Summer Assignment, Post 1

I doing the Book Thief by Markus Zusak and It was a very good book. Long winded at times and just long in general it, so far has been a hard read, but I've worked my way through so far, but you are not here to hear about my struggle, so let’s get on topic.  The Main character by the new of Liesel Meminger, a curious young girl, who, on a train to Munich, discovers that her brother is dead.  This, also, is not where the book begins. The begin is three very short chapters about the same girl, the book thief, as are Narrator calls her.  The three chapters all are about the little girl being close to someone who has died who makes more sense once we know that the narrator is Death, and he is witnessing these events first hand and the first time Death sees the “book thief” is when he comes to get her brother. This leaves me with a few questions, 1. Why would the narrator be death if he could only see Liesel when someone dies around her, but still be able to recount her life?  Death himself says “Stupidly I stay. I watch.”  He is on dead line (no pun intended) but yet he can stay and follow a girl around her whole life. Which also brings into the setting in to play, they are in Germany…Nazi Germany which most likely means WWII is going on or starting, so death should be working overtime. The another question I have is that during those chapters there is a lot of colors that death sees (which is how I know they are in Nazi Germany, death saw a Nazi flag and Munich is in Germany). Why is this so prominent in his narration?  Anyway, back to the story.

 Liesel and her mother get off the train to bury her brother in the graveyard of the next town on the track which is never named. At the funeral, the only attendees being Liesel, her mother, the priest, and a gravedigger and apprentice.  Liesel steals the apprentice’s copy of The Grave Diggers Handbook, which marks her “…beginning of an illustrious career.” This is could also be a conflict because during the Rise of Nazi Germany, according to the History channel, The Nazis were burning books that were not in line with their way of thinking.  If Liesel steals a book from one of these bonfires, (as I think she will) she would become an Enemy of the Nazi party, which, in Nazi Germany, would not be the smartest thing to do.

After the funeral and when they get under way again.  They arrive in Munich and Liesel mother leaves her with the adoption agency, in the hope that Liesel could have a better life and would be safe from the war.   When they arrive at the foster care parents’ house, Liesel refuses to live the car they arrived in. this reminds me of the first book of the gatekeeper series. In both books the main character is forced into the foster care system, even though they have no want for it and both make physical efforts to resist.  The foster parents are Hans (a kind painter by trade and lover of both smoking and playing the piano accordion.) and Rosa (a loud, spoken women who loves Liesel, and shows it by “Bashing her with wooden spoons and words at various intervals) Hubermann. Also on the block is the boy Rudy Steiner, who seems to fall in love with Liesel and, who, if guess right, will helper steal some books.

                Well, this concludes my first blog post over the book thief, on the topic of main characters, conflicts, and setting. Hope you enjoyed.