The Grave Digger's Handbook

Liesel, the book thief herself, steals books in times of pain. All six books Liesel steals are metaphors for the feelings of loss and pain during the time of which the book was stolen. She uses the books to grow knowledge of the situations occurring around her, one stolen book in particular is “The Gravedigger’s Handbook” This book is the first of all books Liesel steals, and it is the book that caused her to grow to love words, coincidently, she finds this book in the snow on the day of her brother’s death, which is when she was filled with grief and abandonment. This book is a symbol for Liesel’s grief and as she tries to learn how to read the book, her twisted comfort in the story shows how the words had a powerful effect on her grieving process shown by the quotation, “…Not to mention the morbidity of the subject. As for the girl, there was a sudden desire to read it that she didn't even attempt to understand” (Zusak, 66)

To begin, in The Book Thief, books seem to provide Liesel with hope in many ways . First, Liesel reads her books in hope that they will distract her from her harsh reality of living during a war, and having Hitler as a leader. This is displayed in the following quotation,”Liesel opened one of her books and began to read. The book on the top of the pile was The Whistler and she spoke it aloud to help her concentrate,” (Zusak 381). Within this quotation, one sees that Liesel reads her books to in the hope

Theft is never right. The world would be in chaos and panic if we all took what we wanted, like liesel did. For liesel, stealing books excited her and gave the books more meaning. “Although something inside her told that this was a crime, her three books were the most precious item she owned” (Zusak 109). This shows how she loved books and even if getting them by stealing was a crime she would still do it.

In The Book Thief, Liesel Meminger stole a total of five books. Each book that Liesel stole is ironically portrayed as metaphors of her struggles and happy moments in her life. The first book that was stolen was The Gravedigger’s Handbook. This book represents both happy and sad moments in Liesel’s life. It reminded her of her brother Werner’s death and the last moments with her mother before Liesel’s arrival on Himmel Street. However, this book also created happy moments and a new a bond between her new foster father, Hans Hubbermann, as they formed a routine of reading and learning new words after Liesel woke up from her nightmares. The Gravedigger’s Handbook also ignited the flame inside Liesel for her deep love for words. The next book she stole was The Shoulder Shrug from a pile

The horrors of the Holocaust were shown in many ways. All of the awful events that happend were directed towards the Jews, a race that Hitler despized. The book Night tells a first person perspective into the horrors. Elie Wiesel was a survivor of the tragedies and in this book he tells his story. The Nazis were an army that the Jew hating Hitler led. Hitler used his armies to slaughter millions of Jews for his own enjoyment. The concentration camps were the places that the horrors begun. The first cruel act that the Nazis did to the Jews was taking over there homes and neighborhoods. This was to prepare them for travel. The next thing the Nazis did to the Jews was the trains picking them up and

Death who is the narrator of this book is mesmerized by humans. He is intrigued by all that the world has but what he has trouble with is understanding how humans can commit so much cruelties and hideous action but at the same time have others who are so nice and make the world a much better place to live in. One thing that death tries to accomplish is to treasure new ways that he could make his job and his work more purposeful. One of the ways he attempts to do this is by compiling stories that he finds of brave human beings. He stumbles upon one fascinating story of human named Liesel. He believes that Liesel is like none other than he has ever seen before. He thinks that stories are truly beautiful. He is intrigued in her because of who

When Liesel and Rudy raced in the book it was at the track and they landed in mud but in the movie they raced on the street and landed in the snow.

