Part Five: The Whistler – Guidelines for a well-structured summary

“The Floating Book” (Part I)

1. What announcement does Death make about Rudy Steiner?  Why would Death characterizes the announcement as “small?”

2. What does Death foreshadow regarding Rudy’s death? How does Death feel about Rudy’s death?

“The Gamblers (A Seven"Sided Die)”

1. Why do you think the symbol of a seven-sided die is selected by the author? 

2. List the seven sides of the die.

3. Death explains his own interests to the reader.  How does that explanation support the idea that the point of view matters to the theme and overall power of a novel?

4. Max asks Rosa to cut his hair, but she is unable to find the scissors.  As the scene plays out, what does it reveal about life in the Hubermann household?

5. What is Liesel tempted to tell the mayor’s wife?  Why?

6. What bonded Erik and Hans?  What bonds LIesel and Max?  Explain.

7. What inspires Max to draw the picture of himself and Liesel walking the tightrope to the sun?

8. Why does Max exercise?

9. As Max becomes stronger, he imagines he is boxing Hitler. How do the rules the referee states mimic the reality of life in Germany?

10. What does Hitler shout to the audience watching the imaginary fight?  What does he ask them in his rhetorical tongue? How does the  audience  respond? What does this symbolize?

11. Who is the last individual to enter the ring? What does this symbolize?

12. How does Death relate Max’s dream to the well-recognized joke, “There’s a Jew  and a German Standing in a basement, right?” Do you find the reference powerful? Explain.

13. Why is the seven"sided die an appropriate symbol for this story?

14. What does the mayor’s wife give to Liesel? How does Liesel respond?

15.What form does Liesel’s subconscious take when she is verbally attacking the mayor’s wife?

16. How does Liesel feel after her verbal assault of Frau Hermann? Explain.

“Rudy’s Youth”

1. What three problems characterize Rudy’s young life? Explain.

2.The story flashes forward two years, what does Liesel long to do?  What does Liesel come tounderstand about her, and Rudy’s experiences with the Hitler Youth?

“The Losers”

1. Briefly identify Viktor Chemmel on the character grid.

2. Compare Viktor Chemmel and Arthur Berg as leaders. What parallels  might  you draw between their leadership styles and leaders from this historical period?

3. On what terms do Viktor and Rudy separate?

“Sketches”

1.Max spends his time writing a book for Liesel.  He intends the book to be an autobiography, but that is not what emerges.  What inspires Max’s writing? How does the book change?

2. What happens when Liesel sneaks a peek of Max’s sketches?

“The Whistler and the Shoes”

1. Why does Rudy tell Liesel, “I need a win, Liesel.  Honestly.”?

2.Liesel decides that stealing something, more specifically, stealing something back, would be the best way to improve Rudy’s spirits?  From whom does Liesel choose to steal? What Does she realize when the opportunity to steal presents itself?

3.Hearing  someone walking on the floor above her, Liesel finds the book, goes  out  the window, and she and Rudy run away. What does Liesel realize has been left behind? What does Rudy do?

4.What indication does the reader have that Liesel has become as attached to Rosa as she has to Hans?

5. What “official title” does Liesel receive in October of 1941? By whom?

“Three Acts of Stupidity by Rudy Steiner”

1. List the three acts of stupidity that Death provides.

2.Why is Rudy’s behavior so dangerous?

Why  does  Rudy  behave  so  dangerously? What  is the result of Rudy’s behavior?

“The Floating Book (Part II)”

1. When and how does Rudy finally get his victory?

2. Why does Rudy remain in the freezing water longer than necessary?

3. Does Rudy finally get his kiss? 

Part Four: The Standover Man – Guidelines for a well-structured summary

“The Accordionist (The Secret Life of Hans Hubermann)”

1. Which two questions does Max ask Hans Hubermann? Why do you believe Max asks these two questions?

2. Death remembers Hans from World War I and states that they never had  a scheduled meeting. How did Hans avoid meeting Death during World War I?

3. What “small but noteworthy note” does Death offer the reader in this  chapter? 

Do you feel that this might embody a theme for the novel? Why or why not?

4. Briefly identify Erik Vandenburg on the character grid.

5. How does Hans gain possession of Erik Vandenburg’s accordion?

6. Summarize Hans Hubermann’s political conflict. Name his major mistakes.

7. What life"changing event occurred for Hans Hubermann on June 16,1939?

“A Good Girl”

1. What occurs in November 1940?

2. How does Liesel respond to Max’s arrival?

3. What do you believe is the “wild card” to which Death refers?

“A Short History of the Jewish Fist Fighter”

1. Who was Max’s favorite fist-fighting opponent? Where did Max train as a child?

2. How does Max personify Death? What is Death’s reaction?

3. In how many fights did Walter Kugler and Max engage over  the  years? Did they  remain friends?

4. How old was Max on the “night of broken glass” (November 9, 1938)? 

5. How did Max escape capture? What happened to Max’s family?  What is Max’s reaction?

6. What is written on the piece of paper that Max received from his mother? Why is that paper important?

7. Why does the fact that the Hubermanns have a child concern Max?

8. Who speaks first at the end of the chapter?

“The Wrath of Rosa”

1. What startles Liesel from her sleep?

2. What does Liesel find unusual about Rosa’s reaction to the stranger?

3.Explain the final line in the chapter? “Who are these people?”

“Liesel’s Lecture”

1. What important point about character does Death make in the opening paragraph?

2.How are Rosa’s actions and conversations different on this day?

3.What story does Hans offer to Liesel?

4. Of what promise does Hans remind Liesel? What does Hans tell Liesel will happen if shebreaks her promise?

5.How does Rosa uncharacteristically greet Liesel when she returns from her talk with Hans?

“The Sleeper”

1.How does Max spend the first three days with the Hubermanns?

2.What does Max say in his sleep?

“The Swapping of Nightmares”

1. Where does Max decide he belongs?

2. Behind what is Max hidden in the basement?

3. Why does Max want to get up and walk out of the Hubermanns’ home? What does he do? Why?

4. What catches Liesel’s eye when she finally goes into the basement? What does Liesel attempt to ask Max?

5. What is the only thing that Mama and Papa argue about after Max’s arrival?

6. What does Liesel learn about Rosa after Max’s arrival,according to Death?

7. What helps Liesel to maintain her sanity?

8. What comparison does Death make to Liesel reading in the mayor’s library and Max livingin the basement?

9. How does Hans and Liesel’s reading save Max’s life?

10. What change do the Hubermanns make in their routine in order to preserve Max’s health and safety?

11. How do new stories enter the Hubermanns’ home nightly?

12. What word does Max use to characterize himself? Do you agree or disagree with that characterization?  Explain your answer.

13. What prompts Liesel to tell Papa she does not need him to stay with her when  she has a nightmare? Why do you think Liesel tells Papa she no longer needs him to stay with her?

14. What gift does Liesel bring to Max daily?

15. What gift does Liesel receive for her twelfth birthday? How does she include Max in her special day?

“Pages from the Basement”

1. Why is Liesel kept from the basement?

2. How many pages does Max think he will need?

3. Comment on the book that Max gives to Liesel.  What do you feel is the importance of this book?

4. How does Max give the book to Liesel? How does Liesel react to the gift?

Part Three (Exercises' Answers)

The way home

1) Because she thinks he will tell Rosa about it.
2) He promises that he won't tell Rosa, but Liesel should promise him that she will keep a secret if he ever asks
3) Papa changes cigarettes for MKPF, a book wrote by Hitler.


The mayor's library

1) The mayor's house, because the mayor's wife saw Liesel stealing the book
2) She goes there, but tries not to look at the mayor's wife.
3) Liesel knows that because, as the mayor's wife brought her to her private library, she should know that Liesel loves books.
4) I think she isn't going to tell anyone, because she seems to be very amiable with Liesel and I think she likes Her interest for books.
5) Everywhere Liesel looked, she saw Frau Hermann with her strange smile. It was a new experience to Liesel to be in such a big private library
6) To say "thank you" to the mayor's wife





Enter the struggler 



1) To Sttutgart, because a new character, a Jewish called Max, lives there.

2) The visitor brings food. I infer that he is a German that wants to help Max, because, as he is a Jewish, he have to be hide every time 

3) To Hans Hubberman. The book that was given to Max was MKPF
3) To Hans Hubberman. The book that was given to Max was MKPF

Summary (part two)

Summary (Part two)


Liesel is getting better. She is still having nightmares, but she feels more comfortable now, because Mama and Papa are very affable with her. She has a friend too, Rudy, who she likes to play with, and Papa gave to her two new books! But things aren't that good at the Hubermanns' house. The war is getting more of a reality, Rosa's client aren't asking her to wash their clothes because they are saving money to buy food and others things during the war. Rosa asks Liesel to do the service, because she thinks that people won't say "no" to a child.
The problem is that, as Liesel is the one who does the service,  she receives the payment, even if she has to give the money to Mama. Liesel miss her "true" mother, and decides to write letters to her. To send them, Liesel spends the money of the service. Rosa gets very angry with her.
Every day, Liesel checks the post box to see if her mother answered her question, but one day, the social assistant who was responsible for Liesel tells her that they've lost contact with her mother.
Days pass and Hitler's birthday arrives. People go to the front of the town hall, and to celebrate this date, Nazis burn books. Liesel tries to leave the crowd, when suddenly, she hears a voice. She knows this voice, but can't recognize it. She follows the voice and sees Ludwig Schmeikl, the boy who laughed at her when she tried to read for her class. He is hurt. Liesel doesn't like him, but feels that she has to help Ludwig. She brings him out the crowd, and the boy thanks her.
Liesel waits for Papa. When he arrives, they get into the town hall gates and watch the books burning. When Liesel sees that the soldiers aren't paying attention, Liesel picks a book which isn't burned completely. When she picks the book, she realizes that an old woman saw her doing this. Who was this strange woman?
...

