The Book Thief By Markus Zusak

The Book Thief, written by Australian novelist Markus Zusak, follows a young girl living in Nazi Germany, and employs innovative techniques to convey the central idea of the extremes of human behavior. This central idea was explored through stylistic techniques and conventions such as Death as the narrator, juxtaposition, irony, lack of chronological order, narrative voices, and themes, namely the power of words.

Many authors have written novels about to the Holocaust. Markus Zusak is no exception. However, his novel The Book Thief gives a different perspective on World War II. Rather than telling the story of a survivor or a victim, he tells the story from a German citizens point of view. Zusak tells the German point of view from the point of view of Death. In his Holocaust novel The Book Thief, Markus Zusak uses descriptive language to instill urgency and images in the reader’s head.

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

The Book Thief (2013), directed by Brian Percival, is about a young old girl living in Nazi Germany (between 1939 and 1943) in the fictional town of Molching, Germany. Death narrates the story of the main protagonist, Liesel Meminger, beginning when she is nine years old and suffering from the death of her brother and separation from her mother. Liesel then goes to live with Hans and Rosa Hubermann (played by Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson). When Liesel arrives, she is illiterate and is made fun of in school by the other children. Hans, a painter and accordion player, teaches her how to read, using the book Liesel took from her brother's burial: The Grave Digger's Handbook. Over the course of the movie, Liesel develops a love for reading and decides to steal books because of the economical hardships associated with World War II. Liesel's foster parents also decide to help a young Jewish man named Max, whose father fought with Hans as in World War One as German soldiers. The Book Thief illustrates a different perspective in regards to the Nazi Regimen and its effects on the German people, specifically children.

The Book Thief, written by Markus Zusak, outlines the tragedies and events that take place in Liesel Meminger’s life, in Nazi Germany. Throughout this young girl’s struggle of living in the oppressive Nazi regime, she is able to learn crucial lessons about life and the art of survival- some that follow her to the grave. The most important lesson she learned and the pivotal theme of the novel is that rebellion can be and beneficial in certain situations.

Markus Zusak’s engrossing book, The Book Thief, takes place in the outskirts in Nazi Germany. 33 Himmel Street is the new home of a Communist daughter, Liesel, who has just seen things that many people may have not seen, throughout their lives. She has been brought to this foster home because of World War II. She gets to know a Jew and he, without knowing, teaches her about the war. She finds a true friend in Rudy Steiner, who longs for a kiss from her. She also happens to live with an altered father, who pulled in many directions by this war. The novel suggests that war exposes people to experiences, both good and bad, that they have never encountered before.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is a story set in Germany during World War 2. This novel follows the life of Liesel Meminger, a girl who develops greatly. With Death as the all knowing narrator of the story, the reader has the ability to see various perspectives. It tells the story of oppression, portrays the power of words, and shows the human ability for kindness or cruelty. I chose to do option four, in which I have chosen important sections from the novel.

World War II is known as one of the most horrific events in history that resulted in a mass killing of millions, yet it is also considered to be beautiful at the same time. A paradox is where two different things happen at the same time. This occurs when both beauty and ugly are shown in World War II and in the novel, “The Book Thief.” During the time of World War II and “The Book Thief” a man named Hitler and his allies went to war with the rest of the world to make his country great again. The novel “The Book Thief” is a story told by Death about a young girl, Liesel Meminger, a book thief, who has to start a new life with her foster parents because of the war going on. As she continues her life of stealing books she learns and sees both

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.

First of all, young children, especially Jewish children, should learn about the unpleasant events that occurred in the past. “The Holocaust illustrates the consequences of prejudice, racism and stereotyping on a society. It forces us to examine the responsibilities of citizenship and confront the powerful ramifications of indifference and inaction.” says Tim Holden, a former U.S. Representative. Children need to know that what the Nazi’s did was wrong and disturbing, and teaching students about this subject will teach to not repeat the past, to not reiterate such a horrible occurrence.

At such an early age, children are taught about the Holocaust. They are taught things such as: ¨ The Holocaust is one of the most terrible events in human history. It occurred during World War II when Hitler was leader of Germany. Six million Jewish people were murdered by the Nazis. This included as many as 1 million Jewish children.¨ How difficult it must have been for small children to understand everything that went on. They couldn't. Being taken away from their parents, or being crammed into a gas chamber. Who could imagine? That would be like being killed just for being alive.

Words can influence the mind in many ways that thought may not be able to. They are carefully placed and shared in different ways by each and every individual. Words have powerful impacts and can majorly impact how one may think, feel, or even lead others to feel. Written by Markus Zusak, “The Book Thief” describes a story of an innocent foster girl, Liesel Meminger, who resides in Munich, Germany at one of the most troubling time periods in history, Nazi Germany. A tale narrated by the one and only Death himself, shows the perspective from his point of view, as well as others, describing how Liesel had been seized away from her birth mother at a young age, and put into a foster family. Her new family, the Hubermanns. As she matures and grows into a more critical thinker, understanding and analyzing everything that carefully happens around her. Her foster-father, Hans guides her and teaches her how to read, which little does she know sparks her journey, the art of stealing books. Liesel soon discovers that words aren 't simply lines on a page, they are strong emotions packed into a form that merely is held in her delicate hands. Not only did she hold the pages of emotion, she held a power, a dangerous weapon of words, a weapon of control, and every book that she had stolen was giving her unimaginable power that made her think in ways that she would’ve never thought she could have. As with Nazi propaganda, and a gift that enabled her to broaden her worldview. Liesel evolves

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.

The Australian author, Markus Zusak, set out to relate the experiences of his parents growing up during the Second World War for his fifth novel, The Book Thief, first published in 2005. The author has said that much of the inspiration for the book came from the stories his parents would tell him when he was a child. Firstly, in the Second World War, there are a lot of words and propaganda are spread about the Jews and the war. One of the main characters in the novel, Liesel always shows a skeptical attitude about the Fuhrer and the war that represents most Germans’ standpoint about the media information that they get. Secondly, it is undoubted that there are many Jews who were persecuted by the Nazis.