book report

Alec Syvrud

Language Arts

Miss. Clear

The Book Thief

The Book Thief is a book that takes place during WWII in Germany. It is told from the perspective of death, which I think is an interesting addition on the book. It’s about a little girl named Liesel Meminger. In the beginning of the book Liesel is being taken to live with her foster parents along with her brother. During the trip Liesels brother dies, giving her much heartache. Later Liesel arrives at her foster parent’s home; her new parents are named the Hubermens. Rosa Hubermen curses constantly and rules the house with an iron fist, she helps the provide an income for the family by doing other peoples washing and ironing, but as the book goes on she starts to lose costumers one by one. Hans Hubermen is Liesels foster father and is very kind and caring much unlike his wife and also addicted to cigarettes. He plays the accordion at pubs and bars to bring in some money, he is also a painter. Liesel often has nightmares about her family, but Hans always wakes her up and calms her down. He helps Liesel learn to read and write using the books that Liesel has stolen. There first book being a book called The Gravediggers Handbook, a book that Liesel stole at her brothers burial, half buried in snow. Liesel quickly becomes friends with the neighboring kids and often joins them in soccer games. Her best friend is a boy named Rudy Steiner. They quickly become good friends and Rudy eventually falls in love with her, and always asks her for kisses. They often hang out and run errands for Liesels mom, or go on trips with other neighborhood boys to steal from local farmers. Liesel secretly is in love with him too, but never really show it at all until the ending. Later Hans Huberman is convinced to hide one of his friends sons, hide a Jewish fighter in their house, his name is Max, Liesel and Max become good friends because they each love words and have nightmares. He writes two books for Liesel and gives her his life story. “The Book Thief” has a very sad ending, but it seems to fit the book perfectly and no questions are left unanswered, also the final line of the book is very interesting and quite odd.

Recommendation:

I really like “The book Thief”. It was very well written and original; It is also very interesting and complex. It the kind of but that gives the reader a much greater appreciation of the topic. It shows you what it was like to live in Germany at the time, especially what it was like for the Jews   I liked how it was written from deaths point of view, it was very unique and almost funny at some points. It was very long but kept adding different elements to the story so that you were never board and always interested with the ever changing story. I liked how the author portrayed death not as a bleak merciless killer, but to actually have sympathy for mankind and actually not want them to die.   The beginning of the book was very thought provoking as it started out with this. Here is a small fact: You are going to die.  I think many people tend to not think about that and try to pretend that death is something that is going to happen to them, and that this is a very good way to get someone interested in the book quickly. All the characters are multi-dimensional and I think some of them could even have their own book based on them, and I think it’s pretty rare when you find a book with side characters in it that could have a book of their own based on their life.  I think a lot of people would find it very interesting, although I don’t think it’s for everyone. Even though the book is very interesting I don’t think some people