Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief: Brimmed with Secrets

Reviewed by Ellie Stoutt

The Holocaust is something we will never forget.  It was a time where an entire religion was being tortured and killed by their own country.  An extreme act of racism where there were victims, prosecutors, and people who just stood by and watched.  As Mosane Katsav said, “The Holocaust is not only a tragedy to the jewish people, it is a failure to humanity as a whole.”  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak takes place in this catastrophic time period.  

The Book Thief is a realistic fiction book that is centered around the main character Liesel Meminger, a nine year old german girl whose story is told by the voice of death. Liesel has had a sad life, she does not really remember her father, her mother gave her up and is assumed to be dead because her beliefs did not coincide with Hitler’s codes, and her brother died on the train ride to their new foster parents.  However, as the voice of death said, “You could argue that Liesel Meminger had it easy.  She did have it easy compared to Max Vandenburg.  Certainly, her brother practically died in her arms.  Her mother abandoned her.  But anything was better than being a Jew”(Zusak 161).  She is brought to Hans and Rosa Hubermann who are on the poorer side of the social pyramid.  Rosa is very strict where Hans is on the rather soft side but, they are both great parents to Liesel.  Liesel never learned how to read.  When she begins to go to school the other kids tease her for not being able to read and as a result she develops a great desire to read.  She has already stolen one book, The Grave Digger’s Handbook, from there she begins to steal more books from burnings and books she happens to find that others have left behind.  With the help of her foster father Hans who begins to secretly read with her and the mayor’s wife who is more than generous when sharing her books, Lisel begins to read one word at a time.  Then arrives Max who is a friend of Han’s son.  There’s something very dangerous about Max, he is Jewish.  This brings great risk to the Hubermanns and gives great responsibility to Liesel who is forced to keep all these secrets.

This book is very descriptive and has amazing imagery.  “A mountain range of rubble was written, designed, erected around her.  She was clutching a book”(Zusak 13). The Book Thief shows what it was truly like to live in the Holocaust time period.  Time Magazine said, “Zusak doesn’t sugarcoat anything…”  Focusing on Liesel gives a unique perspective on the book.  She is effected by the Holocaust blatantly but, is not necessarily harmed by it.  She is almost shielded by the harm of the Holocaust but ,as the book progresses the shade is slowly lifted.  The atrocity of the time is being described through her innocent eyes.  She also talks to people who are very pro Hitler and do not completely understand what he is doing to their country.  Liesel is growing up in a home where they are neutral.  Her parents do not really like Hitler but they do not speak out about it and this gives Liesel a different outlook on the way Hitler rules versus some of her other friends.  “‘Did the Füherer take her away?’... He said, ‘I think he might have, yes.’... ‘I knew it.’ ‘I hate Füherer,’ she said. ‘I hate him.’... He slapped Liesel Meminger squarely in the face”(Zusak 115). 

The story may have come across stronger if the Hubermanns themselves were Jewish then it would have shown what it is truly like for someone who is Jewish to live in these times.  However, the small parts about Max and what it is like for him living in the basement are very informative and helpful to the book.  Although I cannot relate to Liesel Meminger very well, you can really feel her sorrow and the way Death tells the story you can just picture how horrible it would be to be in her shoes.  Overall, The Book Thief is an outstanding novel that conveys a harsh but, true story about the Holocaust.  Even though it is a very deep subject the book flows nicely and is easy to follow.  It will have an extreme impact on anyone who picks it up. 

  

Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. New York: Random House Inc., 2006. Print

Malcolm Gladwell and Unconscious Thinking

          William Gladwell's hard hitting piece of writing brings up a topic that most of us never really think about, unconscious thinking.  One example he talks about is William Harding.  Harding was chosen as President because of his good looks.  The thing I found most shocking about this was the fact that the main reason he was elected was his appearance.  This shows that even though we may deny it, we do occasionally judge others based on their appearance.  Although Harding was good looking, he is said to be one of the worst presidents in United States history.  We should always learn about all aspects of a possible leader before giving them our vote.  A good leader should be smart, experienced, hard working, and able to make tough decisions and stand by their decisions.  People automatically went with the more attractive option without really thinking about it.  In other words, they were biased towards better looking people.
         
          We all have biases whether we like it or not. People may try to undo these biases however they cannot be undone because they are done without thinking.  Malcolm Gladwell also mentions the IAT test.  This stands for the Implicit Association Test which tests your implicit or unconscious decisions.  This test reveals some results that may shock some people or make them feel uncomfortable.
         

          As a class, we were able to go online and take this test.  The test has many different topics on unconscious thinking, the two I took were the Gender and Race tests.  The gender test was to see if you associated men with career and women with family or men with family and women with career.  The point was too see if you thought women should take care of the kids and the house and men should work or vise-versa.  My results for this test were very little to no biases toward either group.  The race test related European Americans to "bad" words such as nasty and horrible, and African Americans to "good" words such as joy and love then the words bad and good were switched. This is where you saw if you are partial to European or African Americans.  My result for this test was a very slight preference towards European Americans.  This result was surprising to me because I didn't think I had any biases.  The truth is we all have unconscious biases however, we have never realized them.

Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink talks more about these unconscious biases.  Here is a link to a video where he talks about the book and unconscious thinking.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TRioBKpUwY