Thoughts on: The Book Thief

This book is, by far, my favorite book so far this semester. I became emotionally involved with these characters. It took me about a week to finish it, and each night I would be anxious to see what happened to Rudy and Liesel. I saw all of the forshadowing, and "Death" even comes outright and talks about parts of the ending, but in my mind, I still hoped that somehow everything would turn out alright.

I wonder how many stories from the point of the Germans during World War II there are. It almost seemed strange, because I have this perception that all of the Germans were in on it from the beginning. Most books focus on those who are being dominated by the Germans who step out and try to help someone else being even more oppressed, but I guess I never thought about it happening in Germany, too. I became sympathetic towards the town and its people. Even Rudy, who wasn't even in on the plot to save the Jewish man, was a sympathetic character. I think the author used children as the main characters because we are more likely to see them as innocent and sympathetic while we might automatically assume that the adults were already corrupted by Nazism.

I also found the narrator--Death--to be absolutely fascinating. He is omniscient in that he is outside of the story, and so his blunt details about what will happen and what he will see is incredibly effective. In the end, I struggled with how the whole street could be blown to bits-it frustrated me to no end. Why would the author even create Rudy if he was going to kill him off in the end? Why does he spend so much time letting us get aquainted with that character who wants to be a runner and who likes to get into trouble with Liesel and who is her ever faithful friend (though he wants to kiss her) if he is just going to be another casualty? But this is relevant to the war that is going on around them. How many children, even younger than Rudy, died during the war? How many were forced to join the army and fight for something they didn't even understand or believe in? Who is it that said "war is hell" ? So often, I think of World War II from the position of a spectator who isn't even personally connected with it. This book is perfect for people who need to see it as something that is relevant and personal. I think students would find it difficult to deal with at first--it is a hard and depressing subject--but if we ignore the issue, we may find ourselves back there in the first place.

I was reading my book report book and the author talked about how he taught the book "Night." He got in contact with the local synagogue and found out that some of the survivors from the Holocaust were living nearby. The teacer contacted the woman, and even though she had never spoken about her experience after the fact, she wanted to talk to the class because she had heard some people say that what happened to her had never really happened. One of the most touching parts of this story was when the kids asked to touch her arm--and the numbers tattoed on it from the Nazi camp. Something they had heard about was now something they could experience.

If I were teaching this, I would think about showing a few clips from the movie "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas." It is also a very sad story, but again, it is told from the perspective of a German family. The mother first tries to ignore the fact that her husband is running a concentration camp--and many lies are told about how it is really a "work camp" and how the Jews are benefitting from it--but they experience its horror first hand. (I won't give away the ending in case someone hasn't seen this movie yet).