The story begins with the narrator, Death, talking about his first encounter with Liesel Meminger only 9 years old at the time in Molching, Germany. He meets Liesel traveling on a train mid-winter with her mother and brother. She sees her brother who was coughing harshly take his last breath in front of her. Liesel and her mother then exited the train as soon as it stopped and had her brother buried in that town. Present at the burial was Liesel, her mother, and two gravediggers. Liesel was the last one to part from her brother’s grave and upon walking back to her mother she notice that there was a book laying in the snow. It belonged to one of the gravediggers but she didn 't know that at the time so she took it. It was the first book that she had “stolen.” Later that day she was separated from her mother and taken to her new home on 33 Himmel Street to live with Rosa and Hans Hubermann, her foster parents. On the first night she began living there, she began to have the same horrible and vivid nightmare of her brother’s death. She would wake up in the middle of night in a cold sweat screaming. Hans would stay with her till dawn either talking or playing the accordion making her feel more calm and at ease. Liesel became more comfortable around Hans and started to love him …show more content…
The Hubermann 's and the rest of the street begin to run into financial troubles so Rosa loses all of her clients including Ilsa Hermann. Rudy and Leisel join a gang and steal crops from farmers as snacks. Then one night Leisel takes Rudy to the Hermann 's house and steals a book from Ilsa’s library, The Whistler. This earns the nickname the book thief from Rudy. She has a great summer in 1942. By spending mostly with Hans when he was working , telling stories, or playing the accordion, and by seeing Rudy win three gold medals at the Hitler Youth carnival. The next visit the Hubermann 's house Leisel takes the Duden Dictionary and Thesaurus, which appeared to had been placed on the window was