Just a Day
My Best Friend's Baby

Book Note: The Book Thief

After the first chapter---after I had figured out the narrator is death, and the notes here and there in bold were his careful annotations---I couldn't put it down. Even though the house is (still) messy. Even though I have work to do. Even though everything. I read this book whenever I could because it is that kind of book, The Book Thief. The kind that forces you to abandon your children to the television for an hour longer than they should be watching, because you cannot sleep without knowing how it ends.

Somehow, I am consistently drawn to and moved by books about the Holocaust. It is like a fairy tale, really, that time period: It looks familiar, and yet you have to completely suspend your disbelief in order to let your mind make any sense of it. Maybe that is how the German citizens lived through it---suspension of disbelief. The protagonist of the book, Liesel, however, is eventually fully aware, and tries to live with the smallest amount of cowardice possible.

The plot, in brief: a 9-year-old girl is brought to a foster home in Mochling, Germany; her brother died on the way to this town on the outskirts of Munich. At the small graveside service, she steals a book from one of the gravediggers, about how to dig graves. She steals it even though she can't read. Her new foster father, however, teaches her to read.

The story is heartbreaking---set in Nazi Germany, how can it not be? But the story is almost not even the point. The point of reading it is that it forces you to realize the power of words. It makes a point: without words, Hitler would have been nothing. It wasn't his political clout or wealth or soldiering skills that gave him so much power. It was his way with words. What Liesel discovers, though, is that everyone can use words, anyone can use them for anything, and her way is as a blanket, a heavy, warm, resolute blanket that protects and hides and warms.

When I finished the book, I dragged my children away from the television to put them to bed. Little Nathan had falled asleep on the couch with his feet on the foot rest and the blanket covering his face. When I woke him up---he is too heavy to carry anymore---he started to cry. Earlier, I'd gotten angry with him all over again, him AND Jake, because they've both lost their new hoodies. I didn't really say anything too harsh, except for that I was frustrated, and that I wanted him to find it. But somehow his half-awake, half-asleep psyche dredged it up and he sobbed because he couldn't find his hoodie.

I thought of the book. Of its point. Which was brought home to me in Nathan's sobs. So tonight I am grateful for the words "I'm sorry." And for the power they hold to mend a little bit. And I'm grateful to have read this book---and I hope you will read it, too.

Comments

Liz Ness

Great recommendation--I'll have to check it out!

kelly edgerton

Going on my list right now. I will buy this the very next time I am at Borders! Thank you for the great review and recommendation.

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