Reading Response to The Book Thief

Reading Response to The Book Thief

            I am currently reading The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. This book is really sad because it takes place in World War II, and thus describes millions of deaths. The following paragraph shows my reading log.

9/12. 20 minutes. 9/13. 20 minutes. 9/14. 60 minutes. 9/15. 20 minutes. 9/16. 20 minutes. By the end of the week I reached page 101.

            This book is about an orphaned girl named Liesel who is stealing books that are supposed to be burned by the Nazis during World War II, hiding them under her mattress, and using them to learn how to read. Doing so, she is saving the books from being burned. Therefore, in my opinion, Liesel is not actually a thief. This story explains how in World War II, not only Jews were persecuted, but communists and several others were also persecuted. To make matters worse, Liesel’s foster father is communist and he mysteriously disappears. Nobody should have had to experience the events of World War II, but these events were very real.

            It is hard to understand why anybody would destroy books and ideas written by others. Disrespectful! Could this possibly happen today? I hope not. But my dad tells me things like that are still happening due to those people who want to intimidate others and force them to change their beliefs. Yikes! How do we stop this sort of thing? This question is basically impossible to answer, but I have 4 words for everyone: Fight for your beliefs.