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The Book Thief

Markus Zusak

Start date: December 1, 2021

Finish date: December 31, 2021

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The book thief ( December BOTM )
By Ayathma , Creator of the group and head mod · 1 post · 5 views

last updated Dec 01, 2021 05:17AM

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Oct 05, 2021 Paige Turner rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. You’re in the middle of Nazi Germany. Your own mother abondoned you. Your younger brother died on the train. You live in a village with your poor adoptive parents. A small gravediggers handbook, the only possesion you have of your previous life. Of your dear brother… Of your mother. Suddenly you are transferred to the life of a rich Jew who was tired of life passing him by. You progress through it, moment by moment. As that life ends, you begin another stolen life. One about a “Dog Named Faust ' You’re in the middle of Nazi Germany. Your own mother abondoned you. Your younger brother died on the train. You live in a village with your poor adoptive parents. A small gravediggers handbook, the only possesion you have of your previous life. Of your dear brother… Of your mother. Suddenly you are transferred to the life of a rich Jew who was tired of life passing him by. You progress through it, moment by moment. As that life ends, you begin another stolen life. One about a “Dog Named Faust ''. Thus the life of Liesel Meninger, life by life, book by book, she overcomes her hardships. Living through the exploits of characters in her stolen life. Liesel even won the admiration of Death, who narrates her story. Even before she could read, Liesel understood the value of books.

The story began with the death of Liesel Meningers brother. As they bury him in a graveyard, she commits her first theft, she steals a gravediggers’ handbook. She is unable to read even the title of the book, yet the book means more to her than to the author himself. It’s the last memory of her brother. She soon gets adopted by a quaint couple. The husband is a painter, the wife a washerwoman. Liesel soon creates a bond with her adoptive father. She befriends a boy named Rudy, and begins to attend school. Even as she settles into this life, the memories of her past haunt her. Nightmares of her brother disrupt her sleep. Leading to the beginning of the “Midnight School”. Each night as she wakes up in sweat, her father is by her side. One such night, he discovers the book which Liesel stole from the gravedigger. He agrees to teach Leisel to read. Slowly, word by word, page by page, chapter by chapter the pair make their way to the end of the book, and the beginning of an era. An era of reading and books. Reading by night, from stolen books Liesel trudges through her life.

Liesel begins delivering laundry for her adoptive mother Rosa. One of Rosa’s customers is the mayor’s wife, Ilsa Hermann. One day, after seeing Liesel pawning a book, iesel is invited into Ilsa Hermann’s study, where she marvels at the walls of books. Each day she spends countless hours submerged in the rows and rows of books. She often sits there just stroking the covers and smelling the smells, falling in love with reading over and over again. However, as Robert Frost would say, “Nothing gold can stay''. Ilsa Hermann tells Liesel she can no longer afford Rosa’s services, A furious Liesel begins to steal books from the mayor's study.

Meanwhile a Jewish man named Max, the son of Hans’ friend, seeks refuge from the Nazi’s. Jeapordizing the safety of himself and his family, he agrees to let the Jewish man stay. As the war intensifies, Nazi soldiers begin parading Jewish prisoners through town on their way to the concentration camp at Dachau. Hans, seeing an old man struggling to stay along with the group, gives him some food. The soldiers, seeing what Han had done, whips him. That night, realizing he had called attention to himself, Hans tells Max to leave and flee to safety.

The very next day Hans is drafted to join the army. Some weeks pass, Liesel reading book after book to flee from her harsh reality. The mayor gives Liesel a blank notebook so she can begin writing a story. Meanwhile Hans suffers an injury and comes home. The family celebrated, rejoicing Hans’ return. Then came the bombing, the third time Death approached Liesel. She was in the basement, editing her story when Death came, this time to take the life of her beloved adoptive father Hans, her dearest adoptive mother Rosa, and her best and only friend

Rudy. As the workers take her away, she leaves behind her finished book “The Book Thief”. Seeing poor Liesel, the childless Mayor and his wife adopt her. Liesel grows up, moves to Australia, grows a family, lives to old age, and Death comes to meet her once more, for the final time, to take her soul.
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