Part Three: MKPF: Exercises

The Way Home

1. Why is Liesel afraid when Hans realizes she has stolen another book?
2. What happens to Papa when he discovers the book Liesel Has stolen?
3. What factors are involved?

The Mayor’s Library

1. Whose home has Liesel been avoiding on her laundry rounds? Why?
2. What happens when she can no longer avoid the home?
3. How does Liesel know that the mayor’s wife did indeed spy her stealing the book from the bonfire? Where does the mayor’s wife take Liesel?
4. Do you believe that the mayor’s wife plans to tell anyone about Liesel’s theft? Explain your answer.
5. What does Liesel find unusual about the library and Frau Hermann?
6. Why does Liesel run back to the mayor’s house?

Enter the Struggler

1. The story shifts setting. To where? Why?
2. What items does a visitor bring to Max? What might you infer from the man’s visit?
3. To whom does Max plead? Based on your answer, what book was given to Max?

Epilogue

Summary

Death says that the world is a factory run by humans, and he is a worker whose job is to carry their souls away when they die. He is very tired and will tell the rest of the story in as striaghtforward a manner as possible. He reveals that Liesel died “just yesterday,” at an old age, far from Himmel Street in a suburb of Sydney. She had three children and many grandchildren, as well as lots of friends, but always remembered Hans, Rosa, Rudy, and her brother. Death then flashes back to the events immediately following the bombing. Liesel, having no family and nowhere to go, is taken to the police, clutching Hans’s accordion. After three hours, the mayor and Frau Hermann arrive and take Liesel home with them. At the mayor’s house, Liesel sits in a room talking to her. She refuses to bathe and keeps the ash of the Himmel Street bombings on her skin through the funeral of the victims. Then she walks into the river where Rudy rescued her book and says her final goodbye to him, washing herself in the water where he rescued her book years before.

Months pass, and Liesel returns to Himmel Street to look for her lost books. Only rubble remains though. Rudy’s father, Alex, is given leave from the war and returns to the neighborhood. Liesel tells him about kissing Rudy’s dead body. After the war, Alex reopens his shop, and Liesel starts spending time there with him. They take walks to Dachau but are not allowed to go in. In 1945, Max finds his way back to the shop, and has an emotional reunion with Liesel. Death resumes his narrative and says that The Book Thief is just one of the many stories he picks up in his work. When he came to collect Liesel’s soul, he says, they went for a walk near a soccer field and he showed her the book he rescued from the trash the night of the bombing in Molching. Liesel was overcome that he saved her book for so many years and asked if he read it. He told her he read her book many times. When she asked him if he understood it, he was unable to answer her, and explained that he has difficulty understanding humans in general, how they can be capable of such generosity and at the same time such violence. His final words are delivered both to the book thief and to the reader: Death is haunted by humans.

Analysis

Several of the themes that have been developed over the course of the book come together in the epilogue, through Liesel in particular. Liesel initially refuses to let go by not bathing and by holding on to Hans’s accordion, and those acts of mourning demonstrate her feelings of responsibility to the dead. By refusing to wash, she preserves that moment in a nearly literal sense and display her unwillingness to get over the deaths of the people she cared about. Eventually, in an act that symbolizes her letting go of the past and moving on, she bathes in the river. The act pays tribute to Rudy, who jumped into the river to save one of her books, and it recalls the Christian notion of washing away sin and spiritual rebirth through baptism. At the end of the novel, the theme of the power of words rises to the fore again as Death reveals to Liesel, who has passed away as an old lady, that he found and kept her book. That he kept her book of all the ones he’s undoubtedly come across suggests there’s something special about it, and it’s clear that it has informed the story he tells the reader. He has developed a connection with Liesel’s words, and the implication is that, in telling us her story, we have as well.

The role chance plays in survival again comes up as Alex Steiner, Rudy’s father, continues to wish he had sent Rudy to the Nazi training school, and as we find Max alive and well. At various times in the novel we’ve seen seemingly inconsequential acts result in characters avoiding death. Hans, for instance, was saved by Erik Vandenburg, who spared him from the battle that killed Hans’s platoon by volunteering him to write letter. Later he was saved when Reinhold Zucker forced him to trade seats in their transport truck. Here, Alex struggles with the knowledge that, had he allowed the Nazis to take Rudy, he might still be alive as he wouldn’t have been on Himmel Street when the bombs destroyed it. The irony of the situation is that Alex was trying to keep Rudy safe by not allowing the Nazis to take him, and in fact that irony underscores the inherent uncertainty of fate we see in the novel. Similarly, even though Hans thought he was dooming Max when he helped the Jewish prisoner, meaning Max had to flee, we find at the end of the novel that Max survived all his ordeals. Death sums the idea up when he says of Alex Steiner, “you save someone. You kill them. How was he supposed to know?” The suggestion is that people can never see what the full consequences of their actions will be.

At the end of the book, Death tells Liesel he is “haunted” by humans, and by that statement he suggests there is something unexplainable about the extreme duality people exhibit, a major theme of the book. Death makes the comment just after explaining that he wished he could tell Liesel about the glories and atrocities, wonders and horrors humans are capable of, and it’s clear that what haunts him most is humanity’s capacity for both extreme good and extreme evil. That duality, another major theme of the novel, manifests itself most notably in the tremendous cruelty we see the Nazis and their sympathizers engage in and the extraordinary kindness of ordinary Germans like Hans Hubermann who risked their own lives to help others. That Death chooses to say he is “haunted” indicates that this duality troubles him and lingers in his mind, and it suggests that Death views humanity as something like an unresolved paradox. That is to say, we don’t make any sense to Death. The statement is full of irony because it’s a feeling people often have regarding death. Death the narrator reverses it back onto us, meaning humans, making us the frightening and mysterious phenomenon.

Part Ten

Summary

Death relates that Himmel Street will soon be bombed and he will pay a visit to collect the souls of the victims, which will include Rudy, Rosa, Hans, and many other characters, but not Liesel. Liesel will be saved, Death reveals, because she will be in the basement of her house, reading over a book she’s written about her life. When the searchers pull her from the rubble, she will scream for Hans still holding the book she’s written. The narrative then goes back in time and describes the events leading up to the bombing. For three months, all is relatively peaceful in Molching, with the exception of more parades of Jews. Then, one morning Michael Holtzapfel is discovered to have hanged himself in a laundry. In his note, he asks his mother for forgiveness and says he is going to meet his dead brother in heaven. After the funeral, Liesel reads to Michael’s mother, Frau Holtzapfel, as usual.

After months of scanning every passing group of prisoners, Liesel sees Max in one of the parades of Jews through Molching. She cries out to him, then joins him in the parade. He tells her he was halfway to Stuttgart when he was caught by the Nazis. A soldier warns Liesel to get away from the Jews, but Liesel ignores him, and when the soldiers drag her from the group she fights her way back in and quotes from “The Word Shaker” to Max. The soldiers whip Max and Liesel. Rudy pulls Liesel from the crowd and Max continues on with the rest of the prisoners. After this, Liesel stays in bed for several days, then finds Rudy and explains to him who Max is. She shows him “The Word Shaker,” and he sees where he was described as a boy with “hair the color of lemons.” Liesel and Rudy come close to kissing, but again they don’t. Death interjects that Rudy will die in a month.

Liesel returns to the mayor’s house and lets herself in to the library. Overwhelmed by all the pain and loss of the past months, she begins ripping pages out of a book, making the connection in her mind between words and the current state of the world. When she is done, she writes a note for Frau Hermann apologizing for her actions, then leaves. Three days later, Frau Hermann comes to Liesel’s house and gives her a blank book, so

she can write her own story. She tells Liesel not to punish herself, and they have coffee together. Liesel begins writing her life story, starting with the death of her brother and the theft of the first book from the gravedigger. After Liesel has finished the book and is beginning to revise it, the night comes when the planes drop the bombs that flatten Himmel Street.

Because the air raid sirens come too late, most of the residents are asleep in their beds when the bombs drop, and are killed instantly. Death arrives and takes most of the souls, but is able to see that Liesel, writing in her basement, survived the bombing. After Liesel is rescued from the rubble, she finds Rudy’s corpse and kisses him on the lips. She sees the bodies of Rosa and Hans and reluctantly forces herself to say goodbye to them as well. Then she asks the workers for Hans’s accordion. She places the instrument next to Hans’s body and promises him she’ll never drink Champagne again. As the workers lead Liesel away from the bodies. She leaves the book that she was writing, the story of her life, which is called “The Book Thief,” in the rubble. The book is collected along with the rest of the detritus and thrown in the garbage, but Death sees it and rescues it from the trash.

Analysis

The survivor’s guilt that we’ve seen Hans, Max, and most recently Michael Holtzapfel struggle with finally overcomes Michael, causing him to hang himself. Throughout the book, many characters have wrestled with the responsibility they feel to the dead. Max, for example, was overwhelmed with guilt when he first arrived at the Hubermanns’ house for leaving his family behind. Hans felt guilty because he believed that Erik Vandenburg saved his life and so he owed it to Erik to somehow make it up to him. In this instance, Michael feels guilty simply for remaining alive when his brother didn’t and his own survival was entirely a matter of chance. As a result he feels he doesn’t really deserve to be alive. That feeling appears to have been eating at him since he returned home, and in his note he says he “can’t take it anymore,” indicating that his fight against his guilt has been an ongoing struggle.

