![]() She may not tell anyone, not even her best friend, Rudy, about Max, or her foster parents will be taken away and she would have to live with a new family. The only time Hans speaks harshly to Liesel is when he explains the need for her absolute silence regarding their houseguest. Years later, Erik’s son Max, weary and tired from months of hiding from the Nazi party, arrives at Hans’ door to see if Hans will keep his word.ĭespite the danger, Hans and Rosa take in Max, arranging a hiding place for him in their basement behind paint cans. The only reminder Hans has of his friend is the accordion he left behind.Īfter the war, Hans visited Erik’s widow and vowed to help her if ever she needed anything. Erik also volunteered Hans to stay behind from battle one day in order to help a captain write some letters. Erik was a Jewish musician who brought an accordion with him and taught Hans how to play. Max is the son of Erik Vandenburg, who served in the same company as Hans during Word War I. Their quiet life is altered when Max Vandenburg arrives and asks if Hans still plays the accordion. Instead he promises to keep her secret if she promises to keep his secrets. ![]() When Hans discovers the book, he doesn’t punish her. Two years later, when the local Nazi party sponsors a book burning, Liesel steals her second book from the smoldering pile of banned stories. Liesel’s days are spent struggling to catch up in school, playing soccer with Rudy Steiner (her best friend) and the other children in her neighborhood, helping Rosa deliver laundry to her customers throughout Molching and reading with Hans at night when recurring nightmares wake her. He uses it to help her improve her reading. Hans discovers Liesel’s first literary theft, The Gravedigger’s Handbook, under her mattress. She ultimately comes to call Hans and Rosa Papa and Mama. It is Hans’ gentle care and accordion playing that eventually softens the girl’s heart. Grieving the death of her brother and the loss of her mother, Liesel takes time to adapt to her new surroundings. Liesel’s mother accompanies her to a foster home in Molching, Germany, where she gives the girl into the care of Hans Hubermann, a housepainter, and his wife, Rosa. It is through Death’s words that we become voyeurs into Liesel’s life over the next four years. He watches as she mourns at her brother’s graveside and steals a book that falls from a gravedigger’s pocket. Although few humans interest him enough to stay nearby once his task is done, 9-year-old Liesel intrigues him. Death has come to take the soul of her sick brother. Death, the narrator of this book, first meets Liesel Meminger in 1939 as she, her little brother and her mother travel on a train.
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