Markus Zusak
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
40 free Markus Zusak trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Markus Zusak wrote one of the most loved novels of this century, yet he fully expected it to sink without a trace. The son of immigrants who filled his childhood with stories of wartime Europe, he collected rejections for years before his books found readers around the world. This quiz covers the whole shelf: the scrappy early novels about the Wolfe brothers, The Messenger and its trail of playing cards, The Book Thief and its unforgettable cast, and Bridge of Clay, the family saga that took him more than a decade to finish. There are questions on the film, the stage musical and the television series too. It is written for book clubs, students and anyone who closed one of his novels and wanted to know more about the person behind it. Every answer comes with a brief explanation, so you leave with a handful of fun facts about Markus Zusak whatever your score.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which unusual narrator tells Liesel Meminger's story in Markus Zusak's novel The Book Thief?
Death
Death narrates the whole novel, and Zusak scrapped an early draft in which the narrator enjoyed his work too much before starting again.
Q 02Which instrument does Liesel's foster father Hans Hubermann play in Markus Zusak's The Book Thief?
Accordion
Accordion music is Hans's gift, and he also helps Liesel learn to read, writing every word they master on a wall at home.
Q 03Which Olympic champion does Rudy Steiner imitate, blackened with charcoal, in The Book Thief?
Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens became Rudy's hero after Zusak, hunting for footballers of the era at his local library, saw the sprinter on the cover of an Olympics book.
Q 04Which composer earned an Oscar nomination for scoring the 2013 film of The Book Thief?
John Williams
John Williams wrote the score, his first since 2005 for a film not directed by Steven Spielberg; it was also nominated for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe.
Q 05An elderly Liesel dies in the suburbs of which city, Markus Zusak's hometown, in The Book Thief?
Sydney
Sydney is where Liesel ends her long life and where Zusak was born and raised; one early page he wrote had a modern-day thief of books there.
Q 06Which American novelist co-wrote the 2022 stage musical of Markus Zusak's The Book Thief?
Jodi Picoult
Jodi Picoult pitched the show to Zusak herself, promising to look after his story because a film of her own novel had changed its ending.
Q 07What job does 19-year-old Ed Kennedy hold in Markus Zusak's novel The Messenger?
Taxi driver
Taxi driver Ed is drifting through life until cards start arriving in the mail, each sending him to strangers who need help.
Q 08The first book Liesel steals in The Book Thief is a handbook for which trade?
Grave digging
Grave digging is the subject of the manual, dropped by an apprentice in the cemetery; Liesel takes it before she is able to read a word.
Q 09In Bridge of Clay, pets named Agamemnon, Hector and Telemachus recall which Greek poet's heroes?
Homer
Homer runs right through the novel: the boys' mother grew up hearing the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Zusak said writing the book felt like the war itself.
Q 10Markus Zusak's mother was German; which neighbouring country did his father, Helmut, come from?
Austria
Austria was Helmut Zusak's homeland; he and Elisabeth emigrated to Australia in the late 1950s, and their wartime stories fed The Book Thief.
Q 11Where in the Hubermann house does Max Vandenburg hide from the Nazis in The Book Thief?
The basement
The basement shelters Max, and later saves Liesel, who is down there writing when bombs destroy her street.
Q 12Which Australian actor played foster father Hans Hubermann in the 2013 film of The Book Thief?
Geoffrey Rush
Geoffrey Rush played Hans, and one Variety critic wrote that he supplied the film's primary warmth and humour.
Q 13Director Brian Percival came to the 2013 film The Book Thief from which British period drama?
Downton Abbey
Downton Abbey won Brian Percival an Emmy for directing in 2011, two years before his film of Zusak's novel reached cinemas.
Q 21What job did Markus Zusak briefly do at Engadine High, his old school, while writing?
Teaching English
Teaching English paid the bills, and a writing exercise on colour that he set one class gave him the first passages of The Book Thief.
Q 22What was the title of Markus Zusak's 2014 TEDx talk about drafting The Book Thief?
The Failurist
The Failurist traced his drafting process and his road to success, a road that ran through several abandoned versions of the novel.
Q 23Which American Library Association career honour did Markus Zusak receive in 2014?
Margaret Edwards Award
Q 14Whose private library does Liesel Meminger read in, and later steal from, in The Book Thief?
The mayor's wife
The mayor's wife, Ilsa Hermann, lets Liesel read in her library and later gives her a little black book in which to write her own story.
Q 15In The Book Thief, Liesel's father is taken away by the Nazis for belonging to which group?
Communists
Communists were persecuted by the regime, so Liesel's mother gives her children up to foster care to keep them safe.
Q 16In which German town do Hans and Rosa Hubermann live in Markus Zusak's The Book Thief?
Molching
Molching is where Rosa takes in washing and ironing for wealthier households, the errand that first brings Liesel to a private library.
Q 17Hans Hubermann's Nazi-supporting son in The Book Thief is sent to fight in which wartime battle?
Stalingrad
Stalingrad is where Hans Junior ends up after frequent rows with his father over the son's devotion to the Nazi party.
Q 18Which actress won a worldwide search to play Liesel Meminger in the 2013 film of The Book Thief?
Sophie Nélisse
Sophie Nélisse, a Canadian who had trained as a gymnast, won the part and later starred in the series Yellowjackets.
Q 19The Book Thief runs past 500 pages, but what did Markus Zusak first expect the novel to be?
A short novella
A short novella of about 100 pages was the plan, and Zusak also expected it to be the least successful book he had written.
Q 20Markus Zusak based a truck crash that spares Hans Hubermann on the wartime luck of which relative?
His grandfather
His grandfather refused to give up a seat on a truck that later overturned, killing the man who had demanded it; gentle Hans gives his seat away instead.
The Margaret Edwards Award honoured four of his books at once and made him one of the few winners from outside the United States.
Q 24The Book Thief and I Am the Messenger were both honor books for which American young adult prize?
Printz Award
The Printz Award list names Zusak as an honor author in both 2006 and 2007, though he did not take the medal in either year.
Q 25What is the title of Markus Zusak's first novel, a 1999 story narrated by teenager Cameron Wolfe?
The Underdog
The Underdog reached print years after Zusak's first manuscript, written when he was 18, had been turned down by five publishers.
Q 26Which sport do brothers Cameron and Ruben take up for money in Markus Zusak's Fighting Ruben Wolfe?
Boxing
Boxing earns the brothers cash for their struggling family but little glamour, and the novel was a Children's Book Council of Australia honour book in 2001.
Q 27Under which title was Markus Zusak's novel When Dogs Cry published in the United States?
Getting the Girl
Getting the Girl was the American title; the original, When Dogs Cry, is also the name of a poem Cameron writes in the book.
Q 28Ed Kennedy becomes a local hero in The Messenger after accidentally foiling which crime?
A bank robbery
A bank robbery is foiled in the opening chapter, which Zusak said felt so Australian that he wanted any screen version made at home.
Q 29Which playing card is the first to reach Ed Kennedy by mail in Markus Zusak's The Messenger?
Ace of Diamonds
The Ace of Diamonds bears three addresses and three times of day, the first of four aces that each set Ed a round of tasks.
Q 30What is the name of the dog Ed Kennedy inherits from his father in The Messenger?
The Doorman
The Doorman is later stolen from a football match, and Ed buys him back from a boy who hands over the next card.