I'm always a little leery of movies made from books I love. So when I saw that one of my favorite books of the last several years, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, was being filmed, I vacillated between being thrilled thrilled filmmakers loved it as much as I did and being reluctant to watch it when it came out just in case those filmmakers screwed it up.

I'm happy to report screenwriter Michael Petroni...