The fates of many of the characters in the novel are revealed in this section, though the fates of two notable characters remain a mystery. The most significant event is, of course, the deaths of Rudy, Hans, Rosa, and many of the residents of Himmell Street, who die in their sleep when the bombs fall. Death has hinted at this tragedy before, even telling the reader outright that Rudy will die, and here we finally see how it occurs. On the other hand, it’s not at all clear what will become of Liesel. She has just lost her best friend, her parents, and her home. Practically nothing of her previous life remains. The other character whose fate is uncertain is Max. We see him with the other Jewish prisoners on their way to Dachau, which certainly doesn’t offer much room for optimism. But Liesel is at least able to confirm that he’s still alive. It’s at once a victory knowing he hasn’t been killed and a defeat knowing that the Nazis did manage to catch him. Perhaps the best the reader can hope for is that his emotional meeting with Liesel has provided him some strength, as he appears to take a great deal of encouragement from seeing her and her mention of his story. Despite the fact that he is weak and suffering and on his way to a labor camp, he manages to tell Liesel it’s a “beautiful day.” The statement shares the same irony as his affirmation early in the novel that MKPF saved his life.

After Michael Holtzapfel’s suicide and her encounter with Max, Liesel has a crisis regarding the pain and suffering she sees in the world and the role words play in it, and it’s only resolved when she begins writing her own book. Liesel’s sadness and frustration lead her to Frau Hermann’s library, where she thinks of all the terrible things she’s experienced as she looks at the books around her. She blames Hitler and his words for all of them, and this idea creates a contradiction in her mind in which she simultaneously blames words for the awful state of things and wants to find comfort in them. She calls them “lovely bastards,” indicating both how much she loves them and how she hates them at that moment. She tears the pages out of a book as a sort of symbolic revenge, and the act recalls the Nazi book burning from earlier in the novel. Liesel’s is different, of course: she doesn’t just want to destroy some words to protect her ideas; she wants to get revenge on all of them. Liesel leaves without having resolved her contradictory feelings, and in fact that resolution doesn’t come until after Frau Hermann gives Liesel a blank book. As she writes her own story, she finds a source of release and empowerment that, as Death says in narration, “brought her to life.” That book is also the reason she’s in the basement during the bombing, and it saves her life in the same sense that Max feels he was saved by MKPF.

Part Nine

Summary

The next time Liesel and Rudy return to the mayor’s house to steal a book, Frau Hermann has left cookies. Liesel leaves a thank you note, and just as she is climbing out the window she sees Frau Hermann. It occurs to Liesel that the library must belong to Frau Hermann, not the mayor. As Liesel and Rudy enjoy their snack and debate what to do with the empty plate, the story moves to Hans, who plays cards with the other members of the air-raid squad in Essen. One member of the squad, Reinhold Zucker, dislikes Hans and accuses him of cheating. Death interjects that it is this disliking of Hans that will cost Reinhold Zucker his life. Back in Molching, Liesel goes to read to Frau Holtzapfel but is greeted at the door by her son, who is wrapped with bloody bandages. Michael Holtzapfel is back from Stalingrad, where he was shot in the ribs and lost three fingers. He tells Rosa that his brother is dead, and also that he heard that Rosa and Hans’s son, Hans Jr., was also in Russia. Death explains how Michael’s brother, Robert, died. After having his legs blown off in combat, he died in the hospital in Stalingrad with Michael at his side. Liesel reads to the grief-stricken Frau Holtzapfel.

Liesel returns the plate to the mayor’s wife but doesn’t go into the house. She watches Rosa pray for Hans, and she prays as well for everyone missing in the war. Death describes an afternoon in Essen when Hans and the men are on their way back to camp. Reinhold Zucker insists Hans trade places with him in the truck. Hans complies, and soon after the truck gets a punctured tire and goes off the road. Hans suffers a broken leg, but Zucker breaks his neck and dies. Once the men get back to camp, the doctor examines Hans and tells him he’ll be sent back to Munich to work in an office. The doctor tells Hans he is a lucky man. Hans writes Liesel and Rosa and tells them of his good fortune. When Liesel shares the good news with Rudy that Hans is returning home, Rudy is happy for her but also wonders about his own father. Further enraged at the injustices of war, he sets out to rob the mayor’s house but finds he can’t go through with it.

A few weeks later there is another air raid, but this time Frau Holtzapfel refuses to go to the shelter. Liesel threatens to stop reading to her, but Frau Holtzapfel won’t leave her kitchen table. Her son, Michael, goes into the shelter, and is overcome with guilt for leaving his mother. Finally Frau Holtzapfel enters the shelter, and Michael begs for her forgiveness. After the bombing ends, the residents leave the shelter and see a plane burning in the forest. An enemy pilot is barely alive in the wreckage. As Liesel and Rudy approach the body, Death, who has arrived for the pilot’s soul, recognizes Liesel from the train where her brother died. Rudy gives the dying pilot a teddy bear, and the pilot thanks him, in English. Death takes the pilot’s soul. Hans is discharged from the hospital and returns to Himmel Street, where he tells Liesel and Rosa of his time at war and sits up with Liesel while she sleeps.

Analysis

The central idea of this section is the randomness of fate. The arbitrariness of Hans’s survival is among the most notable examples. Hans is only injured in the truck crash essentially because Reinhold Zucker isn’t good at cards. Since Hans often beat him, he disliked Hans, so one day he forced Hans to switch seats with him simply out of spite. It seems like simple chance that they happened to switch seats that day, and that idea of randomness being at fault is further bolstered by the doctor’s words when he tells Hans he is a lucky man. In fact, Hans couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome: because of his injury, he will be able to return home. Had he not been injured at all he would have had to continue his service with the air-raid squad. This sequence of events emphasizes the chaos inherent in war. Hans experiences it firsthand not only in this incident but each day as he cleans up the corpses left by the bombings. Many of them include children who had no part in the war at all but happened to be in the wrong place when the bombs fell.

Michael Holtzapfel encounters the apparent randomness of fate as well, though he feels himself to be more a victim of it than a beneficiary. Michael can be considered lucky to a degree in that he has returned home with relatively minor injuries while his brother died horribly. But because there’s no particular reason his brother died and he didn’t except chance, he feels extremely guilty for having survived. His guilt is compounded by the fact that he wants to keep living, which he seems to feel is inappropriate given what happened to his brother. It’s this desire that causes him to seek shelter during the air raid and leave behind his mother, who is putting everyone trying to help her in danger. His overwhelming feelings of guilt rise to the surface after his mother finally comes to the shelter. Michael begs for her forgiveness, not only for abandoning her, but for wanting to go on living after everything that’s occurred.

Rudy, meanwhile, is struggling with the randomness that keeps his father at war while allowing Hans to return home in one piece. Rather than blaming luck or fate, however, Rudy places the blame on Hitler. Rudy concludes that Hitler stole his father, and he decides that the mayor and all the other “rich Nazis” are the true criminals for supporting Hitler and the war. He turns to stealing again as a form of empowerment, and convinced it will feel good to steal something back, he heads out on a crime spree. As with his previous attempts to avenge his father’s fate, his latest plan, to rob the mayor’s house, is abandoned before he can do any real damage. Rudy’s rage and despair throughout the book is largely impotent, hindered both by Liesel’s interventions and Rudy’s own essentially peaceful nature. He knows running away or robbing houses won’t actually do anything to change the unfair circumstances of war. It’s also worth noting that Rudy clearly doesn’t hate Germany’s enemies in the war, which shows that he holds Hitler and the Nazis alone responsible for his father’s absence. When he finds the fighter pilot in the wreckage, he doesn’t view him as a threat of any kind, just a broken, dying man. His response is purely compassion as he gives the man the teddy bear he had with him.

Part Eight

Summary

Nazi soldiers arrive at Rudy’s house, and while his siblings play dominoes, Rudy recalls an incident from earlier that week, when soldiers came to his school and forced him and two classmates to strip in front of the school nurse. The soldiers want to take Rudy to a special Nazi training school because of his athleticism and intelligence. Rudy’s father, Alex, refuses to let the soldiers take his son and volunteers in his son’s place. Hans, meanwhile, learns that his application to join the Nazi Party has been accepted, and that he is being drafted into the German army. Eventually Hans leaves for duty, telling Liesel to take care of Rosa and his accordion while he’s gone. After Rudy’s father leaves for duty, Rudy sets out walking, saying he wants to find and kill Hitler, but Liesel convinces him to turn back before they reach the edge of town. They visit Rudy’s father’s abandoned clothing shop but don’t go in. At night, Rosa holds Hans’s accordion.

Hans is sent to Essen, Germany, to serve in the Air Raid Special Unit, which rescues survivors of air raids and collects the bodies of the victims. Between air raids, the unit cleans the rubble from towns that have been bombed. During one raid, an old man dies in Hans’s arms and he trips over the corpse of a young boy. Meanwhile, back in Molching, Liesel wonders what’s happening to Hans, Max, and Rudy’s father. She continues reading to Frau Holtzapfel. That winter, the parades of Jews continue. Rudy and Liesel ride their bikes ahead of one of the parades, scattering bread for the prisoners. They then hide in the trees to watch. Liesel hopes to see Max. Instead, she and Rudy are caught by a soldier, who kicks her and tells her she doesn’t belong there.

Liesel continues reading out loud in the shelter during air raids. One day, after returning from the shelter, Rosa gives Liesel a book that Max left for her. The story is called “The Word Shaker,” and it is a collection of sketches and stories Max wrote about his life and Liesel’s. The first story describes Hitler realizing the power of words, and determining to use words to control the world. In the story, words grow on trees, as seeds, and word shakers climb the trees to shake down the seeds. One word shaker, a young girl, plants a seed that sprouted from a tear. The seed grows into a tall tree. When soldiers come to cut down the tree, the girl climbs to the top and refuses to leave. The soldiers’ axes have no effect on the tree. At last a man arrives in the forest with a hammer. He hammers nails into the tree, then climbs up to sit with the girl. When they come down, the tree falls at last. After reading the book, Liesel dreams of a tree. Christmas comes, and Liesel takes Rudy back to his father’s suit shop. They break in and steal a suit for Rudy. Rudy and Liesel almost kiss, but don’t.

