the book thief by markus zusak

Please read this book.  It is so profoundly moving, beautiful and enchanting, I found myself hunched over it this morning unable to move, weeping as I read the final pages.  The story?  A non-Jewish orphan girl 's coming-of-age in Nazi Germany.  The characters really have my heart; they make me understand better that you cannot love something wrong.  There is Rudy, a "perfect" German specimen, who loves Jesse Owens so much he paints himself black and runs through the town.  There is Liesel who becomes a book thief--her way of staying close to the family she's lost.  There's Liesel's mother who abandons her daughter with a foster family before she is taken away.  There are so many more.  I cannot explain how much I loved this book.  I feel like it has awakened me.