Summary:
Death narrates as we find our main character, Liesel, on an eventful train trip to the home of her new foster parents. The train trip is confusing and difficult, and somewhere along the way her brother dies as Liesel looks on. While her brother is being buried in the next town, she commits her first act of theft, stealing The Gravedigger's Handbook that fell from the pocket of the young apprentice. Liesel and her mother continue to a small town outside Munich, and Liesel kisses her mother goodbye for the last time. Life with her new family, the Hubbermans, is tough, rations are meager and Liesel is expected to pitch in and help Mama (a crass lady with a vulgar mouth) with laundry duties. She is placed in a young class at school because, although she loves books, she can not read them. When Papa comforts her after a nightmare, things begin to change. Papa finds Liesel's stolen book, and with only a elementary education himself, he begins to teach her to read, with lessons occurring after Liesel's reoccurring nightmares. While attending a celebration for the birthday of Adolf Hitler, as a Hitler Youth no less, Liesel steals again, this time rescuing a book from the pile of ashes on the square. A book about a Jew, a forbidden book. As she begins to work through her new book with her Papa, the son of an old friend of the families comes to collect on a favor. His father saved Papa in the war, and now he needs a place to hide. He is Jewish. The family hides Max in the basement, taking all steps to make sure the secret is kept. Although Liesel wants to tell her friend Rudy, she wants to tell the Mayor's wife as she reads in the library, she wants to tell someone- she does not. Liesel grows to love Max, and Max loves Liesel. He makes her books, autobiographical books, as they share their dreams with each other. When the Nazis begin to search the neighborhood, and bombs begin to fall, the Hubbermans realize Max is no longer safe in the basement, and send him to find a new place. When they fail to hear from him, Liesel realizes she has yet again lost someone she loves. To console herself she continues to steal, food, books, anything, it becomes a sport. She particularly enjoys stealing from the library of the mayor, even if her presence is more welcomed than she lets on to Rudy. Her books, from the cemetery, from the mayor, from her Papa, from Max- these become her greatest treasures. She has harnassed the power of words. These words are the things she chooses to take to the bomb shelter when the sirens are heard. One day however, the sirens are not heard. The planes strike without warning. Her family, her friends, everyone on Himmel street is reduced to rubble. Except for Liesel, who as luck would have it, was working on writing her own story in the basement. Yet again, Liesel finds herself alone. Somehow though, she manages to carry on with those she does have, the Mayor and his wife, Rudy's father, and even Max who was freed from Dachau. Liesel gains a life, and a family, but doesn't find her true family again until the spirit of death she has seen around her many times finally comes for her.
An excellent "trailer" or visual representation I found on YouTube-
My Thoughts:
As far as historical fiction goes, this is the time period I find most interesting. Even as a child, I found myself wanting to know more about how something as tragic as the Holocaust could have occurred. As an asult now living in Germany I continue to read about the matter, now seeing it from a different view. Walking the halls of Dachau, reading the press releases of the Nazis, walking through the gas chamber, it really gives you a different outlook. Because of this experience, I find myself more critical of books dealing with the subject. While I enjoyed the story as a whole, I found the narration very distracting. The narrator telling the end, then reverting to the beginning, then describing the middle- at times it was just too much. I know that it is well like for its innovation in this arena, but I found that, for me, it took a great deal away from the power of the story. I also disliked how it portrayed the reactions of the townspeople to the crimes committed against the Jews. Only the maniacal shopkeeper was touted as a dedicated Nazi. From what I know, it is much more likely that Liesel's family's views would have been the out of the ordinary thoughts. The majority of German's at the time would have leaned toward support of the regime, or claimed a lack of knowledge of the entire process, supporting the regime through turning a blind eye. At the time, it was thought that the camps were for criminals, and were helping to progress a Germany without riff raff. For the author to suggest otherwise is disturbing to me. Was it deplorable to have such thoughts? Yes. Should we attempt to cover it up? No. I suppose it is fiction, and he has a right to do what he pleases, but I feel that this inaccuracy should be noted for readers who lack the discernment to know fiction from fact.
Their Thoughts:
Excerpt from Claire Rosser's KLIATT Review-
"This extraordinary book defies summary or categorization. Usually when we review YA fiction, we know the perimeters that define the genre. The Book Thief doesn’t fit within any of those perimeters, yet I’m quite sure there are YA readers who will consider it one of the most amazing books they have ever read. For starters, the narrator is a Being who is with humans at the moment of death, who carries their souls away. This narrator has a detached view of human nature, but he is captivated by a young girl, Liesel, who is trying to wend her way in the madness that is Nazi Germany. It’s a busy time for the narrator, of course, in the middle of a world war, with bombing, the concentration camps, and all the death and destruction. But he sees Liesel steal a book from the gravesite of her younger brother at the beginning of this story, and from then on, he watches her with interest. Why would she steal a book when she can’t even read? She continues to steal books, and eventually does learn to read, even reading aloud to keep her neighbors in the bomb shelter sane during bombing raids."
Awards and Accolades-
YALSA Best Books for Adults 2007
Publisher's Weekly Book of the Year 2006
School Library Journal Book of the Year 2006
Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book 2007
Parent's Choice Award 2006
ABBY Award 2007
14 State Reading List Entries
My Ideas:
This book would be a great example when giving a lesson on perspective. As this book is written from the perspective of death, quite an unusual choice, reading even the first few lines can help readers to see that writing need not only come from a singular human voice. Other examples used would be books with dual story lines (anything Christopher Pike), books in third person (Olive's Ocean), traditional first person narration (Penny from Heaven), stories shown by two perspectives (Twilight/Rising Sun), collective first person narrators (Virgin Suicides), narrators with unknown real identities (Life of Pi), etc. This lesson will also help students when writing creative essays or projects, helping them to step out of the box and view a situation from another perspective.
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