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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - Coggle Diagram
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Thesis: Markus Zusak does not only do a great job at telling stories, but he also does an excellent job explaining what it was like to live during World War II and showing the real-life struggles families went through every day to survive.
page 139: talks about a hungry jew hiding in the dark.
page 150: hunger leads to rudy and liesel stealing fruit from farmers
pages 185-186: max arrives at their house. liesel describes him as looking weak and tired.
page 314: max gets sick and collapses
page 372: sires go off to take cover because of potential bombing.
page 391: liesel describes the jews walking down the street and what they look like
page 394: hans gets whipped for giving jews bread
page 417: hans getting forced to go to war
page 479: hans broke his leg so he gets to return home
pages 512-513: liesel saw max walking with all the jews and ran to him. they both get whipped
pages 531-538: her town gets bombed and everyone she loves died but she survived.
a quote from the book explaining how bad it was to be a jew: “You could argue that Liesel Meminger had it easy. She did have it easy compared to Max Vandenburg. Certainly, her brother had practically died in her arms. Her mother abandoned her. But anything was better than being a Jew.”
Liesel: Main character
Hans Hubberman: Foster Dad
Rosa Hubberman: Foster Mom
Rudy Steiner: Bestfriend
Max Vandenburg: The Jew
Death: Narrator
death is portrayed a lot in the story, from the beginning all the way to the end.
her little brother dies in the beginning and her foster family and friends die in the end. death is always there to take them away.
Setting: Molching Germany
during World War II
Genre: Historical Fiction
The title is the book thief because Liesel was fascinated with books and was learning how to read with them. She stole them and started to become called the book thief by her friend Rudy.
stole her first book at her brothers funeral: the grave diggers handbook. even though she didn't know how to read then.
books are so important because they were being burned during this time. on hitlers birthday there was a bonfire of burning books and thats where liesel stole her second book.
title of books she stole:
the grave diggers handbook
faust the dog and the lighthouse
got these two books for christmas
the shoulder shrug
mein kampf
hans buys this for her but she never read it
the dream carrier
a song in the dark
the complete duden dictionary and thesaurus
the last human stranger
the standover man and the word shaker
max wrote these for liesel and gave them to her
the mud men
given to liesel for her birthday
Possible Themes
the power of words
words were such a major part of this book: liesel loved words, but hated them in the end of the book because of everyones deaths.
the kindness and cruelty of humans
talking about the Nazi's and Hitler
the responsibility of the living to the dead
symbols in the book:
Liesle's relationship with books
Liesel’s development from a powerless girl to a more mature, empowered young woman is symbolized by her relationship to books. At the beginning of the book she is a young girl who can't read and is powerless. She gets made fun of in class for it and is very immature. In the end of the book she can read and is much more mature and powerful. Ultimately books become a refuge for Liesel and a way for her to exercise some control of her own in the midst of the highly controlling Nazi regime and the chaos of war.
Han's accordian
Hans’s accordion represents his debt to Erik Vandenburg, the friend who saved his life, and the responsibility he feels to live because Erik didn’t. He plays it to honor his life because his was taken instead of Hans.
The bread
Giving bread is an act of selflessness in the novel, and it represents the kindness that people are capable of. During this time hate was a very big thing and the bread symbolizes how there is still kindness in the world.