Literary Devices in The Book Thief
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
The accordion starts off as a symbol of hope and comfort. When Liesel begins reading to the residents of Himmel Street during the air raids, she feels like she's giving them what Hans gives her whe...
Setting
Most of The Book Thief takes place in the small, and fictional, town of Molching, just outside of non-fictional Munich, Germany. Molching is on the way to the concentration camp Dachau (which the n...
Narrator Point of View
The Book Thief is narrated by an extremely overworked being who identifies himself as Death. Some readers love Death as a narrator; others not so much. We tend to think it's an interesting choic...
Genre
The Book Thief tells the story of Liesel Meminger, a young German girl coming of age in Nazi Germany. The novel focuses on the joys and sorrows of Liesel, her foster family, and the Jewish man they...
Tone
The novel focuses on characters in incredibly dark and difficult situations. And just like how Death, the story's narrator, is hoping to "to prove to [himself] that you, and your human existence, a...
Writing Style
The Book Thief features innovative stylistic techniques. The most obvious innovation (which some readers love and others can't stand) is narrator Death's use of boldface text to relay certain infor...
What's Up With the Title?
The title most obviously refers to Liesel Meminger, the chief book thief of the story. (Liesel's #1! Woohoo!)She's officially given the title by her best friend Rudy Steiner at the end of Chapter 4...
What's Up With the Ending?
No, Liesel doesn't meet Dorothy and the Scarecrow. But she does go down under and find a new Aussie homeland. And we think that's even better—there aren't any kangaroos in the Emerald City.From t...
Plot Analysis
Liesel's loses one family and gains another.For reasons unknown to us at the time, Liesel's mother is taking Liesel and her little brother Werner by train to live with foster parents, Hans and Ro...
Trivia
We love this fact about The Book Thief's author, Markus Zusak. We'll let him tell you: "I did something a little sentimental, or superstitious... I carved Rudy and Liesel's names into a tree with a...
Allusions
Mein Kampf (21.41, 21.44, 26.2, 26.3, 26.11, 26.34, 26.36, 28.16, 30.8, 35.164, 36.3, Adolf Hitler, also referred to as the Führer (throughout)Jessie Owens (8.3, 8.21, 9.1, 9.3, 9.12, 9.16, 9.17,...