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Part Nine journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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Part Nine journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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TBD

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Part eight journal of the book  "The book thief" by Markus Zusak 

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Part eight journal of the book  "The book thief" by Markus Zusak 

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Nazi soldiers arrive at Rudy’s house, and while his siblings play dominoes, Rudy recalls an incident from earlier that week, when soldiers came to his school and forced him and two classmates to strip in front of the school nurse. The soldiers want to take Rudy to a special Nazi training school because of his athleticism and intelligence. Rudy’s father, Alex, refuses to let the soldiers take his son and volunteers in his son’s place. Hans, meanwhile, learns that his application to join the Nazi Party has been accepted, and that he is being drafted into the German army. Eventually Hans leaves for duty, telling Liesel to take care of Rosa and his accordion while he’s gone. After Rudy’s father leaves for duty, Rudy sets out walking, saying he wants to find and kill Hitler, but Liesel convinces him to turn back before they reach the edge of town. They visit Rudy’s father’s abandoned clothing shop but don’t go in. At night, Rosa holds Hans’s accordion.

Hans is sent to Essen, Germany, to serve in the Air Raid Special Unit, which rescues survivors of air raids and collects the bodies of the victims. Between air raids, the unit cleans the rubble from towns that have been bombed. During one raid, an old man dies in Hans’s arms and he trips over the corpse of a young boy. Meanwhile, back in Molching, Liesel wonders what’s happening to Hans, Max, and Rudy’s father. She continues reading to Frau Holtzapfel. That winter, the parades of Jews continue. Rudy and Liesel ride their bikes ahead of one of the parades, scattering bread for the prisoners. They then hide in the trees to watch. Liesel hopes to see Max. Instead, she and Rudy are caught by a soldier, who kicks her and tells her she doesn’t belong there.
Liesel continues reading out loud in the shelter during air raids. One day, after returning from the shelter, Rosa gives Liesel a book that Max left for her. The story is called “The Word Shaker,” and it is a collection of sketches and stories Max wrote about his life and Liesel’s. The first story describes Hitler realizing the power of words, and determining to use words to control the world. In the story, words grow on trees, as seeds, and word shakers climb the trees to shake down the seeds. One word shaker, a young girl, plants a seed that sprouted from a tear. The seed grows into a tall tree. When soldiers come to cut down the tree, the girl climbs to the top and refuses to leave. The soldiers’ axes have no effect on the tree. At last a man arrives in the forest with a hammer. He hammers nails into the tree, then climbs up to sit with the girl. When they come down, the tree falls at last. After reading the book, Liesel dreams of a tree. Christmas comes, and Liesel takes Rudy back to his father’s suit shop. They break in and steal a suit for Rudy. Rudy and Liesel almost kiss, but don’t.

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Part seven journal of the book  "The book thief" by Markus Zusak 

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Part seven journal of the book  "The book thief" by Markus Zusak 

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As the town of Molching comes to terms with the likelihood of being bombed, Hans finds his painting services in demand, as his neighbors need their blinds painted black for blackouts during bombings. Unfortunately, few of the town’s residents can afford to pay him, so they often barter for his services with food or cigarettes. Liesel accompanies Hans on his jobs, and when he is not painting he plays the accordion for them. One day they do work for some customers who pay them with Champagne, and Liesel vows never to drink Champagne again because it cannot possibly ever taste as good again. Rudy, meanwhile, trains for the upcoming Hitler Youth Carnival. He promises to win four gold medals, just like his idol Jesse Owens did during the 1936 Olympics. Rudy wins the first three races easily, but is disqualified from the fourth because of repeated false starts. After the carnival, Rudy confesses that he did it on purpose.

