My second response is written about “The book thief” written by an Australian author named Markus Zusak, and published in 2005. “The book thief” is a historical novel based on world war II,the time of the holocaust. This novel runs around a 10 year old german girl named Liesel; an abandoned and to be seen adopted only child, who goes through and witnesses some horrific events. Liesel gets further care from her firm hard loving and working mother, and gentle understanding father. This novel is narrated by death.

The book thief tells a story of WWII through the eyes of a young teenage german girl. It is important to look at history through many viewpoints, and the book thief is a very sad as well as moving story. This being through the accounted for the trauma and disgust being witnessed through the eyes of an innocent young girl. This book is also very creative and employs lots of interesting literary devices, such as witty and wary “death” as narrator, flashbacks and flash forwards. This text not only tells a very moving story, but it really made me feel emotions with and for Liesel. Not only made me feel sad for Liesel, but made me feel sadness and horror of the war, and what people used to put each other through. The story’s use of sadness and mixed emotions made me feel in a way connected to Liesel. “The book thief” too represents many qualities within a person, especially those young. With Liesel being only 10 years old and newly rehomed enters such a dark period known as the Holocaust, you get to feel how she felt. I would recommend this text because it opens your eyes to the innocence of a portion of the lives stolen during the midst of war. Liesel’s friend Rudy was cheeky, young, a little mean, but overall he was innocent; so for him to have his life taken so early is heartbreaking. Rudy being one of the hundreds of thousands. The book makes you feel a lot of emotions, and perhaps could change your perspective on the war, and/or open your eyes a little more.

This text “the book thief” teaches me about the capacity we have for kindness and compassion. In the book thief, Liesel and the other characters are suffering in their own country, as germans under the Nazi rule of WWII; yet they never lose their ability to show love to their follow humans. For example, in the case of Hans Hubermann, when he gives bread to a starving Jew on a death march to a concentration camp, they are brutally punished for showing any kindness. The world we live in today is filled with different tensions then the ones Liesel and her family suffered in 1939, but our world nevertheless is still filled with war, violence, corruption, and hatred. This text shows me, that no matter the time period we live in, human are still fundamentally the same. That despite the darkness and violence around us and produced by some, there are those who love and show kindness. All though it is a very sad, emotional story and book, it gives us hope for those who love genuinely.

The book thief not only relates to germans and jewish people, but to everyone of the time of WWII and the german raid for jews. It relates back to me in a way where if I was in Liesel’s shoes or any other girl my age, how hard it would be. I have a big family, and I live with my mother and father. I have always known my family to be mine, always feeling secure in my house and comfortable leaving and going elsewhere. There were girls my age who were scared of leaving their house in the middle of the day during the era of WWII. Jewish or german, there were opposing threats around every corner. There were girls my age who had to get used to trauma and disaster, as it was a recurring event. Like Liesel losing her brother on their way to their new foster home, disasters changing her life. I couldn’t imagine losing my brother in the blink of an eye, nor could i imagine having to leave my family to go call a strange new place my home. I couldn’t imagine being scared of leaving my front door; or if I was jewish the scare of needing to be hidden in a basement to avoid being taken away. This was reality to many young girls my age in these time.

The book thief relates back to the world in a historical way, where this young girl Liesel’s life was a harsh reality to many young girls. This book’s time is set back in the mid WWII, where hitler was trying to rid the population of jewish blood. At age ten, Liesel had gone through many traumatic events that would affect her life forever. Not only did they affect her, but they changed the way she would do things or let alone think. During this time era of Hitler and the germans trying to extinguish the jews, many german families would foster jews illegally, hiding them from being taken away to jewish camps. Not all german individuals or families however knew what was happening during this time, meaning they didn’t know jews were being taken away and put into such camps, but Liesel’s as well as many others did. This being why they would hide them away in their house from german soldiers, so they could impact a small change but to only one or so individuals, they were making a difference for them. This text relates back to the world we live in historically because what happens in the book, was a reality for many in real life back then. WWII was a massive event, with many advanced weaponry systems and twisted evil, taking out the lives of millions. This being why this text relates back to the world historically, because of the time of this books setting there was destruction and catastrophe, changing history and millions of lives forever.