The Book Thief

Death is present in every aspect of this story. When we meet Liesel she has just witnessed her younger brother die, and then she leaves her biological mother forever. By the end of the novel, all but one of the important characters in Liesel's life have been killed. This book may help students who have similarly experienced loss in their life, putting the emotions of something so tragic into words. It may introduce students to an outlet for their healing, like Liesel's.https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/mary.warner/Engl112B_handouts/BookTalk_Fall2021/Laura%20Stefanko%20Book%20Talk%20Fall%202021%20112B%20.pd

Is there anything that surprised you in the research?MZ: When I find research really rewarding is when one piece of information gives you an idea for a story. That’s when it’s great. Not just to show what you know. Like when the kids play ball in the street I thought, “I’m going to try to find football players or soccer players from that time that they may have idolized.” I walked into the library and just lying there was a book on the Olympics. I saw this picture of Jesse Owens, and I thought, “I don’t need any more; I’ve got Jesse Owens.” And the very moment that Rudy paints himself black with charcoal and becomes Jesse Owens he becomes my favorite character and the one I cried for the most when I was writing the ending. I deliberately wrote that he was going to die earlier that he did to prepare the reader and myself for writing that at the end. Also everything Rudy does after that moment, when you know he’s going to die at the age of 14, everything is in the shadow of that.https://motherdaughterbookclub.com/2010/02/interview-with-markus-zusak-author-of-the-book-thief-and-i-am-the-messenger

How did you decide to use Death as the narrator?MZ: The decision to use Death as a narrator only came off the second time around; if I had stuck to publishing deadlines Liesel would probably be the narrator. I went from Death as narrator to Liesel telling the story herself to even trying third person. The real breakthrough was when I thought of the last line of the book. I was in down in Tasmania and there was water everywhere around me. I was reminded of the last line of a book called “A River Runs Through It,” which is, “I am haunted by waters.” I thought, “Aaaahhh, Death is afraid of us and haunted by us, because he is on hand to see all the terrible things we do to each other. It makes sense that he is telling the story to prove to himself that humans can be beautiful and selfless as well.”https://motherdaughterbookclub.com/2010/02/interview-with-markus-zusak-author-of-the-book-thief-and-i-am-the-messenger/

https://www.foolsmag.com/posts/2019/10/21/markus-zusakAn Afternoon with Markus Zusakby Mitchell GriffinI don’t read books twice. I never have. The plots can’t captivate me a second time through, their surprises and twists and turns, no matter how captivating they are, lose their magic. Even books I consider my absolute favorites rarely get opened after I finish them. They are resigned to my bookshelf for the rest of eternity. Markus Zusak is one of the few authors to have written something so wonderful that I read it cover to cover more than once. The Book Thief, which I first discovered in the sixth grade, instantly captivated me. I had no intention of ever putting it down. I tore through its pages, desperate to find out what would happen next to Liesel, the thief herself. Even though I first read it when I was twelve, I still haven’t stopped recommending it to others. I can only hope there are other parts of me that have changed since 2011.  I was anxious to see what Zusak was like in person. The two books of his I’ve actually finished were enough for me to be invested in wanting to like the persona he would show us. Luckily, afterward, I felt no reason to be disappointed. Speaking to us in the EPB’s Gerber Lounge to a room filled with fans, despite his mentioning of being nervous about what he could possibly say to a group of students from a college with Iowa’s literary reputation, Zusak had a cool confidence and light-heartedness that gripped my attention for every word. Zusak, him being a storyteller by trade, told us stories. One was a story from his childhood in Australia about the time he ruined Christmas for his family that filled the room with laughter, then proceeded to talk about the art of telling stories. He spoke of details that convince us that what we are hearing must be true, the way we remember stories, the way we take from our own lives in writing fiction, how he uses routines to guide his writing, how stories are what make up our lives.  I got to ask Zusak himself how he felt about responses to The Book Thief’s film and the changes from novel to screen. He said it was heartbreaking to hear some of the negative reactions, but that he had to understand the movie was crafted for a different audience. He said it was made in a way to shed light on parts of life in Nazi Germany in a broad sense, not to perfectly replicate what happened in the novel. I was genuinely interested in his response because I was heartbroken by the movie in a different way. Everyone knows that, by virtue of universal law, that the book is always better than the movie. In accordance with this rule, the movie shattered my heart because it was so very different from the novel in so many vital ways that I felt I was robbed of the chance to have my favorite novel also be my favorite movie. I had no intention of asking my question just to scrounge for closure, but his response gave it to me anyway. Zusak also spoke about his struggles with confidence as a writer. I loved the openness with which he spoke about his battles of believing in his own work and the endless cutting and rewriting of novels until they find an acceptable resting place as they are. I know I am far from the first or last writer to have serious Imposter Syndrome as they write and struggle to believe that the words they put together are worth anything. Yet, there is always something reassuring in hearing far superior writers, whether they be classmates or international best-sellers, talk about going through the same pains.He told us about a time early in his career of going to his publisher to ask for more time to work on his novel and running into an accomplished author. After yet another successful book, the author already had the confidence that his next book would be even better while Zusak said he was still struggling to believe what he endearingly referred to as his “pile of shit” story would ever make it. I know I won’t ever reach the accolades Zusak has, but when you meet an author who you’ve loved nearly half your life talk about combatting lack of confidence and embracing the chaos that is writing, it gives me a jolt of hope for my own little piles of shit.

I agree with the USA Today review of The Book Thief that asserts "[The Book Thief] deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank...Poised to become a classic" . The characters in this novel are so impeccably crafted, and combined with the narration style a reader can form a powerful emotional connection with every aspect of the story. Not only is the story set in an important moment of history that every student has the duty of remembering, the book's emphasis on the power of words sends an important message about the impact reading and writing have to transcend time, person, and place. There are universal themes of courage, friendship, love, and death that have the ability to resonate with any person that reads the novel. The book also poises several important questions to the reader, encouraging them to think critically about it. In the middle of the novel Death asks, "Did [the German people] deserve any better, these people?...The Germans in basements were pitiful, surely, but at least they had a chance...For those people, life was still achievable" (375-376). This novel advances young readers and contains all Exeter Study Qualities and nearly all Honor List Book Characteristics.https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/mary.warner/Engl112B_handouts/BookTalk_Fall2021/Laura%20Stefanko%20Book%20Talk%20Fall%202021%20112B%20.pdf