Liesel steals another book, A Song in the Dark, from the Hermann library. As the summer draws to a close, Rudy notices that a book has been propped in the window of the mayor’s house. Liesel steals it and discovers it is a dictionary. In it she finds a letter from Frau Hermann telling her that she is welcome to continue stealing books, but Frau Hermann hopes Liesel will someday come in through the front door instead of the window. At the end of the summer, Molching experiences its first air raid, and Liesel, Hans, and Rosa go to the neighbors’ house to take shelter in the basement. They have no choice but to leave Max behind.

In the shelter, many of Liesel’s neighbors are terrified. Liesel herself is terrified of what will happen to Max if their house is bombed. The raid warning ends, and Liesel, Rosa, and Hans return to their house, where Max confesses he took the opportunity to look out the windows, having not seen the outside world for nearly two years. During the next raid, Liesel calms herself by reading The Whistler out loud. Soon all the residents in the shelter are listening, and even after the all-clear siren sounds, the neighbors remain until Liesel finishes the chapter. A few days later one of their neighbors, Frau Holtzapfel, comes to the house and asks if Liesel will come over and read to her in the afternoons, in return for coffee. Although Rosa and Frau Holtzapfel are enemies, Rosa agrees, and Liesel begins reading several days a week.

A convoy of German trucks carrying Jews to the concentration camps at Dachau stops outside Molching, and the soldiers march the Jewish prisoners through the town. The residents come out of their houses to watch, and Liesel finds Hans in the crowd. An old man, struggling to keep up, falls repeatedly in the street. Hans takes a piece of bread from his paint can and offers it to the man. The man falls to his knees and embraces Hans’s feet in thanks, but before he can eat the bread a soldier arrives and begins whipping the man, then Hans. As the procession moves on, witnesses call Hans a Jew lover and knock over his paint cart. Hans realizes his actions have drawn suspicion and Max is no longer safe in the basement. The next night, Max leaves Himmel Street. He’s arranged to meet Hans in four days, but when Hans arrives at the appointed spot, he only finds a note, telling him he’s already done enough. Hans, filled with guilt for causing Max to leave, is also reviled by Frau Diller and other townspeople, who spit at him and call him a Jew lover. When the Gestapo do come, however, it is not to take Hans away, but Rudy.

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Part six journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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Part six journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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On Christmas Eve, Liesel builds a snowman in the basement for Max. Shortly afterwards, Max gets very sick and falls into a coma. Death comes to Himmel Street and visits Max but doesn’t take his soul. Liesel begins bringing him presents from the outside world, such as a pinecone, a feather, and a candy wrapper. One day, watching a cloud rise over the hills, papa suggests Liesel give Max the cloud as one of his presents. She memorizes what the cloud looks like, then writes the description on a piece of paper that she leaves by his bedside. She decides to read the rest of The Whistler to Max, telling herself that he will wake up once she’s finished the book, and reads the final chapters in one afternoon. Max still doesn’t wake up. Liesel and Rudy ride bikes to the mayor’s house, where the window is open. Liesel climbs through the window and steals another book, The Dream Carrier, which she selects because of the title’s relation to both her and Max’s recurring dreams. She and Rudy escape without being detected. Death suggests that perhaps the mayor’s wife, Frau Hermann, keeps the window open in hopes that Liesel will come back and steal another book.
Liesel begins reading the new book to Max, who remains unconscious. Rosa and Hans discuss what they will do if Max dies, and how they will dispose of the corpse without arousing suspicion from the neighbors. All members of the Hubermann household are aware of the fact that, with Max sick, there is extra food for the rest of them, though no one mentions this benefit. Liesel dreams, as usual, of her dead brother, but this time he turns into Max in the dream. Finally, in the middle of March, Max wakes up. Rosa comes to Liesel’s school, and pretending to be angry with her for using her hairbrush, takes her into the hall and tells her the news. Liesel is ecstatic. Death checks in from Cologne, where bombs have killed 500 people. Children collect the empty fuel tanks from the bombers. Death, working overtime, is exhausted, but knows the worst is yet to come.

