The Book Thief Book Club Questions: Death, Words and Ordinary Acts of Courage

The Book Thief is one of my favorite books of all time, and it’s the book that made me fall in love with reading. I still think having Death narrate Liesel Meminger’s story is one of the best literary devices any book has ever used. What I love about that choice is how closely Death pays attention to the living. He has a world at war to account for, yet he makes time for Hans teaching Liesel to read after a nightmare and for all the trouble she and Rudy get into together. Those are the moments I want to talk about when I put the book down.

These 18 The Book Thief book club questions start with Death’s narration and follow Liesel’s relationships with Hans, Rosa, Rudy, Max and Ilsa. If your group starts with one question, make it this one: Which small act of care would you miss if Death told only the parts of Liesel’s story that made history?

Spoiler warning: This guide discusses the bombing of Himmel Street, Rudy’s fate and the novel’s final scene. It also discusses Nazi persecution and the Holocaust.

A quick refresher before your discussion

In Nazi Germany, Liesel goes to live with Hans and Rosa Hubermann after her brother dies. She takes a gravedigger’s handbook at his burial, before she can read it. Hans helps her learn, Rudy becomes her closest friend, and Liesel forms a bond with Max Vandenburg, a Jewish man the Hubermanns hide in their basement. That same basement later becomes the place where Liesel writes her own story. When a bombing destroys Himmel Street, her decision to keep writing there saves her life. Death retrieves her manuscript from the rubble and keeps it for years.

You can revisit my first impressions and the final scene in my review of The Book Thief and my explanation of the ending.

Questions about Death as the narrator

1. When did you start to trust Death with Liesel’s story? Pick a moment when his attention to a color, a gesture or a person made you feel he understood something the other characters missed. Did you ever question his judgment?
2. How did knowing Rudy would die change the way you read his scenes with Liesel? Think about their teasing, their loyalty and his repeated requests for a kiss. Which ordinary moment took on the most weight once you knew what was coming?
3. Why does Death pause Liesel’s story to tell us what he sees elsewhere in the war? What happens to your sense of scale when the novel moves away from Himmel Street? How do those passages change the way you understand Max’s danger?
4. Where do you hear Liesel’s voice most clearly in a story Death tells? Think about the difference between her experiences, the manuscript she writes and the story he tells from it. What would you want to hear in her own words?

Questions about Liesel, Hans, Rosa, Rudy, Max and Ilsa

5. What does Hans give Liesel during their reading lessons besides the ability to read? Think about why the lessons begin after a nightmare. How does his willingness to sit with her change what the basement means to her?
6. When did you begin to understand Rosa’s way of showing affection? Compare the way she speaks to Liesel with what she does when Max is in danger. Which gesture gave you the clearest sense of what she feels?
7. What does Rudy give Liesel that the adults in her life can’t? Choose a scene where she gets to be funny, stubborn or reckless around him. What does the friendship let her set aside for a while?
8. How do Liesel and Max look after each other through stories? Compare Liesel bringing Max accounts of the world outside the basement with Max giving her The Standover Man. What can each offer that the other needs?
9. How does Ilsa Hermann change Liesel’s idea of who gets to tell a story? Trace their relationship from the library to Ilsa giving Liesel a blank book. What does she recognize in Liesel by then?

Questions about words, propaganda and ordinary courage

10. What changes when Liesel reads aloud in the air-raid shelter? Think about who listens and what they share for those few minutes. What can her reading do for the people in the room, and where does its power end?
11. What do the painted-over pages of Mein Kampf add to The Standover Man? How does it change the gift to know what lies underneath Max’s words and drawings?
12. What does The Word Shaker help explain about the world outside the basement? How does Max’s fable account for the way Hitler’s words gain power? Where does the novel show people helping that language take hold?
13. How do you judge Hans for handing bread to a Jewish prisoner being marched through town? What does the gesture give the man in that moment? How do you weigh Hans’s impulse against the danger it brings to Max and the rest of the household?
14. Which takes more courage in the novel: a public gesture or a private commitment you have to renew every day? Put Hans’s act on the street beside the Hubermanns’ decision to keep Max hidden. What risks fall to Rosa that a passerby would never see?
15. How does Rudy’s understanding of who deserves help change over the course of the book? Compare an early scene where he follows an impulse with a later choice to help someone. What has he learned about the consequences of acting where other people can see?

Questions about the ending

16. What did it mean to you that Liesel survived because she was writing in the basement? Go back to her early reading lessons there. How does that history change the emotional force of the scene after the bombing?
17. Why do you think Death saves Liesel’s manuscript and returns it to her years later? What might he have found in her account that he couldn’t get from witnessing the same events himself?
18. By the final scene, who seems more changed by Liesel’s story: Liesel or Death? Think about what each has carried since Himmel Street. Whose answer would you most want to hear?

A 45-minute discussion plan

• 5 minutes: Ask everyone to name one scene that stayed with them.
• 10 minutes: Start with question 2 on Death’s early revelation about Rudy.
• 10 minutes: Pair questions 5 and 8 to compare the ways Hans and Max use words to care for Liesel.
• 15 minutes: Use question 13 to debate Hans’s decision, then ask whose work and risks become visible in question 14.
• 5 minutes: Close with question 17. Ask everyone to name one moment from Himmel Street they’d want someone to remember.

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Picking a copy for your group? See Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief in paperback on Amazon.

For more on why Zusak chose Death as narrator, see the author interview in Penguin Random House’s reading guide.

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