Markus Zusak

Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street as her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. By 1943, the Allied bombs are falling, and the sirens begin to wail. Liesel shares out her books in the air-raid shelters. But one day in the life of Himmel Street, the wail of the sirens comes too late.

The five Dunbar brothers are living – fighting, dreaming, loving – in the perfect squalor of a house without grownups. Today, the father who walked out on them long ago is about to walk right back in. But why has he returned, and who have the boys become in the meantime?