The Book Thief

In this part of the story, Death uses the metaphor of rolling dice to describe events taking place in 1941. He concludes with the unlucky number seven but takes each individual roll in turn.

Roll Number One—The Haircut, Mid-April 1941: Liesel comments that Max’s shaggy hair reminds her of bird feathers, so he asks her to cut it.

Roll Number Two—The Newspaper, Early May: On her way home from the mayor’s library, Liesel finds a newspaper in the trash with the crossword still empty. She brings this for Max to complete. Often, Liesel will sit in the basement reading while Max finishes a crossword. Death says, “Where Hans Hubermann and Erik Vandenburg were ultimately united by music, Max and Liesel were held together by the quiet gathering of words” (77-8).

Roll Number Three—The Weatherman, Mid May: After returning from a soccer game, Liesel visits Max, and he asks her to describe the weather outside. This impromptu afternoon weather report becomes the high point of his day as he remains cooped up in the basement.

Roll Number Four—The Boxer, End of May: Max decides that he needs a new project to occupy his mind. He recalls his years as a fighter and decides to rebuild his wasted body by doing pushups. He has a waking vision of entering the boxing ring with Hitler as his opponent. In the vision, Hitler calls on everyone in the audience to come up and help him destroy the Jew.

Roll Number Five—The New Dream, A Few Nights Later: Shortly after experiencing his new dream, Max confesses this disturbing vision to Liesel. At the end, he says that he’s the one who wins the match against Hitler.

Roll Number Six—The Painters, Early June: The Hubermanns and Max pull apart the remaining pages of Mein Kampf and whitewash them so that Max can write a new book using the pages. He will call his new storybook The Word Shaker.

Roll Number Seven—The Showdown, June 24: Liesel goes to the mayor’s house for the laundry, eager to resume reading a murder mystery entitled The Whistler. The mayor’s wife apologetically offers to give her the book along with a note from the mayor explaining that times are too hard to continue paying for laundry service. The Hubermanns have now lost their final customer.

Liesel is furious and declines the offer of the book. She says many unkind things to Frau Hermann before leaving in a huff. Back at home, she expects Rosa to punish her, but this doesn’t happen. Later that night, she tells her father that she expects to go to hell. He says that won’t happen either, “Then she lay back down, leaned on him, and together, they slept, very much in Munich, but somewhere on the seventh side of Germany’s die” (84-5). 

Rudy finds himself in trouble with the leader of his Hitler Youth troop, Franz Deutscher. While trying to defend the weaker Tommy Muller from abuse, Rudy invites Deutscher’s ire. Rudy has to run laps and do pushups in the mud. Despite these punishments, Rudy’s mood is positive because apple-stealing season is just around the corner.

When Liesel and Rudy rejoin their familiar gang of thieves to go apple stealing, they discover a new leader of the band. His name is Viktor Chemmel, and he is a sadistic bully. When he shortchanges Rudy and Liesel on their share of the haul, he and Rudy get into a fight. Viktor tells the two to leave and threatens to pay Rudy back someday for defying him.

During the summer, Max is at work on his new book. Instead of a biography, it becomes a series of sketches and thoughts about his life. When Liesel sees some of the contents, they frighten her.

Late in the fall, Rudy and Liesel conspire to go on another thieving expedition of their own. Liesel leads him to the mayor’s house, intending to enter through one of the library’s open windows. Rudy thinks they’re going to steal food, but Liesel wants the copy of The Whistler that she earlier rejected.

After almost getting caught, the two flee with the book, but Rudy has neglected to retrieve Liesel’s shoes, which were left outside the window. He risks capture again but successfully returns with the incriminating footwear. Before parting for the evening, Rudy bids goodnight to the book thief: “It was the first time Liesel had been branded with her title, and she couldn’t hide the fact that she liked it very much” (93).

Rudy continues to get himself into trouble through a series of ridiculous exploits. He attempts to steal a potato from a local market and gets caught but manages to talk his way out of a trip to the police station. Then, he antagonizes Deutscher by throwing a rock at him. In the fight that follows, Rudy comes out the loser. Finally, Rudy begins skipping Hitler Youth meetings altogether and risks a fine for his parents. He is eventually able to transfer to a different division with no Franz Deutscher in charge.

In December, as Liesel and Rudy are walking by the river, they encounter their former gang of thieves still led by Viktor. He hasn’t forgotten his grudge against Rudy. Taking Liesel’s copy of The Whistler, Viktor throws it into the river. Rudy gallantly dives in to retrieve the sodden volume. He stands in the freezing water for a moment. Although Liesel expects him to demand his customary kiss, he doesn’t. Death says:

In truth, I think he was afraid. Rudy Steiner was scared of the book thief’s kiss. He must have longed for it so much. He must have loved her so incredibly hard. So hard that he would never ask for her lips again and would go to his grave without them (96).