Comprehensive Study Notes: THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak

PROLOGUE: THE NARRATOR AND THE COLORS

  • The Narrator: Death
        * Death introduces itself as the narrator. It is not violent or malicious but a "result."
        * It sees colors first, then humans. It uses colors as a distraction from the "leftover humans"—the survivors whose grief is too painful to witness.
        * Death is fascinated by human existence and its contradictions: the capacity for incredible beauty and horrific ugliness.

  • The Three Encounters with the Book Thief
        1. White (The Railway Line): Death first sees Liesel when her younger brother, Werner, dies on a train. Werner is buried in the snow, and Liesel steals her first book: The Grave Digger’s Handbook.
        2. Black (The Eclipse): Death sees her again at a plane crash where a young pilot dies. A boy (Rudy) places a teddy bear on the pilot's chest. Death recognizes the girl from years before.
        3. Red (The Flag): The final encounter occurs after a bombing of Himmel Street. The sky is red like soup. Liesel is found kneeling in the rubble, clutching a book, before she eventually drops it. Death retrieves this book from a garbage truck.

PART ONE: THE GRAVE DIGGER’S HANDBOOK

  • Arrival on Himmel Street
        * Liesel Meminger and her mother travel toward Munich to place Liesel and Werner with foster parents (the Hubermanns). Werner dies of a coughing fit on the journey.
        * Liesel arrives at 33 Himmel Street in Molching. "Himmel" means Heaven, an ironic name for a poor, gray neighborhood.

  • The Hubermanns
        * Hans Hubermann (Papa): A tall painter/accordionist with silver eyes. He is patient and kind. He wins Liesel over by teaching her how to roll cigarettes and staying with her during her nightly nightmares.
        * Rosa Hubermann (Mama): A squat woman who looks like a wardrobe. She is foul-mouthed (using terms like Saumensch and Saukerl) and harsh, but she has a hidden core of love. She earns money by doing laundry for the town's wealthy residents.

  • The School and The Kiss
        * Liesel struggle at school because she is illiterate. She is placed with much younger children.
        * She meets Rudy Steiner, a lemon-haired boy who becomes her best friend. Rudy is famous for "The Jesse Owens Incident," where he painted himself black with charcoal and ran at the local track.
        * Rudy bets Liesel a kiss on a race through the mud. They tie, and Liesel vows she will never kiss him.

  • The Midnight Class
        * After Liesel wets the bed during a nightmare, Hans discovers The Grave Digger’s Handbook. He begins the "midnight class," teaching her to read and write using sandpaper and a painter's lead pencil.

PART TWO: THE SHOULDER SHRUG

  • The Second Stolen Book
        * Liesel steals her second book, The Shoulder Shrug, from a Nazi book-burning bonfire on Hitler’s birthday, April 20, 1940.
        * The act is driven by her realization that the Führer is responsible for the disappearance of her "Communist" father and the suffering of her mother.
        * Hans Hubermann slaps Liesel for saying she hates the Führer in public, teaching her that she must remain silent for survival while allowing her to hate him in private.

  • The Joy of Cigarettes
        * For Christmas, Hans trades his cigarette ration to buy Liesel two books: Faust the Dog and The Lighthouse.

PART THREE: MEIN KAMPF

  • The Mayor’s Library
        * Liesel begins delivering laundry to the Mayor's house. The Mayor's wife, Ilsa Hermann, allows Liesel to enter her massive library and read. Ilsa is mourning her son, Johann, who froze to death in WWI.

  • The Struggle of Max Vandenburg
        * Max, a Jewish man, is hiding in a dark storeroom in Stuttgart. His friend Walter Kugler (a former fist-fighting rival) helps him.
        * Max is given a copy of Mein Kampf with a key and map inside. He uses the book as a "shield" or disguise to travel by train to Molching.

  • The Arrival
        * Max arrives at 33 Himmel Street. He is the son of Erik Vandenburg, the man who saved Hans's life in WWI and taught him the accordion. Hans had promised Erik's widow he would help her one day.

PART FOUR: THE STANDOVER MAN

  • The Secret Life of Hans Hubermann
        * Hans survived WWI because Erik nominated him to write letters for a captain while the rest of the platoon went into a battle where all were killed.

