Novel and Book Thief
Essay on Book Thief
Day One: Write notes about TWO possible topics for your essay from those suggested below.
Power of Language
One option: In The Book Thief, words have the power to both destroy and save lives. Examine how characters in the novel (for example, Liesel, Max, Ilsa Hermann, Hitler, Rosa and/or Hans) use words to destroy and to save. What are some of the effects of their words? Discuss at least two characters’ relationships with the power of language.
Another option: The Book Thief is, on one level, the story of Liesel Meminger’s relationship with books. At the beginning of Zusak’s novel, Death advises the reader, “All told, she owned fourteen books, but she saw her story as being made up predominantly of ten of them. Of those ten, six were stolen, one showed up at the kitchen table, two were made for her by a hidden Jew, and one was delivered by a soft, yellow-dressed afternoon. When she came to write her story, she would wonder exactly when the books and the words started to mean not just something, but everything” (30). Near the end of the novel, Liesel confesses her conflicting emotions about the major’s wife’s library, “I love this place and hate it, because it is full of words” (522). Discuss at least two of Liesel’s books, and the significance of those books to her developing appreciation of the power of language.
Power of language - Journal entries that might inspire you
1/15, 1/19 Liesel’s Books (Books # 1-4)
1/22, 1/25 Book # 5
2/3, 2/4 Books #6 and 7
2/5, 2/8 Book #8
2/11, 2/16 Books # 9-11
2/25, 2/26 Books # 12-13
Your notes (your ideas for essay, Book Thief pages, Book Thief quotations)
Utopia/dystopia
A utopia is an imaginary place, situated in a particular time and space, that is socially, morally, and politically ideal. A dystopia is an imaginary place, also situated in a particular time or place, but which is socially, morally, and politically terrible, a state in which
Day One: Write notes about TWO possible topics for your essay from those suggested below.
Power of Language
One option: In The Book Thief, words have the power to both destroy and save lives. Examine how characters in the novel (for example, Liesel, Max, Ilsa Hermann, Hitler, Rosa and/or Hans) use words to destroy and to save. What are some of the effects of their words? Discuss at least two characters’ relationships with the power of language.
Another option: The Book Thief is, on one level, the story of Liesel Meminger’s relationship with books. At the beginning of Zusak’s novel, Death advises the reader, “All told, she owned fourteen books, but she saw her story as being made up predominantly of ten of them. Of those ten, six were stolen, one showed up at the kitchen table, two were made for her by a hidden Jew, and one was delivered by a soft, yellow-dressed afternoon. When she came to write her story, she would wonder exactly when the books and the words started to mean not just something, but everything” (30). Near the end of the novel, Liesel confesses her conflicting emotions about the major’s wife’s library, “I love this place and hate it, because it is full of words” (522). Discuss at least two of Liesel’s books, and the significance of those books to her developing appreciation of the power of language.
Power of language - Journal entries that might inspire you
1/15, 1/19 Liesel’s Books (Books # 1-4)
1/22, 1/25 Book # 5
2/3, 2/4 Books #6 and 7
2/5, 2/8 Book #8
2/11, 2/16 Books # 9-11
2/25, 2/26 Books # 12-13
Your notes (your ideas for essay, Book Thief pages, Book Thief quotations)
Utopia/dystopia
A utopia is an imaginary place, situated in a particular time and space, that is socially, morally, and politically ideal. A dystopia is an imaginary place, also situated in a particular time or place, but which is socially, morally, and politically terrible, a state in which