Analysis

The war begins affecting the families in the story in an even more personal way in this section as both Hans and Rudy’s father are called to service. The war has been inching closer and closer to Molching over the last few sections as residents begin having to worry about bomb raids and have recently started seeing the Jewish prisoners paraded through on their way to Dachau. Now both Hans and Alex Steiner are called to serve in the Nazi army, and it’s a huge blow to both families. For the Steiners, it’s there first real contact with the war beyond the food shortages that have affected their family, and for the Hubermanns, it’s yet another difficult challenge for Rosa and Liesel. Rosa is already worried about Hans Jr., who is fighting in Russia, and the whole family is upset over Max’s having to leave. Now Hans, who is both their main source of income and the emotional heart of the family, is leaving and may not return.

Liesel continues her emotional development as she again emulates Hans’s compassion and leaves bread for the Jewish prisoners, though she doesn’t seem to have a true sense of the danger of her actions, making it clear that she is still young and naïve. More and more Liesel has begun taking care of others, signaling that she’s growing from a child to an adult. Hans’s behavior has been a notable example to her. He’s been something of a moral guide for her to follow, and here we see her copying his act of giving bread to the Jewish prisoner. Liesel, however, doesn’t seem to realize the danger inherent in what she’s doing, even though she saw Hans badly whipped for doing the same. She and Rudy hide in the bushes and watch, as though they were involved in a game, and they’re lucky to escape punishment. This behavior shows that, although Liesel is maturing, she is still basically a child and may not understand the full consequences of her actions.

In this section the idea of a united Aryan Germany is again called into question through Rudy. Though the Nazis tried to push their ideology of a dominant Aryan master race on all Germans, we’ve already seen many instances of people resisting this ideology, such as Hans who sympathizes with and helps Jews. Rudy has previously also resisted simply by idolizing Jesse Owens, an African-American athlete, and here again we see him questioning that ideology. Rudy, with his blond hair, blue eyes, athletic talents and intelligence, would seem the perfect Nazi specimen, the embodiment of the master race Hitler wants to produce to take over the world. But Rudy is not so sure about Hitler’s vision for the future. When the nurse examines him, he feels cold and humiliated, not “part of the master race.” He also is compassionate and sensitive, handing out bread to the Jews. As Liesel notes about Rudy, “she heard his stomach growl—and he was giving people bread…Was this Nazi Germany?” Rudy also declares that he wants to kill Hitler for stealing his father. All these examples show that Rudy, and probably many others like him, didn’t necessarily agree with the Nazis, even if they were typical Germans and fit the Aryan ideal.

Although Liesel still refuses to kiss Rudy, their relationship nonetheless reaches a new level of intimacy in this section. Rudy struggles to deal with the departure of his father and feels helpless because there’s nothing he can do to change the situation. Liesel recognizes how he’s feeling, and she shows how much she cares for her friend by staying at his side. Even as they walk to the outskirts of town, Liesel doesn’t turn back until she knows Rudy will come with her. At Christmas, Liesel again shows how much she cares for Rudy by her gift. She plans one of his favorite activities: stealing, which always gives him a feeling of empowerment. But this time she has has him steal a suit from his father’s tailor shop. This theft isn’t an act of disrespect toward his father’s shop. Instead, it acts as a way for Rudy to connect with his father through one of his suits. In essence Liesel found a way to give him a gift from his absent father. In the scene they engage in plenty of the playful mocking that characterizes their conversations, but by the end that mockery has faded away. It’s a sincere moment they share, and though she doesn’t actually kiss Rudy, it’s clear Liesel wants to from her thoughts. The moment is the closest they’ve been thus far in the novel.

The story Liesel receives from Max is essentially a parable about the power of words and it shows how they’ve been a refuge for Liesel and Max. It begins with Hitler realizing that through words he can take over the world, and that he chose words, as opposed to weapons or money or political power, suggests words are the most powerful force there is. The words take on the form of seeds in the story, and these seeds grow into what are basically word trees that fill people with ideas and symbols—in other words, Nazi ideology. What’s notable is that there’s a class of people who are basically outside this system, the word shakers, who recognize the power of words. Liesel, according to Max, is one of these, and a tear that she sheds creates its own word tree. Liesel uses this tree for shelter, and in that image Max is saying that the understanding and love Liesel bears for words, born from her suffering (the tear), has provided her a refuge from the Nazi trees all around. Max is able to climb the tree in the story, indicating that he was also able to find some refuge from Nazism in Liesel’s words.

Part Seven

Summary

As the town of Molching comes to terms with the likelihood of being bombed, Hans finds his painting services in demand, as his neighbors need their blinds painted black for blackouts during bombings. Unfortunately, few of the town’s residents can afford to pay him, so they often barter for his services with food or cigarettes. Liesel accompanies Hans on his jobs, and when he is not painting he plays the accordion for them. One day they do work for some customers who pay them with Champagne, and Liesel vows never to drink Champagne again because it cannot possibly ever taste as good again. Rudy, meanwhile, trains for the upcoming Hitler Youth Carnival. He promises to win four gold medals, just like his idol Jesse Owens did during the 1936 Olympics. Rudy wins the first three races easily, but is disqualified from the fourth because of repeated false starts. After the carnival, Rudy confesses that he did it on purpose.

Liesel steals another book, A Song in the Dark, from the Hermann library. As the summer draws to a close, Rudy notices that a book has been propped in the window of the mayor’s house. Liesel steals it and discovers it is a dictionary. In it she finds a letter from Frau Hermann telling her that she is welcome to continue stealing books, but Frau Hermann hopes Liesel will someday come in through the front door instead of the window. At the end of the summer, Molching experiences its first air raid, and Liesel, Hans, and Rosa go to the neighbors’ house to take shelter in the basement. They have no choice but to leave Max behind.

In the shelter, many of Liesel’s neighbors are terrified. Liesel herself is terrified of what will happen to Max if their house is bombed. The raid warning ends, and Liesel, Rosa, and Hans return to their house, where Max confesses he took the opportunity to look out the windows, having not seen the outside world for nearly two years. During the next raid, Liesel calms herself by reading The Whistler out loud. Soon all the residents in the shelter are listening, and even after the all-clear siren sounds, the neighbors remain until Liesel finishes the chapter. A few days later one of their neighbors, Frau Holtzapfel, comes to the house and asks if Liesel will come over and read to her in the afternoons, in return for coffee. Although Rosa and Frau Holtzapfel are enemies, Rosa agrees, and Liesel begins reading several days a week.

A convoy of German trucks carrying Jews to the concentration camps at Dachau stops outside Molching, and the soldiers march the Jewish prisoners through the town. The residents come out of their houses to watch, and Liesel finds Hans in the crowd. An old man, struggling to keep up, falls repeatedly in the street. Hans takes a piece of bread from his paint can and offers it to the man. The man falls to his knees and embraces Hans’s feet in thanks, but before he can eat the bread a soldier arrives and begins whipping the man, then Hans. As the procession moves on, witnesses call Hans a Jew lover and knock over his paint cart. Hans realizes his actions have drawn suspicion and Max is no longer safe in the basement. The next night, Max leaves Himmel Street. He’s arranged to meet Hans in four days, but when Hans arrives at the appointed spot, he only finds a note, telling him he’s already done enough. Hans, filled with guilt for causing Max to leave, is also reviled by Frau Diller and other townspeople, who spit at him and call him a Jew lover. When the Gestapo do come, however, it is not to take Hans away, but Rudy.

Analysis

War arrives definitively in Molching in this section. Liesel, who has been relatively content over the summer, now realizes that her happiness may be fleeting and tries to savor each last happy moment. For example, as she drinks Champagne for the first time, she has an awareness of how happy she is, and how that happiness contributes to the flavor of the drink. Spending time with Hans, painting houses with him, and listening to him play the accordion are among her favorite activities. As the political situation grows more precarious, Liesel is growing older, and both circumstances make her acutely aware of the passage of time. It is with an adult’s consciousness that she realizes life will not always be like this.

Rudy experiences perhaps his greatest triumph, though his response to this victory is surprising. During the Hitler Youth Carnival, Rudy deliberately disqualifies himself from the final race and then basically discards the medals he already won, suggesting they don’t matter to him. It’s not the reaction one would expect given Rudy’s goal of matching his idol Jesse Owens’s record of four gold medals. Liesel is confused by Rudy’s behavior, and indeed he never explains himself, but the text does suggest some possible reasons. Rudy is clearly happy with his performance. He doesn’t seem to have any regrets or feel that he didn’t accomplish what he wanted. He may know that he could have won the final race, and thus he didn’t need to actually do it to gain that satisfaction. In addition, one of his goals was to prove himself to Franz Deutscher, his former Hitler Youth leader, and even without winning all four races he’s already done that.

Frau Hermann’s motivations are also somewhat difficult for Liesel to understand when Liesel realizes that Frau Hermann has allowed her thieving all along, but in this instance the explanation isn’t difficult to discern. Frau Hermann is obviously lonely, and though she never chats much with Liesel, it seems to make her happy that Liesel comes over and enjoys her library. The dictionary and the note inside are clearly meant to entice Liesel to return. Frau Hermann seems to want Liesel there because she’s still grieving over the loss of her son, and Liesel in some small way fills the hole created by his absence. Liesel seems surprised that Frau Hermann isn’t upset with her for stealing, but from Frau Hermann’s perspective the comfort Liesel apparently offers is worth the loss of a book now and again. Having Liesel sneaking in and stealing isn’t exactly the arrangement she wants, however, so she lets Liesel know that she can come by anytime she likes.