In Molching, Nazi soldiers arrive and begin checking basements to see if they are deep enough to serve as bomb shelters. Liesel and Rudy are playing soccer when they come, and Liesel realizes she must warn Rosa, Hans, and Max, since Max lives in their basement. She intentionally gets injured in the game and cries for Hans. He takes her home and there is just time to warn Max but not enough time to hide him. A soldier arrives and checks the basement, but doesn’t see Max, who has hidden. Summer arrives. Death describes the sky as “the color of Jews.” He takes the souls of a group of French Jews in a German prison in Poland. Above the Jew-colored clouds, he says, the sun is “blond” and the sky is a “giant blue eye.”

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Part Five journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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Part Five journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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The section opens with Death announcing that Rudy will die in less than two years but not explaining how. The action switches back to Himmel Street, where Liesel assists in cutting Max’s hair. She then goes to the mayor’s house to continue reading The Whistler. When the mayor’s wife offers her the book, Liesel declines, and says she is content to read a few pages each time she delivers the laundry. As usual, she searches garbage cans for newspapers with empty crosswords for Max. She also begins describing the weather to him, which he illustrates by painting on the basement wall. When he is alone, Max does push-ups to regain his strength and fantasizes about boxing Hitler. He describes this fantasy to Liesel, and together Hans, Rosa, Liesel and Max paint over the remaining pages of MKPF so Max can write another book.
In June of 1941, Germany invades Russia, and Russia allies itself with Britain. As a result, the mayor of Molching writes an editorial urging townspeople to prepare for hard times. The next time Liesel visits the mayor’s wife, Frau Hermann, she gives Liesel a letter for Rosa, informing her they can no longer afford to send out their washing. Frau Hermann also gives Liesel The Whistler and says she is still welcome to come and read in the library. Outraged, Liesel screams at Frau Hermann, telling her to get over the death of her son, and throws the book at her feet. Back at home, she takes the blame for Rosa being fired, but Rosa doesn’t believe her. Meanwhile, Rudy is continuing to attend his Hitler Youth meetings, along with the hearing-impaired Tommy Müller. Precision is very important to the Hitler Youth leaders, but because Tommy can’t hear the command to stop when they are marching, he often marches into the boy in front of him, disrupting the procession. When Rudy tries to stand up for Tommy, they both get assigned laps and push-ups on a muddy field.

Rudy and Liesel return to their apple-stealing activities, but the gang has a new leader, Viktor Chemmel, who takes a disliking to them. Rudy continues to be terrorized by his sadistic Hitler Youth leader, Franz Deutscher, who forces him to do push-ups in cow manure. Hoping to cheer him up, Liesel takes him to the mayor’s house, where the library window has been left open. Telling Rudy she is going to steal food, Liesel climbs in the window, but instead returns with The Whistler. A few days later, Rudy tries to steal a potato but is caught by the grocer. He runs into Deutscher on the street, and when he refuses to answer when Hitler’s birthday is, Deutscher beats him up and cuts his hair off with a knife. After this, Rudy stops attending the Hitler Youth meetings. Liesel and Rudy return to the gang of apple thieves. Viktor Chemmel sees The Whistler in Liesel’s hand and grabs it and throws it in the river. Rudy jumps in and saves the book for Liesel. He asks her for a kiss in return, but as always, she refuses.

