The first time I finished The Book Thief, I was on a plane riding home from a visit to see my sister for her law school graduation. I cried on page after page, my tears falling faster than I could wipe them away, sliding down my face then my chin then my neck to my shirt. I held it to my chest after closing it after the final page and cried some more, unable to stop. So you’d think I’d be all cried out over The Book Thief.

The second time I finished The Book Thief, it was two years later, just last week, and I was again on a plane, this time riding on the way to see my sister in a different city, in her new home. Again I cried. And cried and cried. And drenched my airplane cocktail napkin to the point where I held my hoodie to my face to absorb my tears and cover my face to hide my weeping. Again, I kept crying after turning the final page.

I mention the tears because I am a person who sometimes measures love for a book by the tears cried over it. And over this book I have cried many, many tears.

Here’s what I know about The Book Thief: it’s 550 pages long. It was a 2007 Printz Honor Book. It is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read.

It’s the story of a girl who has a pretty rough start in life but who finds shelter with an unlikely pair of foster parents on Himmel Street. “Himmel” means “heaven,” and this place is certainly not, but at the same time, it sort of is. Liesel has lost her mother and brother and basically all hope in a world at war, but in her new home she finds shelter, true friends — the kind of friends you’d live and die for – and words. Words that blow her world wide open.

Liesel’s childhood is like many childhoods — soccer games in the street and school — but also not. Not every child has a papa who plays the accordion and teaches her how to read in the middle of the night. Not every child has a best friend who wants to run like Jesse Owens but wants to kiss her most of all. Not every child has a Jew hiding in her freezing basement. Not every child has a mama who curses but feeds her and feeds the hidden Jew. Not every child steals books from the mayor’s library, gravediggers, and fires.

This is a story narrated by death, which might annoy some readers, but it works for me. It doesn’t make or break the book for me at all.

This is the story of World War II boiled down to its most basic essence: innocent people suffering and dying because of a man and people filled with hate. In a way, this book changed the entire way I think about that war. In this story, my country is the enemy because these people are on the other side because they are German.

But these people are not filled with hate. They are good. They are cold and hungry but find ways to be kind in tiny ways — a tiny snowman carried downstairs to a basement, handmade books and drawings, sips of champagne. They love each other. And I love them, and I carry them with me always in my heart.