  • The Living Room and the Basement
        * Max hides in the basement. He and Liesel bond over their shared nightmares.
        * For Liesel's birthday, Max creates a book for her called The Standover Man, painted over the pages of Mein Kampf.

PART FIVE: THE WHISTLER

  • The Floating Book
        * Liesel steals The Whistler from the Mayor's library after Ilsa tries to give it to her out of pity (following the firing of Rosa from the laundry service).
        * Viktor Chemmel, a cruel new leader of the fruit-stealing gang, throws the book into the Amper River. Rudy jumps into the freezing water to retrieve it for Liesel.

  • The Boxer
        * In the basement, Max fantasizes about boxing Adolf Hitler. In his imagination, the entire German nation climbs into the ring to beat him, but Liesel brings him a newspaper to sustain him.

PART SIX: THE DREAM CARRIER

  • The Snowman and the Illness
        * Liesel brings snow into the basement to build a snowman with Max. Shortly after, Max falls into a death-like coma.
        * Liesel brings Max thirteen "presents" (including a pinecone, a cloud description, and a toy soldier) and reads The Dream Carrier to him.
        * Max eventually wakes up, much to the Hubermanns' relief, as they feared what to do with a Jewish corpse.

PART SEVEN: THE COMPLETE DUDEN DICTIONARY AND THESAURUS

  • Painting the Blinds
        * Hans gets work painting people's window blinds black for the upcoming air raids. Liesel accompanies him, and they share a rare moment of luxury: a glass of champagne.

  • The Shelters
        * During air raids, the neighborhood huddles in the Fiedlers’ basement. Liesel calms and distracts everyone by reading from The Whistler.

  • The Mistake
        * A parade of Jews is marched through Molching toward Dachau. Hans, moved by pity, gives a piece of bread to a dying old man. Both Hans and the Jew are whipped.
        * Terrified that the Gestapo will search the house, Max is forced to flee. He leaves a note: "You've done enough."

  • The Consequence
        * The Gestapo come to Himmel Street, but they do not want Hans. They want Rudy for an elite Nazi school.

PART EIGHT: THE WORD SHAKER

  • Punishment and Draft
        * Hans is drafted into the army as part of the LSE (Air Raid Special Unit). His job is to clean up after bombings and collect bodies. Alex Steiner (Rudy's father) is also drafted.

  • The Word Shaker
        * Rosa gives Liesel a second book from Max: The Word Shaker. It is an allegory about how Hitler uses words to plant a "forest" of hate and how a small girl (Liesel) grows a tree of friendship that cannot be cut down.

PART NINE: THE LAST HUMAN STRANGER

  • The Accident
        * Reinhold Zucker, a bully in Hans's unit, forces Hans to switch seats in their truck. The truck crashes; Zucker dies, and Hans only breaks his leg. Hans is sent home.

  • The Toolbox and the Bear
        * Rudy tries to go stealing with a toolbox but finds he is too kind. He leaves a teddy bear for a dying Allied pilot at a crash site.

PART TEN: THE BOOK THIEF

  • The End of the World
        * To vent her anger at the world's cruelty, Liesel rips a book in Ilsa Hermann’s library. Ilsa visits Liesel and gives her a blank black book, encouraging her to write her own story.
        * Liesel writes her autobiography, The Book Thief, in the basement.
        * On October 7, 1943, Himmel Street is bombed while everyone is sleeping.
        * Hans, Rosa, Rudy, and the Steiners are all killed. Liesel survives because she was in the basement writing.
        * She finds Rudy's body and finally kisses him, telling him she loves him. She sees the bodies of Hans and Rosa and says a final goodbye. She leaves her book in the rubble; Death picks it up.

EPILOGUE: THE LAST COLOR

  • Liesel’s Life After the War
        * Liesel is taken in by the Mayor and Ilsa Hermann.
        * Alex Steiner returns and opens his shop; he and Liesel become close friends.
        * In October 1945, Max Vandenburg returns and finds Liesel at Steiner's shop. Their reunion is emotional.

  • The Final Handover
        * Death visits Liesel many years later in Sydney, Australia. She has lived a long life with children and grandchildren.
        * Death shows her the book he rescued from Molching. Her reaction is total astonishment.
        * Death’s final thought to the reader: "I am haunted by humans."