The Book Thief

A GIRL MADE OF DARKNESS

SOME STATISTICAL INFORMATION

If you were being flippant about it, you’d say that all it took was a little bit of fire, really, and some human shouting to go with it. You’d say that was all Liesel Meminger needed to apprehend her second stolen book, even if it smoked in her hands. Even if it lit her ribs.

The problem, however, is this:

This is no time to be flippant.

It’s no time to be half-watching, turning round or checking the stove – because when the book thief stole her second book, not only were there many factors involved in her hunger to do so, but the act of stealing it triggered the crux of what was to come. It would provide her with a venue for continued book thievery. It would inspire Hans Hubermann to come up with a plan to help the Jewish fist-fighter. And it would show me, once again, that one opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life, and death to more death.

In a way it was destiny.

You see, people may tell you that Nazi Germany was built on anti-Semitism, a somewhat overzealous leader and a nation of hate-fed bigots, but it would have all come to nothing had the Germans not loved one particular activity – to burn.

The Germans loved to burn things. Shops, synagogues, Reichstags, houses, personal items, slain people and, of course, books. They enjoyed a good book-burning all right – which gave people who were partial to books the opportunity to get their hands on certain publications that they otherwise wouldn’t have. One person who was that way inclined, as we know, was a thin-boned girl named Liesel Meminger. She may have waited four hundred and sixty-three days, but it was worth it. At the end of an afternoon which had contained much excitement, much beautiful evil, one blood-soaked ankle and a slap from a trusted hand, Liesel Meminger attained her second success story. The Shoulder Shrug. It was a blue book with red writing engraved on the cover, and there was a small picture of a cuckoo bird under the title, also red. When she looked back, Liesel was not ashamed to have stolen it. On the contrary, it was pride that more resembled that small pool of felt something in her stomach. And it was anger and dark hatred that had fuelled her desire to steal it. In fact, on April 20 – the Führer’s birthday – when she snatched that book from beneath a steaming heap of ashes, Liesel was a girl made of darkness.

The question, of course, should be why?

What was there to be angry about?

What had happened in the past four or five months to culminate in such a feeling?

In short, the answer travelled from Himmel Street, to the Führer, to the unfindable location of her real mother, and back again.

Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.