As Liesel uses literature to soothe the residents of Himmel Street during the air raids, we see both the power of words in the novel and how Liesel continues to mature. The power of words here is that they allow the people in the shelter to momentarily forget the bombs falling outside, and through Liesel’s reading they offer a great source of comfort. What’s also notable about the scene is that it shows just how much Liesel has grown over the course of the novel: Liesel, who once struggled to read in front of her class in school, now finds herself reading before a large gathering. It shows her evolving from a child who needs to be taken care of to a young woman who is taking care of those around her. The readings lead to Frau Holtzapfel asking Liesel to come read to her personally, and as a result Liesel finds herself now earning money for her family. The helplessness she has felt at times, notably when Frau Hermann informed her she was going to stop using Rosa for her washing, has been replaced with a sense of empowerment, the source of which is Liesel’s growing mastery over words and language.

As the Germans start bringing Jews through town on the way to Dachau, we see the characters of many of Molching’s residents revealed in the way they react, and the scene shows both the kindness and cruelty of people. The condition of the Jewish prisoners who are paraded through Molching shows the awful cruelty of the Nazi soldiers. The prisoners are exhausted, starving, and many are near death, yet the Nazis show no sympathy whatsoever. On the other side we have Hans. While the rest of the residents passively observe the suffering of the prisoners, Hans feels compelled to do something, and although it’s a small act, just handing the prisoner a piece of bread, it signifies an immeasurable act of kindness. That’s because Hans knows he can be punished for intervening in any way, and so the small gesture is still a great sacrifice, as is proved by the fact that Hans is brutally whipped. Hans later regrets offering the bread because it casts suspicion on him, meaning Max will have to flee in case the Nazis decide to search his house, but the fact that he did something indicates that Hans is a tremendously compassionate and courageous individual. The other people in the town, meanwhile, either stand by or shout abuse at Hans, and so compared to him they appear to be at best cowards and at worst bigots. The scene makes clear how cruel the Nazis were, as well as how kind and brave the people were who did what they could to help the Jews.

Part Six

Summary

On Christmas Eve, Liesel builds a snowman in the basement for Max. Shortly afterwards, Max gets very sick and falls into a coma. Death comes to Himmel Street and visits Max but doesn’t take his soul. Liesel begins bringing him presents from the outside world, such as a pinecone, a feather, and a candy wrapper. One day, watching a cloud rise over the hills, papa suggests Liesel give Max the cloud as one of his presents. She memorizes what the cloud looks like, then writes the description on a piece of paper that she leaves by his bedside. She decides to read the rest of The Whistler to Max, telling herself that he will wake up once she’s finished the book, and reads the final chapters in one afternoon. Max still doesn’t wake up. Liesel and Rudy ride bikes to the mayor’s house, where the window is open. Liesel climbs through the window and steals another book, The Dream Carrier, which she selects because of the title’s relation to both her and Max’s recurring dreams. She and Max escape without being detected. Death suggests that perhaps the mayor’s wife, Frau Hermann, keeps the window open in hopes that Liesel will come back and steal another book.

Liesel begins reading the new book to Max, who remains unconscious. Rosa and Hans discuss what they will do if Max dies, and how they will dispose of the corpse without arousing suspicion from the neighbors. All members of the Hubermann household are aware of the fact that, with Max sick, there is extra food for the rest of them, though no one mentions this benefit. Liesel dreams, as usual, of her dead brother, but this time he turns into Max in the dream. Finally, in the middle of March, Max wakes up. Rosa comes to Liesel’s school, and pretending to be angry with her for using her hairbrush, takes her into the hall and tells her the news. Liesel is ecstatic. Death checks in from Cologne, where bombs have killed 500 people. Children collect the empty fuel tanks from the bombers. Death, working overtime, is exhausted, but knows the worst is yet to come.

In Molching, Nazi soldiers arrive and begin checking basements to see if they are deep enough to serve as bomb shelters. Liesel and Rudy are playing soccer when they come, and Liesel realizes she must warn Rosa, Hans, and Max, since Max lives in their basement. She intentionally gets injured in the game and cries for Hans. He takes her home and there is just time to warn Max but not enough time to hide him. A soldier arrives and checks the basement, but doesn’t see Max, who has hidden. Summer arrives. Death describes the sky as “the color of Jews.” He takes the souls of a group of French Jews in a German prison in Poland. Above the Jew-colored clouds, he says, the sun is “blond” and the sky is a “giant blue eye.”

Analysis

This section shows the intensifying effects of the war both on ordinary Germans and on Europe’s Jews. Death interrupts the narrative twice to describe two scenes of mass death: the bombing of Cologne and the Nazi death camps in Poland. Of the second scene, he describes the sky being “the color of Jews,” which refers to the smoke rising from the massive crematoria the Nazis used to dispose of the Jewish bodies. Above this smoke, the sky resembles the Aryan ideal of human perfection. It is the color of blue eyes, and the sun is the yellow of blond hair. This description extends Hitler’s vision of a master race beyond mankind to all of nature. It’s an exaggeration of Hitler’s reach, of course, but what it symbolizes is how dominant and pervasive Nazi control was in Germany. Then, describing the victims of the death camp, Death says, “They were French, they were Jews, and they were you,” suggesting the destruction was similarly universal and pervasive. The point Death makes is that the mass murder of the Jews wasn’t just a tragedy for Jews, but for all people everywhere. It was a crime against humanity as a whole.

While Death is working overtime to keep up with the demands of the war, Liesel is is still mainly concerned with her domestic situation since the war remains at a distance from Molching. She spends her time finding small ways to bring daily joy to otherwise grim circumstances. Despite the war, the Hubermanns have “the greatest Christmas ever,” thanks to Liesel’s snowman and a spontaneous indoor snowball fight. But when Max gets sick, the situation is doubly dire. Not only is Liesel concerned about the health of her new friend, but the Hubermanns must also worry about the jeopardy they will be put in if he dies. No matter how good a friend Max is to Liesel, or how considerate and quiet a lodger he tries to be, the reality is that the Hubermanns are hiding him at great personal cost, and his presence in their basement creates a huge potential liability for all of them. As spring arrives, Rosa and Hans are feeling the burden of their sacrifice. The stress is taking its toll, and though no one in the family complains about how little they all have to eat, it’s evident from the fact that everyone guiltily acknowledges that Max’s death would mean they would all have a little more food.

As Max’s coma wears on, Liesel discovers that, in addition to material goods, words can also be a gift. At Hans’s suggestion, Liesel describes a cloud in writing for Max, and she sees that by showing him things he cannot see or experience, she can bring the outside world to him through language. She plays the same role for him that the novels she reads, which show her places and people beyond her experience in Molching, play for her. The realization shows her continuing evolution as a writer, and her development of her own voice. Liesel also gives Max the gift of words by reading to him, though she can’t be sure he hears her. Reading out loud is a form of reassuring herself, as well as trying to communicate with the sleeping Max. In both cases, she strengthens her bond with him through words.

When Max wakes up, the reprieve from worry is brief, because soon the Nazis arrive to check people’s basements and again the Hubermanns are reminded of how tenuous their situation is. The great risk the Hubermanns are taking in hiding Max is never far from their minds, and again the duality of their life is indicated by the Hubermanns’ ability to make polite conversation with the Nazi soldier in their kitchen while a Jew hides in their basement. After the Nazi leaves, Liesel tells Rudy that “everything’s good.” In fact, this couldn’t be farther from the truth, either at home or in the world, but the imminent danger has passed, so for the time being Liesel believes this to be true. Here is another example of dramatic irony, since the reader knows things are about to get much worse, but Liesel, who has no way of knowing the future, is relatively content.

Part Five

Summary

The section opens with Death announcing that Rudy will die in less than two years but not explaining how. The action switches back to Himmel Street, where Liesel assists in cutting Max’s hair. She then goes to the mayor’s house to continue reading The Whistler. When the mayor’s wife offers her the book, Liesel declines, and says she is content to read a few pages each time she delivers the laundry. As usual, she searches garbage cans for newspapers with empty crosswords for Max. She also begins describing the weather to him, which he illustrates by painting on the basement wall. When he is alone, Max does push-ups to regain his strength and fantasizes about boxing Hitler. He describes this fantasy to Liesel, and together Hans, Rosa, Liesel and Max paint over the remaining pages of MKPF so Max can write another book.

In June of 1941, Germany invades Russia, and Russia allies itself with Britain. As a result, the mayor of Molching writes an editorial urging townspeople to prepare for hard times. The next time Liesel visits the mayor’s wife, Frau Hermann, she gives Liesel a letter for Rosa, informing her they can no longer afford to send out their washing. Frau Hermann also gives Liesel The Whistler and says she is still welcome to come and read in the library. Outraged, Liesel screams at Frau Hermann, telling her to get over the death of her son, and throws the book at her feet. Back at home, she takes the blame for Rosa being fired, but Rosa doesn’t believe her. Meanwhile, Rudy is continuing to attend his Hitler Youth meetings, along with the hearing-impaired Tommy Müller. Precision is very important to the Hitler Youth leaders, but because Tommy can’t hear the command to stop when they are marching, he often marches into the boy in front of him, disrupting the procession. When Rudy tries to stand up for Tommy, they both get assigned laps and push-ups on a muddy field.

Rudy and Liesel return to their apple-stealing activities, but the gang has a new leader, Viktor Chemmel, who takes a disliking to them. Rudy continues to be terrorized by his sadistic Hitler Youth leader, Franz Deutscher, who forces him to do push-ups in cow manure. Hoping to cheer him up, Liesel takes him to the mayor’s house, where the library window has been left open. Telling Rudy she is going to steal food, Liesel climbs in the window, but instead returns with The Whistler. A few days later, Rudy tries to steal a potato but is caught by the grocer. He runs into Deutscher on the street, and when he refuses to answer when Hitler’s birthday is, Deutscher beats him up and cuts his hair off with a knife. After this, Rudy stops attending the Hitler Youth meetings. Liesel and Rudy return to the gang of apple thieves. Viktor Chemmel sees The Whistler in Liesel’s hand and grabs it and throws it in the river. Rudy jumps in and saves the book for Liesel. He asks her for a kiss in return, but as always, she refuses.

