"I am haunted by..." The Book Thief

* * * RENEWSTEW DICTIONARY MEANING #1 * * *

haunted--

preoccupied, as with an emotion, memory, or idea; obsessed OR disturbed; distressed; worried

 

The last note from our omniscient narrator, Death:  "I am haunted by humans" (550).  When I finished the other books we read this semester, I was able to immediately put my thoughts into words.  But with this book, I sit and wait for the words to come.  Ironically, words are such a key symbol throughout the book.  And so I'll struggle in my blog.  I cannot do this book justice in any of my writing, so I'll just simply state:  this... book.. was... so... goooooooood.  I am haunted.  Maybe I'll try to rewrite my submission tomorrow as I'm in that state of silence, regret, and sorrow when you finish reading a good book; it's hard to write.

In The Book Thief, Death narrates the story of Liesel Meminger as she navigates through desolating and devastating sorrows that occur in her young life in WWII Nazi Germany: the death of her brother, the absence of her real mother.  She finds love and friendship again through her foster parents, her friend Rudy, and the Jewish "fighter" Max hidden by her new family in their basement.  Yet, she again moves on to desolation and devastation with the events in the end of the book and the total decimation of most of the love in her life.  The book--character, plot, symbolism--provides moving insight into a perspective of Nazi Germany that is painful, startling yet passionately brave.  "The sun stirs the earth.  Around and around, it stirs us, like stew" (519).  As Liesel watches the Jews march down the road to Dachau, “to concentrate” (388), she notes that "The world is an ugly stew,...so ugly I can't stand it" (520). 

It was very, very hard to put the book down, and I loved that.

At nine years of age Liesel arrives in Molching Germany on the train with The Grave Digger's Handbook, a book she stole from the burial site of her brother.  As we progress through Liesel's story as she adjusts to her new life in her foster home, we track life in WWII and the rise of Hitler.  We also see Liesel's struggle to learn to read; we journey with her in her pursuit to steal books.  She even steals from the mayor's library.  She steals a dictionary and begins tracking words:  happiness, forgiveness, fear, word, opportunity, misery, silence, and regret.  As she progresses in her literacy, in her knowledge of atrocities, and in her pain--Liesel frames her world with these words: "I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right" (528).  She manages to escape and live but her words are also used to poignantly experience the enduring losses that weave through her life.  Yet she lives and experiences joy through her new “sight” in living and literacy.

There's really so much you could write about and explore with students in this book:  Death as the narrator/use of foreshadowing? Liesel as a character of hope?  The power/symbol of words?  Characters?  The title of the book and Liesel's pursuit of books?  themes? 

It's a long book and yes, it covers some violent/difficult themes.  It's probably more appropriate for later years of high school.  But, it's an intriguing, gripping read, and I think students will become engaged in the writing and in the history surrounding the period of the text.  With this book students will want to immerse themselves in the thievery (book thief), analyze the dreams and failed dreams it addresses (dream carrier), and “shake out” their own words as they write on key themes it explores (word shaker). 
I can really see class discussion taking off.  Thanks for putting this book on our syllabus!

Check out interesting video of Markus Zusak talking about the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Thief-Markus-Zusak/dp/0375842209