Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief sits comfortably in the pantheon of my All-Time Favorite novels; it even flirts sometimes with the top spot. (More on that pantheon later.) I teach the novel every year to my 7th graders and therefore, get the chance to read it slowly and deliberately each spring. Most of my students adore it and many tell me it’s become their own favorite novel.
What’s best about the book is its unabashed endorsement of a live lived fully. The narrator is Death, who’s getting frustrated with his demanding job collecting souls. Are human beings worth it? he wonders. Why are they afraid to cry and love, to rail against the world and let themselves be open to all those around them? He becomes convinced of the richness of humans by following the story of Liesel Meminger, a young girl who travels to a small German town during WWII to live with foster parents. Liesel is equal parts Scout Finch, Frankie Addams from The Member of the Wedding, and Mary Lennox (if you consider the secret garden Liesel finds is contained in the power of words and stories). Liesel learns to allow everything she feels to inform, enrich, even nurture her life.
For my money, the most moving character in a cast of wonderfully drawn people is Hans Hubermann, Leisel’s gentle and wise foster father. A good man living in a terrible time, Hans struggles to make a living painting houses and playing the accordion. He’s got troubles: all his Jewish clients have disappeared, his son has left him for the Furher, and he must swallow his conscience in a neighborhood of Nazis.
And he expresses all his pain and sorrow and anger through his accordion. Late in the book, Liesel tells us about Hans:
I often look at his fingers and face when he plays. The accordion
breathes. There are lines on his cheeks. They look drawn on,
and for some reason, when I see them, I want to cry. It is not
for any sadness or pride. I just like the way they move and
change. Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When
he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.
breathes. There are lines on his cheeks. They look drawn on,
and for some reason, when I see them, I want to cry. It is not
for any sadness or pride. I just like the way they move and
change. Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When
he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.
That’s why human beings are worth it. That’s why we, like Hans, need to find any means possible to tell the story of our life.
And that’s how an accordion breathes.
