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The Book Thief by the numbers

Markus Zusak · first published 2005 · dataset 2026-07-21

Length and reading time

At 552 pages, The Book Thief is longer than 98.8% of the 1,664 books on the reading lists we track. It is longer than the median book listed for grades 9-12 (274 pages).

Word counts and reading times are estimates: pages × 275 words, divided by the reading speed. Your edition's page count and your own pace will differ.

Where The Book Thief is on school reading lists

2 appearances (0.0% of all 13,258 listings in the dataset), drawn from 2 published lists, in grades 9th. 2 of the 2 carry a link to the published source document.

States (1): Michigan.

Sources

• Michigan ELA Standards — Holocaust cross-curricular · checked 2026-05-29
• CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 9-10 exemplar · checked 2026-05-29

Questions

How many pages is The Book Thief?

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is 552 pages in the edition recorded in our dataset. Page counts vary by edition and format; at about 275 words per page that is roughly 152,000 words.

How long does it take to read The Book Thief?

About 10 h 7 min at an average adult pace of 250 words per minute (8 h 26 min at 300 wpm, 12 h 39 min at 200 wpm). At 20 minutes a day that is about 31 days.

Is The Book Thief on school reading lists?

Yes. It appears 2 times on the U.S. school reading lists, award lists and curricula in our dataset, in 1 state plus 1 national-curriculum listing, most often in grades 9-12. That ranks it #1,637 of 1,664 listed books.

Related

• The Book Thief: reading level, grades and similar booksOn ReadingList, our sister site for school reading lists.
• Books of about the same lengthChildren of Blood and Bone (543 pp.) · The Mysterious Benedict Society (512 pp.) · The Grapes of Wrath (464 pp.) · Little Women (449 pp.)
• The most assigned books, rankedAll 1,664 listed books start here.
• Book length statisticsHow long assigned books are, by grade.

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