Book Thief Summaries
Dmitri Morales
Prologue: a mountain range of rubble
Death is the narrator of the book. He decides that there is no need for an introduction for himself because we will all know him soon enough. His job is to take our soul, but he also likes relating all of his soul collecting to colors. He likes the color to be dark, dark chocolate when collecting souls because it suits him well. He tells us about a story about a perpetual survivor, the book thief, whom he had seen three times in the course of collecting souls. He first saw her, on a train where her brother had just passed. Once Death takes the soul, he becomes more intrigued with the girl, so he decides to stay with them until the train stops. He took a glance at the girl before leaving, seeing her with tears frozen to her face. The second time Death encountered the book thief, was when a plane crashed. As Death was retrieving the soul of the dead pilot, the book thief and her friend took a teddy bear out of the tool box and laid it down next to the dead pilot. He also states that he sees an eclipse every time a human dies, and claims he has seen millions of them. The final time Death saw the book thief was at a bombing in a small German town. He tells us that the sky was a red soup. Death finds the girl, carrying a book while surveying the destroyed town. Death can see in her eyes that she wants to go back to her basement and write, but realizes that there probably is not more basement. She sobs, and sobs and begins to walk to see the destruction that came to her town. Death follows her until the book thief drops her book. Death decides to pick her book up and over the course of time, he’s read it over a thousand times. The colors he remembers during this encounter was a dark red background, a blinding white, and a scribbled black icon (swastika).
Part 1: the grave digger’s handbook
The book thief is 9-year old Liesel Meminger. She and her brother were traveling by train to Munich so they could go live with their new foster parents. Her brother was coughing a lot, and he ended up dying while their mother was asleep, and while Liesel was dreaming about the Fuhrer. They end up getting off at the next town to bury him. During the burial, one of the grave diggers, drops a book. Liesel, curious about what dropped, steals the book for herself. After the burial, they took the next train to Munich, where they would then head to a town called Molching. Her foster parents lived on Himmel (heaven) street. Liesel meets her foster parent, Rosa and Hans Hubermann. The Hubermanns were expecting another child along with Liesel, but nobody told them that the brother died on the train. After some time settling in, Liesel is instructed by her mother to call them Mama and Papa. Every night in the new house, was faced with severe nightmares. Nightmares about her brother on the train staring at the floor aimlessly. Every night, Liesel was accompanied by Papa, and he would sit with her to make sure she was ok. Breakfast was a great part of the day because Papa would play his accordion for Liesel. Liesel was behind on her education so she was put down to the lower grades where they were learning the alphabet. Rudy , Liesel’s neighbor, showed Liesel around the town. Liesel and Rudy race on day for a kiss, but they end up in a tie, both sliding in mud. One night, after another nightmare, Liesel wets the bed, and upon picking up the sheets, Papa finds a book under her bed. Papa, seeing the desperation of Liesel to read her book, begins teaching her the alphabet, and teaches her how to read on sandpaper. Soon, they go to the basement, and begin writing words with paint on the walls. One day at school, Liesel thought she had enough practice to show her abilities to the Hitler Youth. She ends up getting laughed at by her classmates, and ends up beating two of them in the schoolyard (Ludwig, and Tommy Muller).
Part 2:
Liesel, eager one night to finish her book after she wakes up from another nightmare, wakes up Papa and begins reading the final chapter of her book. On Christmas of 1939, Liesel receives two books from her foster parents. As Liesel and her Mama go to collect the washings for the week, she is informed by some of her customers that they won’t be needing her anymore due to the rough times. Mama decided to send Liesel out to pick up the clothes because they would be less likely to say no to her rather than her Mama. After winter break, school was focused on letter writing. So Liesel decided to send a letter to her mother wondering where she was, and what had they done to her. Everyday she awaits a letter from her mother but never receives one. Frau Heinrich informs Liesel that they have lost contact with her biological mother. As Germany gained more power, the appreciation of the Fuhrer was expected to increase as well. They were expecting parades, marching, singing, and fires. On the day of the Fuhrer’s birthday, the Hubermanns couldn’t find their Nazi flag to show their appreciation. Afraid of suspicions, they tore apart their house to look for the flag. Death recalls Hans’ incident of painting over slurs of Jewish households, thus being rejected from the party. Hans and his son get in a fight about this on the Fuhrer’s birthday and his son leaves in frustration, calling his father a coward. During the Nazi’s speech, Liesel tries to relate the word Kommunisten to her father. Nauseous, Liesel leaves the scene, except she is held back by Ludwig as he has been trampled on by his fellow BDM classmates. Liesel drags him out of the parade and hears the word again. Kommunisten. She waits on the steps for her Papa, and asks him about his mother. Papa, claiming that he has never met her, doesn’t know what to say. Liesel says she hates the Fuhrer, and Papa scolds her not to talk about that so loudly and in public. As Liesel and her Papa are heading home, she decides to steal a book that wasn’t burned in the fire. She puts it up against her chest and walks home.
