Question 3

[Samuel]

Why do you guys think that Liesel steals the Grave Digger's Handbook when her brother died? 

[John]

I believe it was supposed to be a memory of her brother. It also symbolizes her her mother's memory along with her brother.

[Dominic]

I think she stole the book for lessons of how to dig the grave and also a memory of the brothers funeral. The book represents great loss, great sorrow, and her feelings of abandonment. It reprsents an end of one phase of her life and the start of a new one.

[Nicholas]

I believe she steals the Grave Diggers Handbook to remember her brother, but also for curiosity to know if he was buried correctly. 

[John]

It was also to signify her beginning of stealing books

[Meredith Teuber]

Did you guys notice when her brother and the nightmares disappeared in the story?  It is so beautiful.  On page 473, "she walked home and her brother never climbed in to her sleep again.  In many ways, she would miss him, but she could never miss his deadly eyes on the floor of the train or the sound of a cough that killed...the boy only came before she closed her eyes..her brother, Werner, played in the cemetery snow."  He only comes back as joyful images now.  What happens to change this?  

[Gannon]

So she can kind of remember him by taking the book from where she saw him last. She wants to read this book but she can't understand German yet so she holds on to it until she can read it.

[Allison]

I think liesel took the book so she could tie something in to remember him. The book is like a reminder that her brother is gone.

[Daisy]

Liesel steals the Grave Digger's Handbook when her brother died because that's all she has left of him.