The Book Thief By Markus Zusak

With over 70 million people dead, World War II was one of the most horrific wars in the last millennium. During the war, Germany is corrupted and dangerous for anybody who is not German. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, is a story about an orphan who lives in Molching, a town where the Holocaust and the bombing occur. Throughout the novel, she steals books in order to become a better reader and writer. The city of Molching and the characters and not real, but the details of the events, settings, and people are accurately portrayed in the novel. Therefore, the portrayal of racism and the conditions of Jews in Nazi Germany are accurately depicted in the Book Thief.

“The Book Thief” is a novel and film about a girl who survives death during WW2 and how words became very important to her life. Liesel Meminger was brought to her foster home unable to read. Her foster father, Hans, finds out she can’t read and helps teaches her German. Liesel then falls in love with words and uses them to write her story.The theme “power of words” is displayed in the novel and film equally. Three ways the power of words were shown was by making an emotional connection with the audience, influencing people to do something, and creating unlikely friendships.

The Book Thief is a historical novel written by Markus Zusak. It provides the readers a deeper understanding of the lives of Jews and Germans in Germany during the brutal Nazi regime and how they manage to survive. This includes not only the physical survival of the fittest, but also the survival of their moral beliefs. In addition to the author’s theme of inhumanity and humanity of man, he provides a background story for the characters in the book and how they are similar and different by their moral beliefs, their goals, their guilt, and their relationship with words. Two of the characters that are mentioned throughout the book to remind the readers of their struggles to survive in the Third Reich are Liesel and Max. Liesel is the foster daughter of Hans and Rosa Hubermann and “the book thief” who realizes the power of words in the Nazi community while Max is a fist fighter and German Jew who hides in Hans’s basement to escape from Nazi incarceration and eventually survives the concentration camp after he is arrested on his way to Stuttgart by the Nazis. Liesel and Max can be compared and contrasted through analyzing their struggles, includes their fear of the death, their guilt of

Words are everywhere, words make up books, and the power of words make The Book Thief which will never be able to be improved upon. Words help us communicate with others, but mainly they have positive and negative sides to them. In the novel, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Death narrates the story while Liesel Meminger also tells her story of living in Nazi, Germany. We will discuss how there are many people such as Max Vandenburg and Liesel Meminger who choose to use to use their power of words in the positive way. We will also discuss how people also like to use their power of words in the negative way such as Adolf Hitler. The power of words are very effective especially in Markus Zusak’s writing, and we’ll discuss the main parts of the book which have been effected with the power of words.

11 million people died during the Holocaust. In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, Liesel Meminger loses many of her loved ones. At the beginning of the book, Liesel’s brother dies of illness on a train, and her mother is taken away by the Nazis for being a communist. After losing everyone she ever cared about, the story drags Liesel into a humble household where she discovers her passion for books, and her love for her family and friends. However, her loved ones are once again torn away from her as Himmel Street, the street she lives on, gets bombed. She loses her foster parents, her best friend, and everyone else she came to know. As a result of these adverse events, Liesel’s innocence was stolen from her. In The Book Thief, loss plays an essential role in developing characters, especially Liesel. After losing Werner, her brother, Liesel is plagued by

Imagine yourself being alone in the world, isolated from everyone else. You have no friends or family and are discriminated against by the rest of the world. Now, imagine the things you would do to escape this isolation. If you are anything like the characters in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, then you would take great risks, even if they can result in your death, to get away from this solitude. In the novel, isolation plays an important role in the character’s lives as it causes a great deal of pain, creates life changing moments, and affects the character’s actions in such a way that causes them to take dangerous risks in order to escape this isolation.

In the Novel the Book Thief by Markus Zusak and Breaking Prejudice from National Radio, we see there to be a change in perspective due to insightful personal discoveries. We see this occur for the better and the worse, on a smaller scale in the case of the Book Thief and on a larger scale in Breaking Prejudice, which serves to demonstrate to the reader the many levels on which insight can affect perspective. In the Book Thief, Liesel’s initial perspective of both her foster mother Rosa, and Hitler, change as a result of a moment of realisation caused by their actions. Similarly, we see a change of perspective in Breaking prejudice that sprung from an insightful discovery, however one that is more dramatic. Zelda Le Garange, a wealthy, white girl who grew up in the richer part of South Africa, had a conditioned perspective on black people, completely transformed through meeting the loving Nelson Mandela.

