The Shadow Thief By Marc Levy

In the thrilling book Shadow House: You Can’t Hide by Dan Poblocki, it is 210 pages of bone-chilling, and terrifying mystery solving for 4 teens trapped in the Larkspur House. The book is read in an omniscient point of view that really expresses each main character, Poppy, Dash, Amuzi, and Marcus.

“Still, it was a sad state of the world that people judged others not by the best that they could be but by the worst thought in their own hearts,” writes Elizabeth Hoyt in her romance novel Thief of Shadows. Hoyt could be describing Lizzy Bennet, who judges Darcy harshly on first impression when she hears him insult her at the Netherfield Ball. In addition, she also judges Charlotte severely when she accepts Mr. Collins’ marriage proposal. However, sometimes Lizzy judges not too harshly but too generously. For example, when Lizzy meets Wickham at her Aunt Phillips’ house she misjudges him as an innocent victim of Darcy.

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 (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 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.

Liesel most definitely could have trusted Rudy with the secret of having Max hidden in her basement. Rudy was clearly Liesel’s best friend and partner in crime when Liesel was doing her acts of thievery stealing the books from the mayor’s wife bookself. The devotion to Liesel Rudy also had was strong and I believe Liesel could have trusted Rudy.

This highlights the realistic atmosphere prevailing as well as reflects the true meaning of relationship. The readers are exposed to the mother-son relationship. It can be seen that even if the narrator is a twenty-year old law student, he is still the little boy who needed his neck scrubbed from the point of view of the mother. Whatever good advice the son gives, it is not followed and instead he is given a lecture. This is a typical mother-son relationship which shows that no matter how much a child grows, he always remains a little kid for the mother. Moreover, the readers also notice the routine life of the narrator and his mother. The boy used to accompany his mother to work and help her which makes a four-hour job becomes two. There is solidarity, strong family bond and understanding between them because although he did not like his mother

“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.

City of Thieves starts off with Lev Beniov sitting atop his roof, on a firefighting detail, under the German siege of Leningrad in Kirov, Russia. As he sits on top of his building’s roof with his friends Vera Osiponva, and the Antokolsky twins they listen to anti-aircraft fire, and they see a paratrooper falling to the ground. The group hops the Kirov gate, and runs towards the paratrooper’s landing sight, realizing he is drifting to the ground dead. They began looting his body, and as Lev got a German knife from the man, the GAZ turned on Voinova Street, and they had to run. While running back to Kirov, Vera slipped, and Lev had to go and get her. As he helped her over the fence, the GAZ grabbed him. Since it was after curfew, he believed execution was inevitable. He was taken to “Piter”’s prison called the Crosses with no light or sound. Soon, a Russian officer named Kolya was thrown in the cell with him. In the morning, the two prisoners were taken to a mansion with NKVD officers in it. The Colonel had a mission for the prisoners. He took their ration cards, and told Kolya and Lev they had until Thursday to get one dozen eggs. On that Saturday morning, Kolya and Lev had left their lives on the line for a dozen eggs.

Most movies/documentaries that are made or books that are written on the Holocaust show the brutality of it and the horror. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak does that but it also shows the beauty among the poor working class Germans, such as love, friendship and subtle resistance. It also proves not all Germans believed in what Hitler was doing and that people like Liesel, Rudy, Max, and the Hubermanns were able to see the beauty in life while surrounded by so much ruin. Each character has a personal experience with the ugliness that Hitler brought with the Holocaust, but everyone also is able to see that light can be found even during the darkest of times.

Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief contains many memorable and important characters -- Liesel Meminger, Rosa and Hans Hubermann, Rudy Steiner, and Max Vandenburg, to name a few. However, one character that is crucial to the plot (and to Liesel’s survival) is the long suffering mayor’s wife, Ilsa Hermann. Ilsa and Liesel meet for the first time when Liesel was picking up the washing. Ilsa, “who never spoke, simply stood in her bathrobe, her soft fluffy hair tied back into a short tail” turns out to be the person who saves Liesel from Death (Zusak 132).

“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.

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

The Book Thief was an excellent book. The beginning started out with Death explaining all of the times where he encountered the book thief. The first time Death encountered the Book Thief (A.K.A. Liesel Meminger) was on a train with her brother and her mother. Her brother died when on the train, and at her brother's funeral she stole her first book called “ The Grave Digger's Handbook.” After her brother died, her mother sent her to a foster home and left her there. She stayed with Hans Hubermann and Rosa Hubermann in which she learns to love them. Hans is very good at the accordion and teaches Liesel the joy in rolling cigarettes. Rosa is very strict and constantly swears. She becomes friends with a boy named Rudy Steiner who loves to run.

Set in post-World War II Rome, The Bicycle Thief is about a father who is searching for his stolen bicycle because without it, he will lose the job that is the only way to support his family. This film is one of the greatest works of Italian Neorealism and is also considered as one of the greatest films of all time. It also received different awards including the Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Film. This masterpiece was created with $131,000 as its estimated budget. The Bicycle Thief was directed by Vittorio De Sica and was originally released in Italy on 1948 with the title “Bicycle Thieves” The film was also released in U.S on 1949 entitled “The Bicycle Thief”