The Book Thief Post 2 pg 200-350

The Book Thief Post 2 pg 200-350 

The next section of the Book Thief is focused on the life experiences of Liesel. She eventually starts regularly attending school again and that is where she meets Rudy. Rudy is another poor boy living in Germany, and the two become very close friends. Both Liesel and Rudy are mandated to be part of the Hitler Youth, so on Hitlers birthday they are forced to attend the festivities where all the banned books, and garbage of people is burned in a ginormous bonfire. As Liesel is leaving she sees a book which hasn’t been burned so she steals it.  When she is going to collect the laundry of the mayors wife, for her mom, she realizes that she saw her steal the book. Rather than confront her, the mayor’s wife chooses to let her come in to her library and read her books which is the start of a regular activity. At the end of the section Liesel’s father decides that now they have to hide a jew in their basement to return a favor. This is extremely dangerous and problematic since this is during the holocaust and if the Nazis were to find out they’d be killed.

One of my favorite quotes happens to be in this section of the book. It reads “They say that war death’s best friend, but I must offer you a different point of view on that one. To me, war is like the new boss who expects the impossible. He stands over your shoulder repeating one thing, incessantly: ‘Get it done, get it done.’ So you work harder. You get the job done. The boss, however, does nto thank you. He asks for more,”(pg 309). I chose to include this quote because it does a good job of introducing the severity of the book. It also introduces one of the conflicts which is that war is going on which comes with tremendous consequences.