In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, there is a large emphasis on the power and influence that books can have on a person’s life by focusing on the effects that it had on that of Liesel Meminger. This is done by focusing her life on the books The Grave Digger’s Handbook, a book found by Liesel near her brother’s grave, The Shoulder Shrug, a book saved from a Nazi book burning, and both The Standover Man and The Word Shaker which were given to her by Max Vandenburg. Books saved Liesel’s life by allowing her to be able to cope with the new world she is living in after the loss of her mother and brother through bonds with Max, Hans, and a light connection with her original family and changed her life into one of word loving rebellion against the

Throughout our lives, we have buried our dead. It is a normal process, embedded into our culture since, to what seems so to us at least, the beginning. However, we never thought to ask ourselves when actually this practice began. Also we never thought to ask if we were the only ones to entomb our dead in a ritualistic way. There is evidence of our distant cousins Homo neanderthalensis, or Neanderthal, exhibit similar burial practices that we do to this day. Neanderthal sites often have artifacts and possible different burial practices which can means that they have the ability to do ritualistic burials. They are one of the links that may play a huge role in understanding our past, and how our concept of death and the treatment of them began. The topic of burying the dead is a big subject being because it is proof of some higher thought in our ancestors. One of the major questions of human evolution is when we gained the ability to conduct more complex and advance thought. By understanding our past we can have a better understanding of our future. If we understood how our minds developed and formed we may be able to better predict where it is going or at the least understand how our brains came to be up until present day.

The Book Thief repeatedly shows that humans, no matter how full hearted we are, always have a flaw in it. Something that always brings out the worst and continues to show the ruthless side to the human race. Liesel Meminger obtains nine books total. Liesel steals one from a bonfire of banned books, called The Shoulder Shrug. She realizes a shortly after that the Mayor’s Wife was watching her. The fifth one she gets, is Mein Kampf, written by Hitler Adolf. This book was significant to her because within it held Hitler’s plan to take over the world, and he was who she blamed for her mother’s disappearance. The first book she steals from the Mayor’s Wife, is The Whistler. She steals this one mostly for Rudy, the boy who ends up teaching her regret. Next she

The one character that we all thought was not going to make it through the war, especially since he was a Jew, actually survived it. The person who had a close connection to Liesel ever since her came to 33 Himmel St., none other than Max Vandenberg. He comes home long after the war ended, “Finally in October 1945, a man with swampy eye, feathers of hair, and a clean-shaven face walked into the shop...Liesel came out. The hugged and cried and fell to the floor” (548). The author chose Max to be the survivor, probably because no one expected him to survive it. He chose this character also because he had a close relationship with Liesel and wanted her to have one person in her life after the tragedy. The author is saying that when people have

Liesel loves to read and it doesn't take her long to withhold her title as Book Thief. She starts with The Grave Digger’s Handbook which is the book she picks up after her brother’s death. Hans teachers her to read and painted her a “chalkboard” in the basement so that she can write down the new words she has learned. There ends up being a town “parade” which is really a book burning event where Hitler and the Nazis are commemorated, during this time Germany was looking towards invading new countries. Liesel is handed a book and pressured to throw it into the fire, to which she eventually does so. However, once the fire has been put out and everyone has gone home, she notices a book that is only slightly charred, not destroyed by the fire and picks it up. A car drives by and a woman, who is Ilsa Herman, the mayor’s wife, sees her take the book, but Liesel hides it under her coat and runs away quickly back home.

Amy is having difficulty with depression as well. She is unable to move to the last stage of grief, acceptance, until then she will be stuck in the same stage, reliving the same emotions over and over until she is able to cope with the feelings that were aroused

Societal ideologies and beliefs are constantly evolving, changing and then returning to past views; growing and receding like the tide. The same is true for burial practices within Scotland. A typical Neolithic burial over time was converted into monuments for the dead. Those same Neolithic monuments were changed into Early Bronze Age cists, which restricted accessibility, since the burials were usually covered by a cairn to mark the position of internment. Changes in burial practices in Scotland from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age illuminate the splintering of society into smaller factions. This correlates directly to the later emergence of a closer identification between particular groups within Scotland.

This well-known waiata Māori contains philosophies that are very relevant to my practice. It acknowledges our tūpuna and some of the beliefs and values they gifted to us with the expectation that we will do the right thing for future generations. The waiata also stresses the importance of whenua to Māori and the kawa and tikanga practices that keep us culturally, spiritually and physically safe.