Part 3: mein kampf
As the book heats up, Liesel can’t bear the pain anymore so she throws it on the ground. Hans sees that Liesel stole this book from the fire. He tells her that she won’t tell Mama if she can keep a secret when Hans asks her to. Liesel believes that on the day she stole the book from the fire, someone saw her steal it. Her assumption cam to a conclusion that it was the mayor’s wife. She tries avoiding her when picking up the washing, but one time, when Liesel was delivering the washings without Rudy, the mayor’s wife allows Liesel to enter their house and see her library. Death switches the scene to a Jewish man named Max, and he is in a storage room, being given carrots and small pieces of bread. The man tells him he found him an identity card, and waits in the room. Liesel returns to the mayor’s house, and inside one of the books, she finds a name: Johann Hermann. Liesel asks who this was, and the mayor’s wife tells Liesel that he froze to death. He was her son. Liesel and Rudy play soccer with their friends on the street when Liesel isn’t delivering clothes or reading. As the rations of food diminished, Liesel and Rudy join a group of kids that steal apples to eat. During one of their stealings, Liesel and Rudy find a coin. This coin was used to buy a candy from Frau Diller’s shop. Outside the shop, Rudy and Liesel share the candy lick for lick enjoying every bit of it. Again, the scene switches to Max who is on a train and is heading toward Himmel street. On the train, he read the Mein Kampf to not grow attention. While Max is heading toward Himmel street, Liesel and Rudy continue their stealing. They create a plan to put water on the street so a delivery boy will crash. The amount of food stolen was enough to suffice their entire group and in return, their leader ended up giving them a bag of chestnuts so they can sell door to door and buy candy from Frau Diller’s shop. And the scene switches again to Max taking out his key and preparing to enter house 33 on Himmel Street.
Part 4: the standover man
This part begins with Max being welcomed by Hans and a flashback to where Hans met Erik Vandenburg (Max’s father). Hans loved the music during WWI, so Erik taught him how to play the accordion. In Hubermann’s squad, one would be left behind to write letters to the captain. Death says that Hubermann didn’t die because he didn’t go out to battle. Hans, realizing that he owed Erik anything and everything, took his accordion, and found his wife breaking the news to her. Hans told her that anything she needed, he would do it. Hans was hesitant on joining the party because a Jew had saved his life, and most of his customers were Jewish. After years of deliberating amongst himself, he finally applied to join the party. The mistake he made, which postponed his acceptance into the party, was that he repainted a Jew’s door after Nazis wrote slurs all over it. One day, early in the morning, a man approached him and asked if he would keep a promise. This fast forwards to when Max is welcomed into the Hubermann house. Then the story goes back to Max’s childhood. He loved getting into fist fights. And there was this one boy, Walter Kugler, who did the same. Even though they fought several times, ending up in a 10-3 record for Kugler, they were very close friends. From the age of two, he lived with his cousins and uncle and mother, because of his father’s passing in the war. One night, Nazis rushed into their household, and Walter helped Max escape. The one thing Max wished he did was look back to say goodbye. He would never see them again. Max slept in Liesel’s bed for three days. And once he woke up, he would go to the basement. During winter, the basement got too cold so he would sleep by the fire, next to Rosa and Hans, and during the day, he would go back to the basement. Liesel and Max confront each other about their dreams. MAx tells Liesel that he fights the Fuhrer, and when he wins, the crowd comes down to beat him. In Max’s time in the basement, he tore out pages from Mein Kampf, and wrote a book called the Standover Man. Max gave this to Liesel as a late birthday present for her gratitude towards what she had done for him.
