Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Book Thief, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Death
Words and Language
Books
Stealing and Giving
Color, Beauty, and Ugliness
Summary
Analysis
It turns out that the raid was only the sirens going off accidentally. The next raid a few days later, however, is real. The people of Himmel Street gather again, and this time there is even more tension in the Fiedlers' basement. Liesel starts to read The Whistler out loud to comfort herself, but soon everyone falls silent and starts listening to her. Liesel realizes that reading out loud is like having and playing her own accordion. Even after the sirens signal that the raid is over, people stay to hear the rest of the chapter, and they thank Liesel as they leave. Himmel street was not hit by any bombs.
This is a very important moment for Liesel, and shows how much she has grown. The same girl who failed her reading test is now reading to a silent gathering of adults. She no longer needs Hans to comfort her with reading – now she is comforting others. This again shows the power of language and art to distract and inspire during hard times. Liesel gives the people in the shelter a reprieve from their fear with her words, just as Hans does with his music.
Themes
The Hubermanns return home and Rosa proudly tells Max what Liesel did. At that moment Max conceives the idea for his next book, The Word Shaker. Liesel asks Max if he saw the sky during the raid, but Max says the only sky he had was the one painted on the basement wall.
Rosa's heart shows through in her pride for Liesel's actions. Max is again associated with the sky and visual art, but he is someone trapped by a cruel society and kept from fully experiencing both.
Themes