“I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn 't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.” (Zusak 550) Markus Zusak wrote “The Book Thief” which is a historical fiction novel about a young girl named Liesel Meminger growing up in Germany during World War II. Zusak has German-Austrian parents who were children during World War II. His perspective helps us to be more empathetic towards Germans in the book because he explains to us: German children didn’t understand what Hitler was doing, not all Germans hated Jews, and Germans cared about each other deeply and helped each other out.

Heroes and heroines are individuals who defend the greater good and usually have experiences that give them personal traits. These traits make them behave certainly in a way that defines them as a hero. Markus Zusak’s book The Book Thief, Hans Hubermann is a hero by doing what he thinks is right. From the beginning to the end, Hans was a kind and empathetic person. Despite his many experiences of unfairness, he did not take a change for the worse. Hans defended what he believed was right by being a selfless individual who was willing to sacrifice to help those who were in need.

“Your new home.” These are words many people never want to hear and Liesel Meminger doesn’t want to hear them either. In the historical fiction book, The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, the main character is a young girl named Liesel Meminger. During World War 2, it’s bad enough that Liesel and her younger brother, Werner have to move to a foster home far away from everything they have ever known because their mother can’t support them alone, but when her brother dies on the way there, she has to figure out a way to deal with all of this. Liesel has to be courageous, venture to a new home, and eventually help her new family hide a Jew in the heart of Nazi Germany. I believe that you aren’t courageous because you have no fears, but because you have found a way to overcome your fears. So, it’s ok to be afraid, but you become courageous when you conquer your fears.

In The Book Thief, Markus Zusak shows different contexts with the same similar message. Zusak is revealing to the reader that words can be very powerful. The societal statement “power is knowledge” can be linked to the book by how knowledge creates power.The setting of Nazi Germany within the book burnings event, the basement with Max, and Liesel defending herself by her choice of words are all relevant to this societal statement since it demonstrates the idea of knowledge in numerous ways, and how powerful words were at these times.

The developmental stage of a young child’s life is very crucial and can be impacted by the media. In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Liesel Meminger is a young girl living in a very important part of Germany’s history, the Second World War. Liesel’s childhood unfolds and develops against the backdrop of a time when words, books specifically were used for power and control. Liesel is someone who has a love for reading and, as such, books become very important to her, not only for her education but for her rebellion and discovering her true identity. Throughout the novel, books become a crucial symbol used to convey the desires and discovery of identity for the main character as her childish ignorance changes to her mature adulthood.

Words are one of the most powerful ways humans can connect with each other. Nazi Germany is a place where the use of words was the most powerful gift anyone could have. Since the novel is set in Germany during World War II the words back then had negatively influenced the society at that time, and positively influenced a young German girl named Liesel. In The Book, Thief Zusak tells the story of a German girl named Liesel who goes with Rosa and Hans Hubermann in Molching Germany, who become her foster parents. Liesel enjoys books and tends to steal various of them. The Hubermanns encounter a Jew named Max and do their best to help him survive the evil Nazi’s. The message in the book is that humans are so lucky they have words to use to express their thoughts and feelings and how simple a gift can be your worst nightmare because words are so powerful. With that much power, humans need to be careful. This message is demonstrated throughout the whole book, and characters. Words can be dangerous and can cause death, but also convey deep meaning while providing individuals with intelligence.

If I could meet a character from a book, it would be Kunta Kinte. Kunta Kinte came to mind, not only because he was an infamous slave, but because he was a Gambian. My dad is also Gambian and my mom is Senegalese, which is not far from Gambia. Due to this fact, we share a culture. He is part of the history of my mother and father’s country, so it would be great to have a conversation with him.

Inside the birthplace of Nazism where one part of society develops a profound bond with false ideas, self-desensitization towards a death and self-preservation, there exists a different world where the power of words provides few individuals with the pleasure of friendship. Since the beginning of her foster life, the character of Liesel Meminger make words her companion and in turn, the power of words provides her with the pleasure of friendship more than any other individual. Learning new alphabets and the journey of discovering the power of words; develops a deep bond between Liesel Meminger and her foster father. Promote furthermore, Liesel Menninger's hunger to gain the power of words results in the habit of stealing, which establishes