Part 5: the whistler
One day, when Liesel was reading on the floor of the mayor’s library, Frau Hermann offered her a book to take home. Liesel politely declines, saying that reading when she goes to pick up the laundry suffices her. On the way home, she searches through the trash cans to find a newspaper with a blank crossword puzzle for Max. After an amazing soccer game, Liesel goes to the basement to tell Max all about it. He just wonders one thing. The weather. So, Liesel goes out everyday, and brings him a description of the weather in which he translates into a painting on the wall. Max would imagine him beating the Fuhrer in the boxing ring. Max would also continue to rip out all the pages from Mein Kampf so he can write his own book: The Word Shaker. The next time Liesel goes to the mayor’s house to read, Frau Hermann begs Liesel to take the book. Liesel realizes that she wants her to take the book because she is relieving Mama of her washing duty. Liesel stays at the door, and then begins cursing at Frau Heinrich because of the stupid excuse she gives to Rosa. Liesel throws the book at her feet and walks home with an empty bag. Liesel and Rudy feel the urge to eat, so they go back to the stealing group. However, they find themselves under new rule. After being verbally abused by the new leader, they leave the group. Liesel saw Rudy was feeling down, and she wanted to cheer him up, so she decided to go to the mayor’s library and steal a book. She stole the whistler, the book she refused to take after the firing of her mother. Rudy, still hungry for something, went to the grocery store, and stole the largest potato there. When he gets caught for stealing the potato, he gets thrown out in the street, and Franz Deutscher is there. He asks him what Hitler’s birthday is, and Rudy refuses to answer. Franz begins attacking him, and then cuts his hair off with a knife. After the fight with Franz, Rudy then starts skipping his Hitler Youth meetings. Still hungry for food, they go back to Viktor and the stealing group. Viktor throws Liesel’s book in the river, and Rudy jumps in to save it from any damage. He asks for a kiss, but doesn’t get one. And Death adds that he will go to his grave without them.
Part 6: the dream carrier
Knowing Max is curious about the outside world, Liesel brings down snow to build a snowman in their basement. Shortly after, Max falls into a coma. Death comes to take Max, but Death feels an aura of some sort preventing him to take his soul. Liesel overhears a conversation between her parents. They were saying that the snowman caused Max to die, and Liesel was very afraid so she decided to bring him 13 presents: A deflated soccer ball, a ribbon, a pinecone, a button, a stone, a feather, two newspapers, a wrapper, a cloud, a toy soldier, a leaf, a finished whistler, a slab of grief. Not only did he receive these presents, but with them, came a story. Liesel and Rudy decide to go to the mayor’s house again where Liesel steals a book called The Dream Carrier. She chooses this book because of its relation to Max. Death notices that each time the go to steal a book, the window is always open. Death believes Ilsa wants them to steal books. Liesel begins reading this new book to Max. When sleeping, instead of her nightmare of her dead brother looking at the ground, Liesel sees Max instead. In the middle of March, Rosa comes to Liesel’s school scolding her about Liesel misplacing her hairbrush. Liesel told Rosa a while back that if Max were to wake up to make up some weird excuse and to scold her because nobody would grow suspicions. Liesel forgot about this, and Rosa told her Max was alive. When playing an intense game of soccer, Liesel notices Nazis marching down the street checking basements to see if they would be good enough to survive. Liesel realizes that Max is in the basement so she has to get home somehow but without attention. She gets herself hurt and then is taken home by her father (she was almost taken home by a Nazi who witnessed the incident which wouldn’t have been any good). Even though Max wasn’t hidden well enough, the Nazi was too busy with measurements of the basement and didn’t notice Max.