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Part Four journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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Part Four journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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Max arrives at the Hubermann household and is greeted by Hans. The story flashes back to World War I, when Hans was a 22-year-old soldier fighting in France. He befriended a German Jew named Erik Vandenburg who played the accordion. Erik taught Hans to play. One morning Erik volunteered Hans for the task of writing letters for the captain. While Hans wrote the letters, the rest of the men in his platoon went into battle. All of the men were killed, including Erik. Feeling he owed Erik his life, Hans carried Erik’s accordion for the duration of the war, then tracked down Erik’s widow and young son to return the instrument when the war was over. Erik’s widow told him he could keep the accordion. He told Erik’s widow that if she ever needed anything, she should look him up. Later, as Hitler rose to power and began persecuting Jews, Hans remembered his Jewish friend, and how he’d saved Hans’s life. But after years of losing business because of his sympathy towards Jews, Hans relented and applied to join the Nazi party. But on the way home from turning in his application, he saw men throwing bricks into the window of a Jewish clothing shop and writing “Jewish filth” on the door. He returned to the Nazi headquarters, broke the window with his fist, and said he could no longer join the Party. He was placed on the waiting list, and because he was a good housepainter and accordionist, he was generally left alone and not forced to confront his conscience, until a man stopped him in the street and asked if he would keep his promise to help the Vandenburg family.
Back in the present, Max, who is Erik’s son and now 24, is let in to the Hubermanns’ house. The story flashes back once again, to tell the history of Max Vandenburg. Like Liesel, he grew up unafraid to use his fists, and fought regularly with whoever would take him on. He frequently fought a boy named Walter Kugler, and over the years they became close friends. On the night of November 9, 1939, Nazi soldiers stormed the streets of Germany, breaking windows and looting Jewish businesses in a nationwide attack that would be known as Kristallnacht (“the night of broken glass”). Walter, dressed in a Nazi uniform, arrived at Max’s house and told him he had to leave immediately to escape arrest. Max said goodbye to his mother and the rest of his family, and followed Walter to the empty storeroom where he would hide for the next two years until Walter brought him the copy of MKPF with the false identity card, the map, and the key to Hans Hubermann’s house. When Max arrives at the Hubermanns’, Rosa feeds him soup and puts him to bed in Liesel’s room. The next day, Hans takes Liesel to the basement and explains his connection to Max and reminds her of her promise to keep a secret. Max sleeps for three days, and when he wakes he moves to the basement.

The household gradually adjusts to Max’s presence, as Rosa, Hans, and Liesel take turns bringing him food. As winter arrives, it becomes too cold for Max to sleep in the basement, so he begins sleeping in the house at night, then returning to the basement during the day. At night, Liesel continues having nightmares about her dead brother, while Max has nightmares about Hitler and the family he left behind. They compare nightmares, and Liesel decides she is old enough to cope with hers without Hans staying with her anymore. She begins stealing newspapers from trash bins to bring to Max, searching for ones with the crossword still blank. Liesel turns twelve, and Hans and Rosa give her a book, but Max has no present for her. For a week, she is forbidden from entering the basement. At the end of the week, Max gives Liesel her birthday present. He has removed pages of MKPF, painted over the words with Hans’s white house paint, and written his own illustrated story on the white pages. The story is called The Standover Man and describes the different people who have stood over Max in his life, ending with Liesel, who stood over him as he slept and became his friend.

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Part Three journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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Part Three journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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Hans sees the book that Liesel stole from the bonfire. He promises not to tell Rosa, and in return Liesel promises to keep a secret for him if he ever asks. Liesel identifies the person with fluffy hair who saw her take the book as the mayor’s wife, Ilsa Hermann, and begins avoiding the mayor’s house on her rounds picking up and delivering washing. When Liesel finally summons the courage to go to the mayor’s house, Frau Hermann invites her into the library, where Liesel marvels at the room filled with books. The narrative switches to the town of Stuttgart, where a Jewish man named Max is hiding in a secret storage room, sitting on his suitcase in the dark, starving. A man brings him carrots, stale bread, and a piece of fat, and tells Max he may have gotten him an identity card. When the man leaves, Max eats a portion of the food and resumes his wait.

