A story of love, death, thievery, and a little girl who lives on Himmel Street.
Imagine a life as a foster child. Imagine seeing your brother die and be buried in the snow in front of your own eyes, living with new parents, living with Nazi's everywhere, hiding a Jew in your basement, and stealing books. All of these things about a girl named Liesel. I highly recommend this book for high school students, it will really grasp their attention.
Liesel Meminger arrives on Himmel Street. She meets her foster parents, Papa (Hans Huberman) and her Mama (Rosa Huberman). She also meets a boy (Rudy) and a Jewish man (Max). Hans is a very important character in this book, he is wise, he has a great impact on Liesel and the story. Papa changes through out the story, he starts to show a lot of emotion, a lot of love towards Liesel and Max and he has a lot of personality. Rosa is Liesel's foster mother, she is very loud and mean through out the story, but as you read more and more, you understand that she has a lot of love and a big heart. Rudy, is Liesel's best friend and he is madly in love with her. Max, he is the Jew who lives in the basement, he has a great impact in Liesel's heart, he has an impact in her Papa and Mama's heart too. All of these characters in this book have a lot of emotions and personality.
As you know Liesel lives on Himmel Street. The Holocaust is happening at this time and her foster family is hiding a Jew in their basement. Now this is very dangerous to the Jew, Papa, Mama, and Liesel. If they get caught hiding this Jew their lives will be over. Their town is kind of poor and most men who live there are in a Nazi party, this town is known as Molching. This setting that Liesel lives in impacts her life a lot! It also impacts the people around her.
This story has a lot if imagery and figurative language. The author describes the sky and surroundings perfectly. The authors words can make you picture things as beautiful as you can imagine, the author can also describe a scenery as worse as hell itself. He tells a very emotional story, there are plenty of sad and devastating moments in this story, and there are some very happy moments in this book too. The language and vocabulary is very beautiful. It's sometimes hard to understand but, you just can't stop reading "The Book Thief". This book is very long but believe me it is worth it.
"The Book Thief", is probably the best book I have read and is by far my favorite book. So I highly recommend that teachers use this book to educate high school students. It will grab their attention and they will absolutely love this book.