Part 7: the complete duden dictionary and thesaurus
Even though the war grew, there was some positivity in the Hubermann household. They needed to mark the air raid shelters, so that everyone knew where the closest basement was. With his amazing painting skills, Hans was hired for most of these jobs. He would make the black paint himself, cheating most people out of their rations or cigarettes. On his breaks, he would play the accordion, and Liesel loved him playing the instrument. One day, they were paid with champagne, and Liesel vowed never to drink again, because it would never be as good as that day. Meanwhile, Rudy is training for the Hitler Youth carnival. He wants to be just like his idol Jesse Owens, and he wants to show Franz a thing or two. Rudy and Liesel end up going to the mayor’s house, and instead of finding an open window, they find a book with a letter inside. The letter was saying that Frau Hermann was fine with Liesel stealing her books, but she wished she came through the door rather than the open window. The book ended up being a dictionary so she could search up words to understand what she is reading. Sure enough, there was a raid in September and sadly, they had to leave Max alone. Once the all clear is given, they return to see Max out of the basement. He said he went up to see the outside world because it has been so long since he last saw it. During the next air raid, Liesel brings one of her books and begins reading aloud to keep herself calm. Everyone was mesmerized by Liesel’s voice, so even though the all clear was given, they told her to finish the chapter. Frau Holtzapfel, Rosa’s enemy, came over one day and asked for Rosa’s permission to see if Liesel could go read to her. Death explains that out of nowhere, three German trucks are stopped in the middle of the street. They begin taking out Jews that are headed to Dachau. Liesel exits her house to see what was happening. She spots her father in the crowd, giving bread to a Jew that was dying of hunger. They both get whipped, and Hans, knowing that his decision was bad, is forced to kick Max out to not further any suspicions. They had planned to meet by a tree in four days, but Max leaves a note tied to a rock saying “You’ve done enough”. When the Gestapo come to house 33, they do not want Hans. Surprised by their response, they claim that they want Rudy.
Part 8: the word shaker
While Rudy and his sisters are playing dominoes, he overhears a conversation between Nazis and the rest of his family. He then recalls last week where Rudy and two other boys were naked in front of the nurse. He was forced to do this because of his outstanding performances at the carnival, and his intelligence. Alex Steiner refuses to allow Rudy to go to the special Nazi school, and volunteers as tribute. Meanwhile in early November, Hans received a letter in the mail saying that he was accepted into the German Nazi army. The night before his departure, Hans and Alex go get drunk. Hans tells Liesel to take care of Mama and his accordion while he is gone. Before Rudy’s father leaves, Rudy gets mad and says he wants to kill Hitler for what he was doing to his family. That night, Rosa sat with Liesel in bed holding Papa’s accordion tightly to her chest. Hans was sent to Essen and was apart of an air raid unit. The unit consists of 4 people with hoses. They keep hosing off one another to make sure that no flames catch on tehir suits. During one of the cleanups, a lady was screaming for her son Rudy. Hans trips over the corpse of a young boy while carrying a dead man. He sends letters to his family to keep in touch with them. During a Jew parade, Rudy and Liesel throw bread at the Jews walking by recreating the time Hans threw bread at Jews. They were noticed by a Nazi so they began to run for their life. Eventually, the man caught up with them, and kicked Liesel in the toosh. Every air raid, Liesel keeps reading her books to calm everyone in the house. Around Christmas, Liesel was given a book called The word shaker from her mother. Rosa said that it was from Max and he wanted to give it to you when you were ready. Rudy and Liesel broke into his father’s tailor shop to steal Rudy a suit. Rudy shows of his suit, and trips over a mannequin. Liesel thinks to herself to kiss him, but hesitates doing so. They both laugh, and and wished each other Merry Christmas.
