. That inspired my story. My parents didn’t endure suffering. Sure, they were hungry and they had some hard times, but when you think of the tragedies and the awful things that happened to so many people, they were lucky. Most of their stories are from after the war. One interesting thing though is that my father was a house painter and his father was too. He painted a lot of houses of Jewish people as Hans does. That’s how the book starts to come together. When you’re melding all of these stories together for a novel, you begin to live in that world and start to believe everything in that world. That’s how I felt when I was writing the book...
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The Book Thief was Publisher Weekly's Best Children's Book of the Year in 2006 and has been translated into 63 languages so far:
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We had a record number of new members attend the March meeting - It was great to meet you all!(Word of Pam's baking has begun to spread, it seems...)
Photos from this months meeting are at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/125621142@N07/albums/72157672590619267
Our next meeting will be on Friday, April 3 at 2 p.m., when we will discuss Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail by Ben Montgomery
Some background to get us off on the right foot:
See you in April!
Tami
Book club web page = First Friday Book ClubBook club Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/FirstFridayBookClub