After a small collection of minutes, the smoke exhausted itself. There was nothing left to give. A boy arrived first, with cluttered breath and what appeared to be a toolbox. With great trepidation, he approached the cockpit and watched the pilot, gauging if he was alive, at which point, he still was. The book thief arrived perhaps thirty seconds later. Years had passed, but I recognized her. She was panting. From the toolbox, the boy took out, of all things, a teddy bear. He reached in through the torn windshield and placed it on the pilot’s chest. The smiling bear sat huddled among the crowded wreckage of the man and the blood. A few minutes later, I took my chance. The time was right. I walked in, loosened his soul, and carried it gently away. All that was left was the body, the dwindling smell of smoke, and the smiling teddy bear. As the …show more content…
The man, in comparison, was the color of bone. Skeleton-colored skin. A ruffled uniform. His eyes were cold and brown—like coffee stains—and the last scrawl from above formed what, to me, appeared an odd, yet familiar, shape. A signature. The crowd did what crowds do. As I made my way through, each person stood and played with the quietness of it. It was a small concoction of disjointed hand movements, muffled sentences, and mute, self-conscious turns. When I glanced back at the plane, the pilot’s open mouth appeared to be smiling. A final dirty joke. Another human punch line. He remained shrouded in his uniform as the graying light arm-wrestled the sky. As with many of the others, when I began my journey away, there seemed a quick shadow again, a final moment of eclipse—the recognition of another soul gone. You see, to me, for just a moment, despite all of the colors that touch and grapple with what I see in this world, I will often catch an eclipse when a human dies. I’ve seen millions of them. I’ve seen more eclipses than I care to
The Book Thief is about a young German girl named Liesel Meminger as she goes through life while living in Germany in 1939. Liesel and her foster parents live a normal life on 33 Himmel Street. There is only one difference between their family and the others, they are hiding Max Vandenburg (a Jewish man) in their basement during the time of the Holocaust. This story, narrated by Death follows the life of Liesel from her first step into 33 Himmel Street, until the day she died in Sydney, Australia.
I have read many books throughout my years but none has been quite like Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. Many authors give the readers dull, pointless stories that are hard to get into but not Zusak; Zusak gives the readers a feeling that they are in or taking part in the story. The best type of book is one that you can’t put down; because of the writing style of Markus Zusak's, The Book Thief is one of those books. By the use of literary devices, an omniscient point of view, and not keeping the order of the events necessarily straight Zusak makes his writing different and more intriguing than other authors. A lot of authors barely ever use literary devices and if they use them it’s always the same type of device, but Zusak uses an abundant amount of different literary devices per page.
Markus Zusak’s novel, The Book Thief, tells the heart-wrenching story of Liesel Meminger, a German girl, as she navigates adolescence in Nazi Germany. With his convincing depiction of the time, it could be said that Zusak worked within the conventions of realistic fiction were it not for his otherworldly narrator—Death. Death traditionally marks the end of a story, so Zusak’s decision to begin his novel with Death’s voice piqued my interest. This interest was intensified by Death’s unique characterization—he is personified, yet retains his inhuman features. This incongruity in conjunction with the aberrant choice in narrator raised the question:
Liesel most definitely could have trusted Rudy with the secret of having Max hidden in her basement. Rudy was clearly Liesel’s best friend and partner in crime when Liesel was doing her acts of thievery stealing the books from the mayor’s wife bookself. The devotion to Liesel Rudy also had was strong and I believe Liesel could have trusted Rudy.
Historically, people have used literacy to obtain political power. In the novel The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, it is evident that books, reading, and words themselves represent power for different characters in different ways. Close analysis of Liesel Meminger and Max Vandenburg reveals that power can be achieved through literacy in a context where literacy is severely limited.
explores her love of books and her thrive to steal she is acquainted with a Jew, who comes to
We slowly drove out to the faster speed limit part of the lake, once there I was given a small briefing about hand signals. Gracye’s Dad told me, “Thumb down means slower, thumb up means faster, and hand horizontal means perfect.” After the briefing we got our life jackets on and literally jumped from the boat to the tubes which were now almost out of reach, quickly trailing behind the boat. The rope attached to the tube was quicklypulled out very far and was tightly being pulled from behind the boat, me on the biggest tube in the middle and Gracye on the smaller one on the right of me. We got to a moderately fast pace for me and it ended up not being as frightening as I thought it would be. Her Dad had started picking up the speed by this time and I was beginning to get scared. I signaled to have him slow down and he ended up slowing down after five minutes, or so I thought, but he was just winding the boat up for a whip which while happening, I was holding on for dear life and I felt my life flash before my
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak shows through the midst of brutality, beauty can still be shown. The main characters Liesel Meminger, Rudy Steiner and Hans Huberman, prove this statement they are all faced with perilous situations, but still manage to show beauty throughout the situations. Liesel Meminger display beauty during the air raids, as she manages to read to people in the basement. Rudy Steiner displays beauty he jumps in the river to get Liesel’s book. Through Hans Huberman nobel character he displays beauty as he risks his life to hide a Jewish man in his basement.
I’m bound into a vicious cycle of obscurity so deep that the choice was luminous. I seem less than myself, but at the same time, I can feel relaxed- even self-righteous, believing that I, a mere mortal, am immanent within this existing plane… And, I ask, Why must we face reality and not become lost in the gray abyss of our mind when it returns to the dawn of darkness from whence it came? Truly, it is comforting there…
My eyes widened at the sight I found before I felt my face splitting into a smile that stretched from ear to
Teachers and parents always remind children that creativity is important, however as children grow up the same people that told them to imagine takes their innocence and creativity right out from under them. In The Book Thief Liesel lives a life with pure knowledge of what is going on in her surroundings. Yet, she manages to keep her innocence just like Jonathan does in Life Is Beautiful. If two children going through such a tragic time can keep their creativity and innocence, how can teenagers and young adults lose theirs so quickly?
The Book Thief, written by an Australian author, Markus Zusak, is a devastatingly powerful historical-fiction novel that bears several re-readings. Being one of the greatest, most divinely-written epilogues in my school library, The Book Thief, is a soul-shattering, thought-provoking story that undoubtedly can be recommended to the young and old alike. This poignant, prolonged, but achingly sad book, is the pinnacle of contemporary historical-fiction, poised to become a classic. Phenomenally breathtaking, and inspiring, bringing nothing but anticipatory dread, this lyrical, surreal book, though depressingly morbid at times, was my “gateway” to historical-fiction. The tribulations and trials provided in the novel, had inevitable passion, perspective
Words are more influential than thought. Words can have such a powerful impact on how you interpret things, how you feel, and how you can make others feel as well. The word choice used in The Book Thief demonstrates many themes throughout such as death, friendship, guilt, reason, and the struggle between ones inner self and the society in which he is surrounded. As complex as this may sound, the method was used in a simplistic fashion to construct the meaning and details of certain situations through the senses that ultimately capture how the characters take in the world around them. The power of words in the novel The Book Thief is used to control individuals and gain power if rooted from bad intentions; however, the power of words also
Death states that, “I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both” (Zusak 491). This book shows us human doing things that weren’t even imaginable before this point. Many people give into ideas that were lies. But, we also watch a few people go out of their way and sacrifice everything for a man they barely even know. They do everything they can to keep him safe and alive. They work harder, the get another job, and they even steal. In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, death examines the ugliness and the beauty of humans.
The puffs of smoke expelled through his breaths and slowly floated down to his oversized stomach, that was filled with alcohol. Sweat beaded around his armpits out of nervousness from the prior events, his face paled. For the first time I felt mildly repulsed by looking at someone I love.