Part 9: the last human stranger
Liesel and Rudy go to the mayor’s house again to steal a book, but this time, on top of a book, Frau Hermann left cookies for the book thief. Liesel, thankful for the cookies, finds a pen and paper and write her a thank you note. On the way out, Frau Hermann catches her, and Liesel realizes that the library belongs to Frau Hermann. Ilsa explains that she used to read in there with her son. Liesel prepares to read to Frau Holtzapfel later that day, but a man opens the door with a bleeding stomach and a bandaged hand and tells her to come back later. Rosa arrives at the door and realizes that it was Frau Holtzapfel’s son Michael. As Rosa welcomes Michael into their house, Michael tells them that his brother Robert died. His legs were blown off of him in Stalingrad. The scene switches to Hans and his LDE crew as they are going to another air raid. Reinhold Zucker and Hans are fighting about the seat they were supposed to sit in, and Hans, not wanting to start a fight switches places with Reinhold. Soon Hans would find out that Reinhold had saved his life. The front tire of the truck popped and everything tipped forward: all the men were squished to one side of the wall, Reinhold died, Hans broke his leg and many other injuries occurred. A letter was received in the mail in mid-February from Hans. It stated that he was coming home due to a broken leg. Liesel took the news next door to the Steiners, and Liesel could see a disappointed look on Rudy’s face. He was wondering why Hans and why not Alex. One day, when Liesel was looking out the window, she knew that Rudy wanted to go steal something. He had a toolbox prepared with a teddy bear, socks, a mask, and other robbing necessities. They went home, and soon enough the toolbox was put to good use. The air raid sirens were sounding, and everyone was exiting their house to the appropriate shelter. Michael came running to the Hubermann’s house as his mother did not want to leave. Liesel tried to convince her to leave but she decided not to move. Soon enough, Frau Holtzapfel entered the room with Michael crying in the corner. When they exit the shelter, they see an aircraft crashed into trees. Rudy, with his toolbox, ran over to the dying pilot and placed a teddy bear next to his shoulder. Death noticed that the book thief knew he was there. In April, Hans returned home.
Part 10: the book thief
Death begins by telling us that there was an air raid in the middle of the night, and Himmel Street was flattened. Liesel however, survived this catastrophe because she was in the basement. Even though the Nazis didn’t think the basement was enough to protect people from air raids that night, it was enough to keep Liesel alive. The 98th day upon Hans’ return, something changed, and it was that Michael had hung himself for wanting to stay alive. Another Jew parade occurred, and this time, it was different. Liesel had spotted Max’s twig-like hair and ran up to him. She was attacked by the soldier for touching “such a filthy thing”, and Liesel was just happy to see her friend again. She wanted to run after him, but Rudy and Tommy held her back to prevent any more violence from the Nazi soldier. When the Jews left, Liesel told Rudy everything. About the Jew they hid in the basement, about the purposeful foul while playing soccer, about a snowman they built indoors, about why she took the soccer ball. Everything. Liesel went to Ilsa Hermann’s library and vandalized one of her books. She says she wants to stop going because she hates the words. Later, in August, Ilsa Hermann was changed out of her regular attire (bathrobe), and wore a nice yellow dress. Instead of Frau Hermann scolding Liesel, she praises her writing abilities. They joke about which entrance they should use to the Hubermann house and Liesel welcomes her and gives her a cup of coffee. She gave her a book, and a reason to write. And so, Liesel Meminger began to write the book thief. Death explains how hard it is for him to take souls like Rudy, and Rosa and Hans Hubermann. He knows that there was just so much life left in Rudy and he remembers all the times he had: The Jesse Owens incident, him chasing a book, and awaiting a kiss from his neighbor. Liesel sees Rudy’s corpse, and tells him that she always loved him and gives him the kiss he was always waiting for. Depressed about everything that just happened in a few moments of her life, she drops her life story (the book thief) and continues walking with her Papa’s accordion. Death sees the book and takes it along with him and claims to have read it a thousand times.
Epilogue:
Death tells us that Liesel Meminger died yesterday in a suburb of Sydney with her husband, her three children, her grandchildren, and the long list of lives that merged with hers. Death then goes back to the scene after the bombing. Since Liesel has nowhere to go, she was taken by the mayor and his wife. She didn’t want to eat, and she didn’t want to bathe. And she would go to the ceremonies wearing a lovely dress and a sheet of Himmel Street. Two funerals were held for the Steiner family. One before Alex Steiner arrived, and one after. Alex began working again, and Liesel helped him. One day, a man with feather-like hair entered and asked for Liesel. Liesel came out to see who it was and they hugged each other on the floor . When Liesel’s soul and Death finally met, Death returned the book to Liesel. And Liesel asked if he understood it or not, and he said that he had difficulty understanding the human race. The last thing he says, is that he is haunted by humans.