On Himmel Street, Liesel and Hans make their way through The Shoulder Shrug, which features a Jewish hero and is therefore unacceptable to the Nazis. Liesel continues going to the mayor’s house, and begins reading in on the floor in the library. She finds a book on the shelf with the name Johann Hermann written inside. Frau Hermann tells her that he was her son, and he died on the battlefield during World War I. Liesel tells Frau Hermann she is sorry for her loss. When she is not reading with Hans or delivering laundry, Liesel plays soccer with Rudy. Because of wartime rationing, Rudy and Liesel rarely have enough to eat and are hungry all the time. They fall in with a gang of kids who steal apples from an orchard on the outskirts of town. The first time they steal apples, Liesel eats six in a row, and later gets sick, though she considers the upset stomach worth it. On another occasion, she and Rudy find a coin in the road and take it to Frau Diller’s candy shop. Frau Diller mocks them for only being able to afford one small piece of candy, which they share, lick for lick, outside the shop.

Max has come out of hiding and is on a train, clutching the book he was given with the identity card taped inside. The book is MKPF. Terrified of being caught, he takes the train from Stuttgart to Munich, sweating and worrying the entire way. He pretends to read MKPF so he will not arouse suspicion on the train. Along with the fake identity card, he has a map, a key, and the remainder of his food. Meanwhile, Liesel and Rudy continue their thieving. One cold day they go so far as to pour water on the road where a delivery boy rides his bicycle, then wait for him to crash. They steal the food he was delivering, which they share with the other kids in the stealing ring. A few weeks later the leader of the stealing ring gives Liesel and Rudy a bag of chestnuts, which they sell door to door. They take their substantial earnings back to Frau Diller’s candy shop, where they buy a whole bag candy. Max arrives in Molching, and following his map, makes his way to the Hubermanns’ house. He takes the key from his pocket and prepares to enter.

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Part two journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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Part two journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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Germans, Death declares, love to burn things. He points as evidence to the upcoming celebration of Hitler’s birthday, April 20, during which the residents of Molching will burn books by non-Aryan authors. Meanwhile, Liesel is becoming more accomplished in her reading and writing and is rewarded at Christmas with two books that Hans traded cigarettes for. Liesel continues helping Rosa deliver the washing, but with war becoming more of a reality, many of Rosa’s customers discontinue their patronage. Rosa decides to send Liesel on her own to pick up and deliver laundry, assuming the customers will be less likely to tell a young girl they can no longer afford to send out their washing. As an assignment for school, Liesel writes a letter to her mother, and begins waiting for a reply. The social worker who delivered Liesel to the Hubermanns arrives and informs Liesel that she has lost contact with Liesel’s mother, but Liesel continues to hope for a response to her letter.

On the day of Hitler’s birthday, the town decorates the streets with German flags and Nazi swastikas. When the Hubermanns can’t find their flag, Rosa frets that the Nazis will come and take them away. But at last the flag is found in time for the parade. The Hubermanns’ children, Hans Jr. and Trudy, come home for the celebration, and Hans Jr. fights with his father about Hitler. The older Hans has been called “the Jew painter” for painting over slurs written on Jewish shop fronts. Hans Jr. thinks it is a dangerous mistake for Hans not to be more aggressive in his application to join the Nazi party, and accuses his father of not caring about Germany. Seeing Liesel reading quietly, he asserts that she should be reading MKPF instead. Calling his father a coward, he storms out of the house.

After a parade by the Hitler Youth, carts of books, newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, and posters considered unsympathetic to the Nazi Party are wheeled into the town square and arranged in a pile. As a Nazi official rails against Jews and Communists, Liesel connects what happened to her parents to Hitler and his policies. As she struggles to get out of the crowd, she sees her classmate, Ludwig Schmeikl, who is trapped with a hurt ankle. She helps him escape, and he apologies for teasing her. The bonfire is lit. Hans finds Liesel as the flames burn, and she informs him she hates Hitler. He slaps her across the face, and tells her she must never say such a thing in public. They practice saluting Hitler. As the fire burns itself out and darkness falls, Liesel notices a book that has not been burned. While the soldiers tending the fire are not paying attention, she sneaks forward and steals the book, hiding it in her shirt. Only after she has the book does she realize she has been observed by a figure with fluffy hair. The book is called The Shoulder Shrug and it burns her inside her shirt as she walks home with Papa.

