The World Upside Down
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abandoned child, and it connects with Liesel in a startling way. It is now 1942,
as Death interjects comments into Liesel’s story about events elsewhere, such as
Auschwitz and the imminent bombings from the Allies. But in Molching, lisa
Hermann writes to Liesel and gives her a dictionary and thesaurus, the
traditional keys to understanding, thus patching up their fractured relationship
and offering some hope amid the chaos of war and an ordinary world turned
upside down.
During air raids, Liesel takes her books with her to the basement of a
nearby house designated as a bomb shelter. As those gathered shudder in fear,
Liesel, now maturing into her young teens, reads to the group from The
Whistler. This reading soothes and comforts the group. Here words can help
alleviate pain and panic; above ground, the words of Hitler and the Nazis cause
pain and panic. When leaving the basement shelter, many of the people “thanked
the girl for the distraction” (382). When there are more sirens and air raids, Lisel
continues to read to those assembled. Moreover, Liesel is asked by Frau
Holtzapfel to read to her in her home as a distraction, especially after the loss of
one of her sons in battle. Liesel’s reading to another person gives sanctuarysome meaning, personal contact, and calming relief-to a person in a terrible
situation of normal grief engulfed by a world where little is normal.
On the night of October 7, 1943, Liesel’s already-troubled world comes
apart and is turned upside down. Munich is the Allies’ target, but Molching’s
Himmel Street is devastated, and Liesel loses her family and friends. According
to Death, Liesel is saved because she was in her family’s shallow basement
writing and revising her own book or diary—The Book Thief— during the
surprise bombing. When she is rescued by searchers, she is clutching her book
manuscript: “She was holding desperately on to the words who had saved her
life” (499). The personification in Zusak’s phrase “words who” is noteworthy.
Even as so many people die, the words live on. Liesel’s book writing is
redemptive, for it tells of ordinary people caught up in the frenzy of war, of the
many deaths in the camps, of those who are anti-Hitler, and of those who follow
the Fuhrer’s every command. Liesel lives beyond this terrible bombing scene;
Max returns from the camps, and they reunite. Her book is heavy with its pain,
yet hopeful with its tales of humanity. Her book sets her free; it delivers her.
Finally, as mentioned earlier, Liesel lost her book manuscript in the
rubble on Himmel Street. Still, she lives to a very old age. She has a husband
and children and grandchildren. When Death finally comes for her in Sydney,
Australia, he shows and returns to her the special book that “saved” her life—in
several senses. The narrator Death is moved by humans such as Liesel and what
they can accomplish for themselves and others in a horrible world. According to
Death, “I am haunted by humans” (550).
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Published in 2008 by American authors Mary Ann Shaffer (now
deceased) and her niece Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel