By Markus Zusak
The book Thief written by an Australian author named Markus Zusak, was published in 2005. The Book thief is a historical novel based on world war II,the time of the holocaust. This novel runs around a 10 year old german girl named Liesel, an abandoned and to be seen adopted only child, who goes through and witnesses some horrific events. Liesel gets further care from her firm hard loving and working mother, and gentle understanding father. This novel is narrated by death.
The book thief tells a story of WWII through the eyes of a young teenage german girl. It is important to look at history through many viewpoints, and the book thief is a very sad as well as moving story. This text not only tells a very moving story, but it really made me feel emotions with and for Liesel. Not only made me feel sad for Liesel, but made me feel sadness and horror of the war, and what people used to put each other through. The story’s use of sadness and mixed emotions made me feel in a way connected to Liesel. The Book Thief too represents many qualities within a person. With Liesel being only 10 years old and newly rehomed enters such a dark period known as the Holocaust, you get to feel how she felt. I would recommend this text because it opens your eyes to the innocence of a portion of the lives stolen during the war. Liesel’s friend Rudy was cheeky, young, a little mean, but overall he was innocent, so for him to have his life taken so early is heartbreaking. Rudy being one of the hundreds of thousands. The book makes you feel a lot of emotions, and perhaps could change your perspective on the war, and open your eyes a little more.
This text teaches me about the capacity we have for kindness and compassion. In the book thief, Liesel and the other characters are suffering in their own country, as germans under the Nazi rule of WWII, yet they never lose their ability to show love to their follow humans. For example, in the case of Hans Hubermann, when he gives bread to a starving Jew on a death march to a concentration camp, they are brutally punished for showing any kindness. The world we live in today is filled with different tensions then the ones Liesel and her family suffered in 1939, but our world is still filled with war, violence, corruption, and hatred. This text shows me that no matter the time period we live in, humans are still pretty much all the same. That despite the darkness and violence around us and produced by some, there are those who love and show kindness. All though it is a very sad, emotional story and book, it gives us hope for those who love genuinely.
The book thief not only relates to germans and jewish people, but to everyone of the time of WWII and the german raid for jews. It relates back to me in a way where if I was in Liesel’s shoes or any other girl my age, how hard it would be. There were kids my age who were scared of leaving their house in the middle of the day during the era of WWII. Jewish or german, there were opposing threats around every corner. There were kids my age who had to get used to trauma and disaster, as it was constantly happening around them. Like Liesel losing her brother on their way to their new foster home, disasters changing her life. I couldn’t imagine losing someone close to me in the blink of an eye. I couldn’t live with the fear of leaving my front door, or if I was jewish the need to be hidden in a basement to avoid being taken away. This was reality to many young kids my age in these times.
The book thief relates back to the world in a historical way, where this young girl Liesel’s life was a harsh reality to many young girls. This book’s time is set back in the mid WWII, where hitler was trying to rid the population of jewish blood. At age ten, Liesel had gone through many traumatic events that would affect her life forever.
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