The Book Thief, Book Four, The Standover Man

The Man who Needs an Accordion 

The son of Hans Huberman's old friend from World War II, or at the time the Great War, comes to visit the accordionist at his house.  Hans is very fortunate for having Erik Vanderburg at his side because he keep him out of battle the day when if Hans did he would die.  Erik Vanderburg and his family were Jewish,  the son, Max needed somebody to hide him from the Nazis and he finds the Hubermans.

A History of Max

Max Vanderburg liked to fight at the local playground, his first fight was against Wenzel Gruber.   Max also came from a family that was very poor and went broke.  Hans Huberman managed to get the fighter to his house so he could hide.

Max and Liesel

Max and Liesel have a special relationship with each other, as both have families who are dead or in a concentration camp.  Also they both have a nightmare almost every night, like to fight, and have came to the Hubermans for safety.  Max made a short story for Liesel about how Max feels about other people and his feelings about Liesel.

The Book Thief: Book Two and Three, 
The Thief Strikes

More Books for the Thief 
Liesel stole the book The Shoulder Shrug from a German book burning of books that had ideas, characters, or themes that Hitler didn't agree with.  The thief stole a book from a pile of books that had ideas that Hitler didn't support giving her the power to rise over Nazi propaganda.

Hans Huberman also got Liesel two books for Christmas, the proud papa gave his daughter the books from a trade with a gypsy for some of Hans' prized hand rolled cigarettes.  The two books didn't have not approved of messages like The Shoulder Shrug, but they were still books and Liesel loved to read.


Letters to Mama
In a project for school Liesel must write a letter, she then decides to make a letter to her birth mother.  Liesel then takes money from her house cleaning jobs to pay the postage.  Sadly, she will never be written back to because mama is in a concentration camp, in Nazi Germany and possibly dead.


The Horrid Celebration
The day is April 20, the wicked ones birthday, Germans celebrate in the streets of Molching.  Citizens say their Heil Hitlers and support the Nazi cause or at least pretend to.  Some people including Hans Huberman only go because if they didn't they might be off to a living cementery, just like Liesel's mother.  This is where Liesel stole the book.  Her father found out about the incident, Hans was fine with the thievery as loong as she would stop, because he didn't want his daughter in danger.

The Mayor's Library
Liesel has a house cleaning job at the mayor of Molching's house,  while there the thief takes a book from their house on the floor, but the mayor's wife saw Liesel.  The woman let Liesel go and actually read books from the mayor's libary, the wife was just waiting for a time to strike.

The Real Struggle
Max Vandenburg was a Jew hiding in a small dark room from Hitler, with very little food.  Hans Huberman finds the man, Max pleads for help, and Hans helps.  Hans gets a copy of Mein Kampf My Struggle by Adolf Hilter, for Max Vandenburg, they use this to make the look like a Nazi, that way he can get on a train to Molching.  At Molching Hans can help Max everyday.

Figurative Language of the Book Thief
or should I say
The Book Thief of Figurative Language

Figurative language is scattered throughout the Book Thief.  The figurative language that Markus Zusak uses adds another layer to the greatness and the confusion in this fantastic book.  In the book Zusak gives colors connotations that have meaning in the Holocaust.  An example is from the color red  used in chapter: The Flag red can mean danger, but the color also signifies the holocaust.


Simile
"Red marks like footprints, and they burned" (Zusak 99).
This is an example of a simile because the words compare how the marks from the Watschen were like footprints, and how they started deep but faded away.  Another reason why this is a simile is because the comparison used like, for a simile as can be used instead of like.

Metaphor
"His self-respect was around his ankles" (Zusak 413).
The boys self-respect was very low just like your ankles are to ground.  Zusak compared self-respect to ankles without using like or as making this a metaphor.

Personification
"The playground demanded that they fight, and neither boy was about to argue" (Zusak 187).
This beautiful, gorgeous piece of writing here is an excellent piece of personification.  Personification is when you give human qualities to an inanimate object or idea, this is displayed because obviously playgrounds can not demand things.

Oxymoron
"If they killed him tonight, at least he would die alive" (Zusak 168).
Being alive and being dead are two opposite concepts making this a great example of an oxymoron.

Metonymy
"'Pass auf, Kind,' a uniform said to her at one point" (Zusak 119).
This is a an example of metonymy because uniforms is used instead of Nazis.

The Book Thief: Book One, the First Book

The Book Thief is a piece of Holocaust literature by Markus Zusak, and a great one at that. 


During book one, Liesel Meminger, or better known to our narrator, Death, as the the Book Thief.  Liesel and her brother were given to foster parents by their mother, but on the train ride towards Munich, Germany, her brother dies.  The brother has a funeral where Liesel takes a book the one of grave diggers drops, and she takes the book even though she can't read.  When Liesel gets to her foster parents house in a poor part of a town called Molching.  The street she lives on is named Himmel Street, which is very ironic because himmel is German for heaven, and Zusak says "The buildings appear to be glued together, mostly small houses and aprtment blocks that look nervous.  There is murkey snow spread out like carpet.  There is concrete, empty hat-stand trees, and gray air"(27). Not a heaven like picture at all.  Her foster mother is Rosa Huberman is a foul mouthed woman, Liesel's Father Hans Huberman is a accordian playing, painter.

On Himmel Street Liesel meets Rudy Steiner a scawny kid with German blonde hair and safe blue eyes, but even though Rudy sounds like he can stay alive during the Holocaust because of his appearance he might have a tough time.  Rudy seems very tolerate of other races he shows this in the Jesse Owens incident.
Where Zusak writes, "In which he painted himself charcoal black and ran the 100 meters at the local playing field one night" (48).

Liesel Meminger at her new home has nightmares about her deceased brother, Hans Huberman comes to comfort her.  During one of these nightmares Liesel wet the bed, Hans took off the sheets and out came the book, "The Grave Digger's Handbook"  Liesel who was illiterate could not read the book but she wanted to so her father taught her to read from the book, giving Liesel the most important gift in her life, the gift to learn.
Liesel also has a thirst to read and therefore a thirst of knowledge.