Wonderful!

Rating: 9/10 (12 December 2013)

Wonderful! I never read the book, therefore I had no expectations which needed to be satisfied from this movie, so whether or not it lives up to the printed version doesn't matter to me – from that perspective this is a WONDERFUL movie! I wish they made more movies like this, where the violence doesn't have to be graphic and realistic, or the language becomes embarrassing, even though dealing with such a humanistic and horrific situation as WWII. It seems you can no longer take your kids or grandkids to movies that simply tell historic stories, without the screen flashing nudity, violence and rough language to give it 'real' feel.
It was absolutely refreshing to experience this story from the child's point of view, and to have the narration done by DEATH - that added to the flavor of the movie and made it easy to follow. It also takes adults back to our youth, when we can remember going along or doing things simply because the adults were doing it. The acting is wonderful and the story is priceless.
On a side note, I read a review by a critic that gave The Book Thief a poor rating, indicating that if you want to see a war movie done like Disney would do it, this one would be perfect for you. I think that was the critic's problem, this isn't a war movie; it's a story of coming of age and dealing with challenging issues when you are growing up, which happened to occur around Stuttgart, Germany during WWII. There are plenty of war movies you can't take younger audiences to that are already out there, this was a welcome relief.
Do not miss this movie!