Analysis

The section builds tension in a few ways, the most notable being Death’s foreshadowing of Rudy’s death. At the beginning of the section, after Death reveals that Rudy has less than two years left to live, he says he doesn’t have “much interest in building mystery… I know what happens and so do you.” On one level, this is a supremely ironic statement, since one of life’s greatest mysteries is how and when a person will die. Death may know these details, but the rest of us do not. On another level, however, Death is telling the truth: Death is an inevitability for everyone, so in a sense he’s not spoiling anything by informing us that Rudy will die. Even so, by making a point of Rudy’s impending, untimely demise, the narrator increases the poignancy and tension of the subsequent scenes regarding Rudy. The tension is also intensified regarding Max in this section. While he goes about seemingly ordinary activities such as getting a haircut, or doing the crossword in the papers Liesel brings him, he also is constantly aware of the precariousness of his situation. He sleeps fully clothed, with his shoes on, in case he needs to flee again.

Although Liesel has mostly seemed happy lately, her strong reaction to Frau Hermann informing her she won’t be using Rosa for her washing anymore seems to stem from a feeling of helplessness and that Frau Hermann is doing something unjust. Liesel knows her family is already struggling to get by. The Hubermanns were already relatively poor before the war, and with people in Molching cutting back on their spending as the war intensifies Rosa has lost a number of customers. The family additionally has to feed Max out of their rations, and everyone in the family is under stress as they hide him and keep the secret from everyone they know. Liesel feels all these pressures, but she can’t do anything to help the family beyond collecting payments and delivering laundry for Rosa. In addition, she frequently sees firsthand how much the Hermanns have compared to her family. When Frau Hermann tells Liesel about her decision, Liesel feels even more helpless and that the Hermanns are depriving the Hubermanns when they have plenty to spare. In response, she blows up at Frau Hermann.

Rudy endures his own struggles in this section. Both the leader of the Hitler Youth group and the leader of the apple-stealing gang single out Rudy, who is unable to keep his mouth shut and stay out of things, for abuse. In these episodes, Rudy is establishing his own ethical code, identifying himself as a character who will risk physical harm to stand up for what he thinks is right, and prevent the persecution of others. In his own way, Rudy is as brave as Liesel, though he expresses this bravery through physical acts rather than keeping secrets. Two of the characters we meet in this section, the Hitler Youth leader and the new leader of the apple-stealing gang, are especially cruel. This is the first instance of kids acting sadistically. Even Ludwig, who fought Liesel in the schoolyard, was later revealed to be a sympathetic character, and apologized for his actions. The two characters in this section, however, are entirely unsympathetic. They both have power, either officially conferred by the state or self-appointed, and they use this power to humiliate and control those with less power, just as the adult Nazis, up to Hitler himself, use their power to oppress the powerless. The acquisition, use, and abuse of power is one of the important ideas in the book.

Part Four

Summary

Max arrives at the Hubermann household and is greeted by Hans. The story flashes back to World War I, when Hans was a 22-year-old soldier fighting in France. He befriended a German Jew named Erik Vandenburg who played the accordion. Erik taught Hans to play. One morning Erik volunteered Hans for the task of writing letters for the captain. While Hans wrote the letters, the rest of the men in his platoon went into battle. All of the men were killed, including Erik. Feeling he owed Erik his life, Hans carried Erik’s accordion for the duration of the war, then tracked down Erik’s widow and young son to return the instrument when the war was over. Erik’s widow told him he could keep the accordion. He told Erik’s widow that if she ever needed anything, she should look him up. Later, as Hitler rose to power and began persecuting Jews, Hans remembered his Jewish friend, and how he’d saved Hans’s life. But after years of losing business because of his sympathy towards Jews, Hans relented and applied to join the Nazi party. But on the way home from turning in his application, he saw men throwing bricks into the window of a Jewish clothing shop and writing “Jewish filth” on the door. He returned to the Nazi headquarters, broke the window with his fist, and said he could no longer join the Party. He was placed on the waiting list, and because he was a good housepainter and accordionist, he was generally left alone and not forced to confront his conscience, until a man stopped him in the street and asked if he would keep his promise to help the Vandenburg family.

Back in the present, Max, who is Erik’s son and now 24, is let in to the Hubermanns’ house. The story flashes back once again, to tell the history of Max Vandenburg. Like Liesel, he grew up unafraid to use his fists, and fought regularly with whoever would take him on. He frequently fought a boy named Walter Kugler, and over the years they became close friends. On the night of November 9, 1939, Nazi soldiers stormed the streets of Germany, breaking windows and looting Jewish businesses in a nationwide attack that would be known as Kristallnacht (“the night of broken glass”). Walter, dressed in a Nazi uniform, arrived at Max’s house and told him he had to leave immediately to escape arrest. Max said goodbye to his mother and the rest of his family, and followed Walter to the empty storeroom where he would hide for the next two years until Walter brought him the copy of MKPF with the false identity card, the map, and the key to Hans Hubermann’s house. When Max arrives at the Hubermanns’, Rosa feeds him soup and puts him to bed in Liesel’s room. The next day, Hans takes Liesel to the basement and explains his connection to Max and reminds her of her promise to keep a secret. Max sleeps for three days, and when he wakes he moves to the basement.

The household gradually adjusts to Max’s presence, as Rosa, Hans, and Liesel take turns bringing him food. As winter arrives, it becomes too cold for Max to sleep in the basement, so he begins sleeping in the house at night, then returning to the basement during the day. At night, Liesel continues having nightmares about her dead brother, while Max has nightmares about Hitler and the family he left behind. They compare nightmares, and Liesel decides she is old enough to cope with hers without Hans staying with her anymore. She begins stealing newspapers from trash bins to bring to Max, searching for ones with the crossword still blank. Liesel turns twelve, and Hans and Rosa give her a book, but Max has no present for her. For a week, she is forbidden from entering the basement. At the end of the week, Max gives Liesel her birthday present. He has removed pages of MKPF, painted over the words with Hans’s white house paint, and written his own illustrated story on the white pages. The story is called The Standover Man and describes the different people who have stood over Max in his life, ending with Liesel, who stood over him as he slept and became his friend.

Analysis

The perspective continues to widen in this section as Hans’s backstory is explored and we learn more about why Hans is so willing to take risks to help Jews. During the first World War, the situation was very different for German Jews, and they fought alongside their non-Jewish countrymen. That was how Hans and Erik Vandenburg, a Jewish German, developed their friendship. Because of what Erik did for Hans by volunteering Hans for letter-writing duty, Hans felt he owed a tremendous debt to Erik. Erik saved his life, but he essentially had no way of repaying him since Erik died and then Erik’s family didn’t need any help at the time. Instead, Hans seems to have carried that sense of debt with him and tried to repay it in other ways. One way was continuing to play Erik’s accordion, and another was helping the Jews around him who needed help as they started to be persecuted under the Nazis.

Hans’s backstory sets up a stark contrast with the present, where Jews are widely hated. As we learn of Hans’s history and his friendship with Erik Vandenburg, we see Erik as a typical German soldier. Like many others of his generation, he fought, and ultimately died, for his country. At the time it seems nobody thought anything of his being Jewish and he was treated as anyone else would be. In the story’s present, however, Jews are considered practically subhuman by many Germans, and the son of a man who gave his life in service of his country now finds himself regarded as a public enemy. Hans, simply by not hating Jews and feeling sympathy for them as he would for anyone else, has become something of a rebel as this change has occurred.

Obviously Hans’s decision to hide Max affects people other than himself, and we see how the rest of the Hubermann family and Max himself respond. When Walter tells Max he’s found Hans, Max asks if Hans was angry. He understands that Hans is probably less than thrilled by the idea of hiding a Jew. It will put him and his family in grave danger, and be an inconvenience to their daily lives. Max arrives feeling a great deal of guilt for putting the Hubermanns in this position, and it’s clear he wants to minimize his intrusion into their lives as much as possible. He seems almost horrified that he slept in Liesel’s bed when he first arrives, for instance, and swears he will remain in the basement going forward. In Max’s first few days with the Hubermanns, Liesel is actually quite wary of the new resident. He is dirty, hungry, and almost incoherent with grief and guilt, and while she is curious about him, she’s also hesitant to approach him. Surprisingly, it’s the normally gruff Rosa who embraces Max immediately, stuffing him with her pea soup and accepting him into the home without question. Rosa, the book tells us, is good in a crisis, and the opportunity for action brings out her best qualities.

Though it happens slowly, Liesel and Max do begin to form a friendship as they come to recognize how much they have in common. Liesel is immediately intrigued by Max simply because he has a book with him. That the book is MKPF has no great meaning to her at this point. As she begins watching over Max at night and seeing him struggle with nightmares, she sees another connection between them. Both are troubled by their pasts in their sleep, and this shared experience creates a bond between them. Liesel is able to unburden herself to a degree by talking to Max about her nightmares, and it proves so therapeutic that she no longer needs Hans to stay with her at night. Liesel provides Max with something as well: She begins bringing him newspapers and essentially becomes his connection to the outside world. Each consequently finds something they need in the other, and both become extremely grateful for the other’s presence in their lives. At the end of the section, Max gives Liesel what is probably the greatest gift he could give her: a book. To Liesel, it’s perhaps the most valuable present she’s ever received.

