Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp She befriends blond-haired Rudy Steiner, her neighbour obsessed with Jesse Owens She also befriends the mayor's wife, who hides from despair in her library Together Liesel and Rudy steal books - from Nazi book burning piles, from the mayor's library, from the richer people of Molching In time, the family hide a Jewish boxer, Max, who reads with Liesel in the basement 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