The Book Thief centers on the life of Liesel Meminger, a ten to fourteen-year-old in Germany during World War II. Liesel's experiences are narrated by Death, who describes both the beauty and destruction of life in this era.
A murder in 17th-century Oxford is related from the contradictory points of view of four of the characters, all of them unreliable narratorsու
A contrast portrayed in the novel is, on one hand, a philosophy based on ancient and medieval learning, and, on the other, the scientific method that was beginning to be applied in physics, chemistry and medicine.