A prominent theme in this section is the duality of Nazi-era Germany, and it’s dramatized through Max and his copy of MKPF. Liesel twice asks Max if MKPF, which he has by his bedside, is a ‘good’ book. Although the book contains all the hateful ideology that has made him a prisoner in a stranger’s basement, Max replies that it is the “best book ever” because it saved his life. Ironically, the book that condemned most of Germany’s Jews served as Max’s salvation. After Liesel’s birthday, Max paints over the pages of MKPF and uses it to write his own story. It’s another significant instance of duality as Max transforms the pages from something negative to something positive. It’s also a subversive gesture as Max literally replaces Hitler’s story with his own, symbolically suggesting that his life is as valuable and worth recording as Hitler’s.

Part Three

Summary

Hans sees the book that Liesel stole from the bonfire. He promises not to tell Rosa, and in return Liesel promises to keep a secret for him if he ever asks. Liesel identifies the person with fluffy hair who saw her take the book as the mayor’s wife, Ilsa Hermann, and begins avoiding the mayor’s house on her rounds picking up and delivering washing. When Liesel finally summons the courage to go to the mayor’s house, Frau Hermann invites her into the library, where Liesel marvels at the room filled with books. The narrative switches to the town of Stuttgart, where a Jewish man named Max is hiding in a secret storage room, sitting on his suitcase in the dark, starving. A man brings him carrots, stale bread, and a piece of fat, and tells Max he may have gotten him an identity card. When the man leaves, Max eats a portion of the food and resumes his wait.

On Himmel Street, Liesel and Hans make their way through The Shoulder Shrug, which features a Jewish hero and is therefore unacceptable to the Nazis. Liesel continues going to the mayor’s house, and begins reading in on the floor in the library. She finds a book on the shelf with the name Johann Hermann written inside. Frau Hermann tells her that he was her son, and he died on the battlefield during World War I. Liesel tells Frau Hermann she is sorry for her loss. When she is not reading with Hans or delivering laundry, Liesel plays soccer with Rudy. Because of wartime rationing, Rudy and Liesel rarely have enough to eat and are hungry all the time. They fall in with a gang of kids who steal apples from an orchard on the outskirts of town. The first time they steal apples, Liesel eats six in a row, and later gets sick, though she considers the upset stomach worth it. On another occasion, she and Rudy find a coin in the road and take it to Frau Diller’s candy shop. Frau Diller mocks them for only being able to afford one small piece of candy, which they share, lick for lick, outside the shop.

Max has come out of hiding and is on a train, clutching the book he was given with the identity card taped inside. The book is MKPF. Terrified of being caught, he takes the train from Stuttgart to Munich, sweating and worrying the entire way. He pretends to read MKPF so he will not arouse suspicion on the train. Along with the fake identity card, he has a map, a key, and the remainder of his food. Meanwhile, Liesel and Rudy continue their thieving. One cold day they go so far as to pour water on the road where a delivery boy rides his bicycle, then wait for him to crash. They steal the food he was delivering, which they share with the other kids in the stealing ring. A few weeks later the leader of the stealing ring gives Liesel and Rudy a bag of chestnuts, which they sell door to door. They take their substantial earnings back to Frau Diller’s candy shop, where they buy a whole bag candy. Max arrives in Molching, and following his map, makes his way to the Hubermanns’ house. He takes the key from his pocket and prepares to enter.

Analysis

Among the most significant elements of Part Three is Liesel’s discovery of Frau Hermann’s library. When she enters the library, Liesel’s understanding of the world of books is greatly expanded. Rather than being random items to be stolen when the rare chance presents itself, books can be collected, organized, and perused at their owners’ leisure. Although Liesel is living in a time of increasing hardship and deprivation, it is the library, more than food or other material possessions, that strikes her as an exceptional luxury. In gaining entry to this world of knowledge and imagination, she has the opportunity to expand her own world, and the possibilities for her life. It is also in the library that Liesel learns of the death of the Hermanns’ son and begins to understand Frau Hermann’s odd, anti-social behavior. Part of the expansion of Liesel’s world is the understanding that others have suffered the way she has suffered. Most of the people Liesel meets will have lost a significant person in their lives, and as Liesel matures as a character, she will develop compassion for others, and insight into their actions and behavior.

Another significant part of this section is Max’s introduction, which offers a new perspective on the events taking place in Germany and gives us our first glimpse of the tremendous dangers Jews faced under the Nazis. When the narrative moves from Molching to Stuttgart, it is the first time the story expands from Liesel’s specific experience for an extended period of time. Compared to Max’s desperate situation, Liesel has it easy: she is not living in fear for her life. The glimpse we get of Max is impressionistic and disorienting, reflecting his own situation as he waits confused and terrified in the dark with no sense of how long his distress will last. Throughout the book, the hardships and pain Liesel faces will be balanced with the suffering of the Jews and other persecuted groups during the war. As difficult as life sometimes is for Liesel, for others during this period it was far worse. As the novel states, “anything was better than being a Jew.” As dark as Max’s story is, there is a comic irony in his method of escape, smuggled to him in a copy of MKPF. When Hitler wrote his autobiography, he surely didn’t intend it to be used as a lifeline by a Jewish fugitive. The title translates to “My Struggle,” and Max, of all the characters in the book, struggles the most to survive. Again, we see a dramatic duality in the scene, with Max, a Jew acting as if he is a free German, and using MKPF, the book that launched the persecution of much of Europe’s Jews, as his cover.

Liesel, meanwhile, continues her emotional and moral development. In a notable scene, after Liesel and Rudy set the trap for the delivery boy and steal his food, they feel remorse, and they promise each other they won’t rob him again. In this way, Liesel begins creating a moral code for herself that balances the need for survival against the desire not to hurt others. She realizes that there are different levels of criminality, so to speak, and while she isn’t bothered by stealing, harming someone is repugnant to her. This realization about her conscience sets her apart from some of the other characters we meet in the novel who feel no hesitation about hurting others. It shows us that, while Liesel continues to do things like stealing that are technically wrong, she is nonetheless a kind, conscientious person overall.

Part Two

Summary

Germans, Death declares, love to burn things. He points as evidence to the upcoming celebration of Hitler’s birthday, April 20, during which the residents of Molching will burn books by non-Aryan authors. Meanwhile, Liesel is becoming more accomplished in her reading and writing and is rewarded at Christmas with two books that Hans traded cigarettes for. Liesel continues helping Rosa deliver the washing, but with war becoming more of a reality, many of Rosa’s customers discontinue their patronage. Rosa decides to send Liesel on her own to pick up and deliver laundry, assuming the customers will be less likely to tell a young girl they can no longer afford to send out their washing. As an assignment for school, Liesel writes a letter to her mother, and begins waiting for a reply. The social worker who delivered Liesel to the Hubermanns arrives and informs Liesel that she has lost contact with Liesel’s mother, but Liesel continues to hope for a response to her letter.

On the day of Hitler’s birthday, the town decorates the streets with German flags and Nazi swastikas. When the Hubermanns can’t find their flag, Rosa frets that the Nazis will come and take them away. But at last the flag is found in time for the parade. The Hubermanns’ children, Hans Jr. and Trudy, come home for the celebration, and Hans Jr. fights with his father about Hitler. The older Hans has been called “the Jew painter” for painting over slurs written on Jewish shop fronts. Hans Jr. thinks it is a dangerous mistake for Hans not to be more aggressive in his application to join the Nazi party, and accuses his father of not caring about Germany. Seeing Liesel reading quietly, he asserts that she should be reading MKPF instead. Calling his father a coward, he storms out of the house.

After a parade by the Hitler Youth, carts of books, newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, and posters considered unsympathetic to the Nazi Party are wheeled into the town square and arranged in a pile. As a Nazi official rails against Jews and Communists, Liesel connects what happened to her parents to Hitler and his policies. As she struggles to get out of the crowd, she sees her classmate, Ludwig Schmeikl, who is trapped with a hurt ankle. She helps him escape, and he apologies for teasing her. The bonfire is lit. Hans finds Liesel as the flames burn, and she informs him she hates Hitler. He slaps her across the face, and tells her she must never say such a thing in public. They practice saluting Hitler. As the fire burns itself out and darkness falls, Liesel notices a book that has not been burned. While the soldiers tending the fire are not paying attention, she sneaks forward and steals the book, hiding it in her shirt. Only after she has the book does she realize she has been observed by a figure with fluffy hair. The book is called The Shoulder Shrugand it burns her inside her shirt as she walks home with Papa.

Analysis

External forces insert themselves more directly into the narrative in Part Two, as Liesel and her family feel the effects of Hitler’s encroaching presence. The link between the personal and the political is made explicit, as Liesel connects Hitler to the disappearance of her parents. She begins to express some of her anger and sadness at their disappearance, developing the passionate hatred of Hitler. She also expresses a desire for revenge, an impulse we see fueling her actions at times throughout the rest of the story. But Liesel is not the only one suffering from the political situation. Differing views about the importance of allegiance to the Nazi Party and Germany cause a rift between Hans and his son, and Hans’s sympathy for the Jews in Molching foreshadows events to come.

The challenges of being courageous in the politically complex and perilous context of Nazi Germany come to the fore in this section, and we see Liesel beginning to learn from Hans’s example. Hans has been helping Jews by painting over the slurs on their shops, but because the act runs counter to Nazi ideology, it puts Hans at risk from those, like Hans Jr., who won’t tolerate any deviation from the Nazi agenda. The contradiction involved is immediately apparent: By doing what he considers right, Hans could be punished. Though his son calls him a “coward” for essentially not believing in the German ideal, the reader recognizes Hans’s act as a brave and selfless one. Liesel seems to understand the distinction as well. Later, when she finds Ludwig Schmeikl, the same boy who made fun of her reading abilities, injured, she helps him, and though she doesn’t link her decision explicitly to Hans, it’s obvious that Hans would have done the same in that situation. Consciously or not, Liesel seems to be learning from his example.

