The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak is a novel that portrays the struggles of a young German girl living in Nazi, Germany. The main theme about this book is courage. As the characters grow and change, courage becomes a bigger and important factor towards their lives. Liesel Meminger, Rudy Steiner and Hans Huberman are characters who show traits of courage.
The protagonist Liesel Meminger, has demonstrated courage multiple times. Liesel shows her courage through the act of stealing books and reading.
"The book thief has struck for the first time – the beginning of an illustrious career.” Chapter 5, page 29. When her brother passed away, Liesel stole her first book during his burial. This book was called 'The Gravedigger's Handbook' and was her first act of stealing. After learning how to read with her foster father Max Hubermann, she started to steal books from the mayor's library. With these books, she displays courage by reading to children and adults during air raids in the basement shelter.
Rudy Steiner is Liesel’s friend and sidekick. He shows lots of courage throughout this book. He dreamed towards becoming a famous runner like Jesse Owens, an African-American who won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics, held in Germany.
“He smeared the charcoal on, nice and thick, till he was covered in black.
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That leaves 10 percent who didn’t. Hans Huberman belonged to that ten percent.” page_ chapter- . .” Liesel’s foster father Hans Huberman shows a lot of courage trying to protect a Jew, Max Vandenberg, by keeping him hidden in his basement in order to protect him from being captured by the Nazis and taken to a concentration camp to be tortured and killed. An act as risky and dangerous as this would have led to Hans and his family also being tortured and killed if they had been captured. Knowing this, Hans still does not hesitate to remain ethical, as he “was a man who appreciated