Reading Response to The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

       The Book Thief by Markus Zusak uses very creative writing skills to display the life of a little girl during World War II.  The author describes everything with great detail and gives little snippets of translation or observations throughout the story.  This book has a lot of unhappiness and tragedy, as do most stories from this time period.  The little girl starts off as already being extremely cautious and she sleeps with one eye open.  She and her family are aboard a train and she is looking after herself and her family.  Something wakes her up and she crawls over to find her brother.  She finds him dead.  This tragedy has her distraught and panicked.  She lets her guard down, which is a rare thing.  The disbelief is fresh in her mind.

       Then she wakes her mom with a frightened shake.  Her mother learns of the boy's death and becomes as doubtful as the little girl is.  They shake the boy, willing him to wake up.  But he doesn't.  They tell the train officials and then are directed to get off the train.  The little girl's character has already changed, even this early in the story.  She went from a girl keeping an eye on her family and having everything under control to a girl who has just loss her brother and can't believe it.  She doesn't care about taking care of her family anymore because she has already failed.  Though this is not the girl's fault, she takes blame for it, as would anyone.  They buried the boy in a cold, graveyard with the company only of a priest and two gravediggers.  On the way out of the cemetery the girl finds a book that one of the gravediggers, the apprentice, has dropped.  She picks it up and takes it with her.  This is how she began to get her name as the Book Thief.  She misses her brother more than anything in the world, and all she needs is a stable, loving mother.
       Although her mother wants to be there for her daughter, she cannot provide enough for her at this terrible time.  Their mother intended to take both of them to the foster home, but unfortunately the little girl's brother did not survive the trip.  Now the girl did not have a companion to help get through this tough experience with.  She was all by herself.  It took her 15 minutes to be coaxed out of the car once she arrived at her foster house.  Though I think she has a special connection with the 'father' who smokes a lot of cigars because he is the one who got her to come out.  When she did enter the house she was holding his hand and her small suitcase with the gravedigger's book inside.