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Part one journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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Part one journal of the book "The book thief"  by Markus Zusak 

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Death introduces himself as the narrator of the book. He describes his work and his preference for a chocolate brown sky when he collects people’s souls. He lists the main elements of the story to come, and reveals that he has seen the main character, the book thief, three times. The first time he saw her was on a train where he had come to collect the soul of a small boy. The book thief watched him take the boy with tears frozen to her face. The next time Death saw the book thief was years later, when a pilot had crashed his plane. Death arrived for the pilot’s soul and watched as a boy took a teddy bear from a toolbox and gave it to the pilot. The third time he saw the book thief, a German town had been bombed. The book thief was sitting on a pile of rubble, holding a book. Death followed the book thief for a while, and when she dropped her book, he picked it up. The book thief is nine-year-old Liesel Meminger. She and her younger brother, Werner, are traveling by train with their mother towards Munich, where they will live with a foster family. As the book thief dreams of Adolph Hitler, Werner dies suddenly.

Liesel and her mother get off the train with Werner’s body at the next station and bury him in the town. One of the gravediggers drops a book, and Liesel, who has been digging in the snow, picks it up. Liesel and her mother continue on to Munich, then to a suburb called Molching. Liesel’s new foster parents live on Himmel Street, in Molching. Himmel translates as heaven, though the town is neither hellish nor heavenly. Liesel meets her new foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Because her mother is sick and her father has been taken away for being a Communist, Liesel understands that the Hubermanns represent a form of salvation for her, but at first she is very wary of them, especially Frau Hubermann, who calls Liesel saumench, meaning “pig girl.” Liesel’s stepfather, Hans, is a housepainter who wins her over by teaching her how to roll cigarettes for him and playing his accordion for her. After a few weeks, Frau Hubermann instructs Liesel to call her and her husband Mama and Papa. Liesel complies.

From the beginning of her time with the Hubermanns, Liesel is plagued by nightmares of her dead brother. Often she wakes up screaming, and Papa comforts her. During the day, Liesel attends school, where she is forced to study with the younger children because she is behind in her education. In February, Liesel turns ten, and is given a damaged doll by the Hubermanns. She also receives a brown uniform, and is enrolled in the Hitler Youth, where she learns to ‘heil Hitler,’ or salute Hitler, as well as marching, sewing, and rolling bandages. Mama begins taking Liesel along with her when she collects washing from the neighbors in Molching, and soon Liesel is making the deliveries herself. Liesel begins meeting her neighbors on Himmel Street, including her next door neighbor Rudy Steiner. Rudy is obsessed with the African-American track star Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Prior to Liesel’s arrival on Himmel Street, Rudy covered himself with charcoal and ran laps around the local track, and as a result the neighbors think he’s a bit crazy. Though Rudy and Liesel initially argue over a soccer game, they soon become best friends. Smitten with Liesel, Rudy suggests they race, and if he wins, he gets a kiss. They both fall in the mud as they run though and Liesel refuses to kiss him.

One night, following a demonstration by members of the Nazi Party, Liesel has another nightmare about her brother and wets the bed. When Papa comes to change the sheets, he finds the book Liesel stole from the gravedigger who buried her brother. The book is called “The Grave Digger’s Handbook.” When Papa discovers Liesel can barely read, he begins teaching her the alphabet by writing on the back of a piece of sandpaper. The lessons progress, and Papa begins taking Liesel with him during the day to study by the river. In September, Hitler invades Poland and Liesel tries to read in front of her class at school, but ends up reciting from “The Grave Digger’s Handbook” instead. When her classmate Ludwig Schmeikl taunts her in the schoolyard, she beats him up, then beats up another classmate, Tommy Müller, because she thinks he’s laughing at her. Overcome with sadness about her failed reading attempt, the death of her brother, and everything that has happened in the past few months, Liesel breaks down, and Rudy comforts her.