Saturday, January 9th (date subject to change)
Big Borders
2:00 pm
We will be reading The Book Theif by Markus Zusak.
What inspired this novel was a story the author heard from his parents about bombings in Munich. One day, when his mother was six years old, she heard a noise on the street and started running with the other kids. She thought it was cattle, but was severely mistaken: it was people running from the destruction of bombs. There was this old man you couldn’t keep up, hobbling down the street. A teenage boy got bread from his house and gave it to the old man. The old man then fell to his knees, grabbed the boy by the ankles and kissed his feet. A soldier then came along and took the bread away. He whipped the old man for taking it and beat the boy for giving it. (amazon.com)
Liesel Meminger is only nine years old when she is taken to live with the Hubermanns, a foster family, on Himmel Street in Molching, Germany, in the late 1930s. She arrives with few possessions, but among them is The Grave Digger’s Handbook, a book that she stole from her brother’s burial place. During the years that Liesel lives with the Hubermanns, Hitler becomes more powerful, life on Himmel Street becomes more fearful, and Liesel becomes a fullfledged book thief. She rescues books from Nazi book-burnings and steals from the library of the mayor. Liesel is illiterate when she steals her first book, but Hans Hubermann uses her prized books to teach her to read. This is a story of courage, friendship, love, survival, death, and grief. This is Liesel’s life on Himmel Street, told from Death’s point of view. (http://www.randomhouse.com/features/markuszusak/bookclubcontent.html)
Liesel Meminger is only nine years old when she is taken to live with the Hubermanns, a foster family, on Himmel Street in Molching, Germany, in the late 1930s. She arrives with few possessions, but among them is The Grave Digger’s Handbook, a book that she stole from her brother’s burial place. During the years that Liesel lives with the Hubermanns, Hitler becomes more powerful, life on Himmel Street becomes more fearful, and Liesel becomes a fullfledged book thief. She rescues books from Nazi book-burnings and steals from the library of the mayor. Liesel is illiterate when she steals her first book, but Hans Hubermann uses her prized books to teach her to read. This is a story of courage, friendship, love, survival, death, and grief. This is Liesel’s life on Himmel Street, told from Death’s point of view. (http://www.randomhouse.com/features/markuszusak/bookclubcontent.html)
