My mom taught me
to read when I was four. Since then, I’ve had words shoveled into my head by
culture, literature, and dozens of other sources. Words are my comfort, words are my song, words are my liberation. The very base of society rests
on reading, on communication through little chicken scratches on thin sheets
made from trees. Words are essential to our society—regardless of the fact that
14 percent of the U.S.’s population is illiterate.*
Several of my
bookish friends have mentioned Markus Zusak’s book, The Book Thief—a bookish book which I booked from the library to bookishly
read. There’s no doubt it’s a book that must be grappled with, but gives few
answers for the many questions it raises.
The Ideas
Set in World War
II, Liesel Meminger’s world is very bleak. Words become her way out. The first
book Liesel steals becomes her link with the past, and as time goes on, the
books she reads provide a way of staying sane in the insanity. Indeed, this
theme is so strong as to verge on preachy. Several characters are saved by
books (and an accordion), in various manners. The Fuhrer invites followers, “beckoning
them with his finest, ugliest words, handpicked from his forests….Words were
fed into them. Time disappeared and they now knew everything they needed to
know. They were hypnotized.”