But Liesel also learns that there’s a line she can’t cross, at least not publicly, when she says she hates Hitler for what he did to her family. Hans slaps her and makes her practice saluting Hitler in front of people, obviously to make sure they’re protected if anyone overheard Liesel’s comment. Hans’s worry is that Liesel and he could be punished for her dissent, and he explains the very important distinction between what you feel inwardly and how you behave outwardly. It’s a perfect example of the motif of duality that runs through the book, and Liesel understands right away that, for the sake of her and her family’s safety, she will need to maintain two lives: a public one and a private one.

In addition to the dramatic scene of the book burning, the main development in this section is Liesel’s increasing sophistication as a narrator of her own story, which correlates with her growing proficiency as a reader and writer. Her mastery of language allows her to see her specific situation in a larger context. When she announces to Hans that she hates Hitler, his violent reaction reveals the danger of language, and she becomes aware of the difference between public and private speech, agreeing to censor herself when she can be overheard by the wrong person. This theme will be developed more explicitly as increasing paranoia and fear of being taken away by the Nazis cause many of the characters to begin leading double lives, playing the role of patriotic citizens in public while trying to follow their own ethics in private, often at great personal risk. Because she is still a child, Liesel is more naïve about the potential consequences of her actions, and does not have as much to fear as some of the older characters. However, in stealing the book from the fire, she establishes herself as willing to risk her personal safety for books, which are increasingly important to her. This risk is dramatized both literally, in Liesel’s theft in clear sight of the soldiers, and also symbolically, when she puts in the book inside her shirt, where it burns her skin. The section also foreshadows the import the figure with the fluffy hair will play in Liesel’s life, by witnessing the risks she takes for books and not moving to stop or aid her.

Prologue and Part One

Summary

Death introduces himself as the narrator of the book. He describes his work and his preference for a chocolate brown sky when he collects people’s souls. He lists the main elements of the story to come, and reveals that he has seen the main character, the book thief, three times. The first time he saw her was on a train where he had come to collect the soul of a small boy. The book thief watched him take the boy with tears frozen to her face. The next time Death saw the book thief was years later, when a pilot had crashed his plane. Death arrived for the pilot’s soul and watched as a boy took a teddy bear from a toolbox and gave it to the pilot. The third time he saw the book thief, a German town had been bombed. The book thief was sitting on a pile of rubble, holding a book. Death followed the book thief for a while, and when she dropped her book, he picked it up. The book thief is nine-year-old Liesel Meminger. She and her younger brother, Werner, are traveling by train with their mother towards Munich, where they will live with a foster family. As the book thief dreams of Adolph Hitler, Werner dies suddenly.

Liesel and her mother get off the train with Werner’s body at the next station and bury him in the town. One of the gravediggers drops a book, and Liesel, who has been digging in the snow, picks it up. Liesel and her mother continue on to Munich, then to a suburb called Molching. Liesel’s new foster parents live on Himmel Street, in Molching. Himmel translates as heaven, though the town is neither hellish nor heavenly. Liesel meets her new foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Because her mother is sick and her father has been taken away for being a Communist, Liesel understands that the Hubermanns represent a form of salvation for her, but at first she is very wary of them, especially Frau Hubermann, who calls Liesel saumench, meaning “pig girl.” Liesel’s stepfather, Hans, is a housepainter who wins her over by teaching her how to roll cigarettes for him and playing his accordion for her. After a few weeks, Frau Hubermann instructs Liesel to call her and her husband Mama and Papa. Liesel complies.

From the beginning of her time with the Hubermanns, Liesel is plagued by nightmares of her dead brother. Often she wakes up screaming, and Papa comforts her. During the day, Liesel attends school, where she is forced to study with the younger children because she is behind in her education. In February, Liesel turns ten, and is given a damaged doll by the Hubermanns. She also receives a brown uniform, and is enrolled in the Hitler Youth, where she learns to ‘heil Hitler,’ or salute Hitler, as well as marching, sewing, and rolling bandages. Mama begins taking Liesel along with her when she collects washing from the neighbors in Molching, and soon Liesel is making the deliveries herself. Liesel begins meeting her neighbors on Himmel Street, including her next door neighbor Rudy Steiner. Rudy is obsessed with the African-American track star Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Prior to Liesel’s arrival on Himmel Street, Rudy covered himself with charcoal and ran laps around the local track, and as a result the neighbors think he’s a bit crazy. Though Rudy and Liesel initially argue over a soccer game, they soon become best friends. Smitten with Liesel, Rudy suggests they race, and if he wins, he gets a kiss. They both fall in the mud as they run though and Liesel refuses to kiss him.

One night, following a demonstration by members of the Nazi Party, Liesel has another nightmare about her brother and wets the bed. When Papa comes to change the sheets, he finds the book Liesel stole from the gravedigger who buried her brother. The book is called “The Grave Digger’s Handbook.” When Papa discovers Liesel can barely read, he begins teaching her the alphabet by writing on the back of a piece of sandpaper. The lessons progress, and Papa begins taking Liesel with him during the day to study by the river. In September, Hitler invades Poland and Liesel tries to read in front of her class at school, but ends up reciting from “The Grave Digger’s Handbook” instead. When her classmate Ludwig Schmeikl taunts her in the schoolyard, she beats him up, then beats up another classmate, Tommy Müller, because she thinks he’s laughing at her. Overcome with sadness about her failed reading attempt, the death of her brother, and everything that has happened in the past few months, Liesel breaks down, and Rudy comforts her.

Analysis

With Death as the unconventional, omniscient narrator of The Book Thief, the novel immediately establishes that the story will mix elements of fantasy with historical fact. Rather than being stereotypically grim or creepy, Death presents himself as sensitive to color and light, and rather regretful about his unfortunate line of work. He has feelings for the souls he collects, and the humans left behind. Liesel, in particular, has made such a strong impression on him that he can’t forget the three times he saw her. By foreshadowing the times he saw Liesel, Death sets up the structure of the narrative, organized around three major events in Liesel’s life, and also creates a sense of inevitability, or predestination, for what follows. Although Death is presented as a singular, almost-human narrator, he is all-knowing and all-seeing, which will enable him to describe scenes and emotions he wouldn’t have knowledge of were he a more conventional narrator, while at the same time giving him a distinct personality and point of view.

In contrast to Death, Liesel’s understanding of her situation is limited to that of a nine-year-old girl. Accordingly, the reader may even at this early point understand more of what is happening than Liesel does. For example, Liesel is not sure what happened to her biological father, but because of the hints given in the text that he was a Communist, and because of what we know of Hitler’s policies in Germany during the early 1930s, it seems likely Liesel’s father was sent to a concentration camp. This is just one example of the dramatic irony author Markus Zusak uses throughout “The Book Thief,” where the reader has a greater understanding of a situation than the characters often do, in large part because the reader has the benefit of seeing events from Death’s nearly omniscient point of view.

As a character, Liesel is precociously empathetic to the adults around her, though she tries to avoid dealing with her own complicated emotions. Of the adults she encounters, she is especially drawn to her foster father Hans Hubermann, whom she immediately understands is “worth a lot.” She finds her foster mother, Rosa, more difficult to embrace, but she sees hints that Rosa is a more complicated and generous character than she initially seems. Rosa angrily tells the neighbors to mind their own business when Liesel arrives, but she also hugs Liesel when Liesel finally takes a bath. Although Liesel has an intuitive understanding of the people in her life, Liesel is less reflective about her own feelings and circumstance. The fact that she has nightmares about her dead brother shows that she is troubled by his death and the disappearance of her mother, but she rarely thinks about these occurrences during the day. She prefers to repress her feelings and tries to focus on other things instead. Clearly these events are still too immediate and painful for her to feel she’s ready to confront them.

Although the early sections start dramatically, with the death of Liesel’s brother and her arrival in Molching, the majority of these chapters are devoted to introducing and developing the main characters in the book and creating a portrait of a typical German suburb. While some back story is provided for each character, more significant is the foreshadowing of actions and themes that will be developed over the rest of the book. Rudy, we learn, will develop a passionate crush on Liesel that will be a source of both strength and frustration for her. Hans will be a singularly positive influence in Liesel’s life, but his inability to go along with the regime will cause friction for him. Rosa will be a more ambiguous character, and will serve as a voice of caution and pragmatism in contrast to some of the more romantic, impractical characters. And Liesel will develop strength from finding her own voice.

These early sections also introduce Germany as a country on the brink of a world war. Again, there is a dramatic irony in that the reader knows the gravity of the political situation that’s developing, whereas the characters in the novel have little sense of the destruction that awaits them. The characters’ reactions to Hitler’s policies range a great deal. Candy store owner Frau Diller enthusiastically embraces Nazism, demanding everyone in her store give the requisite “heil Hitler” before they are able to shop there. Rudy’s father, Alex Steiner’s, displays a more passive acceptance of the political situation. Lastly, Hans Hubermann subtly resists the new regime. By showing a range of responses, Zusak establishes a theme he will elaborate on throughout the book, as characters forced to choose between openly resisting anti-Semitic and inhumane policies and protecting their own families and themselves turn increasingly cruel or kind.

Additionally, this section introduces the theme of the power of words, which is the central theme of the book. Though Liesel begins the chapter unable to read, and at the mercy of the incomprehensibility of the written word, by the end she is becoming a competent reader, and beginning to grasp the power words wield. Liesel’s relationship with language is contrasted with Hitler’s ability to manipulate language to seize power and incite fear and paranoia in the populace. Throughout the book, Zusak will highlight words and phrases that are significant to the story, and interrupt the narrative to translate German expressions Liesel hears. Words, we will see, can be used for both liberation and imprisonment.