A story of friendship

MARGRET WELLINGTON

This is the continuation of a series coordinated by the Isaac Waldman library and the Independent, featuring community members reviewing books they’ve recently read.

The Book Thief (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2007) by Markus Zusak is set in southeast Germany, the hub of Nazidom (Bavaria, 1933-1945). Zusak’s characters are very real – in very real times, where there is no work, no money and no food, but much horror and an all-pervasive, palpable fear. The narrator of the story is Death.

However, we are also shown another side of the Nazi era, where people refused to join the party or fly the flag, followed their own morality and were willing to hide a Jew at the risk of their own lives; there were also children who despised the Hitler Youth, with its bullies and endless “heils,” and who thought Hitler’s rambling speeches ridiculous and boring.

The title of the book refers to Liesel, a skinny little girl who is a tomboy, dislikes school and hasn’t yet learned her alphabet. She and her younger brother are being taken to a small town near Munich to be put up for adoption. It is the only way their mother feels she can keep them safe after their father was arrested for being a communist (the family is Lutheran, while all the other characters, save Max, are Catholic).

On the way, the little boy dies and is buried when the train halts during a snowstorm. Returning from the gravesite, Liesel sees something sticking out of the snow and picks it up. It’s a book, The Grave Digger’s Handbook. This becomes one of her greatest treasures, kindling a burning wish to learn to read.

It is 1939 and Liesel is nine. Her arrival at the foster home is not auspicious. She cannot understand why her mother is leaving her and clings to the gate, refusing to enter, eat, have a bath or go to bed. Her foster parents are Hans and Rosa Huberman, a poor couple living in a poor neighborhood in a small house. Hans is a survivor of the First World War, a housepainter and handyman, as well as a superb accordionist. Rosa takes in washing and they eke out a living by taking in a foster child.

“Papa” is full of patience and gentle kindness, while “Mama” is practical but full of temper, worry and tough love. Liesel, meanwhile is full of rebellion, has 2 a.m. nightmares and wets her bed; she misses her mother and her brother. Papa is by her bedside through all of this, changing sheets and calming her with quiet music. Above all, he reads to her and teaches her how to read by painting words on the white basement walls, which she learns to decipher and pronounce. This arouses her strong desire to own books and she starts to steal them from wherever she can, including from book burnings and the library of the mayor’s wife, Frau Hermann.

Slowly, Liesel settles down and helps Mama by picking up the weekly washing from her clients, returning it cleaned and ironed and collecting the money. She gets to meet and know the customers, including Frau Hermann, who comes to play a pivotal part in Liesel’s life. The two of them grow to understand each other in a somewhat silent, arms-length way.

When the Hubermans hide Max, a young Jewish man, in their basement, Liesel’s life is changed. She has to promise Papa and Mama never to tell anyone about Max’s presence, not even Rudy, her best friend. It is a difficult promise, but she keeps it. She continues to play soccer with Rudy and other boys, and together they begin to engage in thievery, as the boys are always hungry for food and Liesel for books.

Despite all their rough-and-tumble silliness, they are growing up. By this time, it is near the war’s end and some of the boys risk brutal whippings from the guards to throw bread to the starving Jews who are being marched to the Dachau concentration camp near Munich. When Max gets ill, Liesel becomes his constant companion. She reads to him and they each write stories. It grows into a close and charming friendship.

While 500 pages makes The Book Thief a long book, somehow, one keeps turning the pages because there is a jewel of a sentence on each one. This is a beautifully written and very powerful read. Although Zusak aimed it at high school readers, since he felt strongly that young people should understand about those times, it will be appreciated by readers of any age. This book richly deserves the many awards it has received.

Margret Wellington is a second-year Florence Melton Adult Mini School student. She grew up in Germany during the war and can relate to all the characters in the book.

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