The Book Thief Mortality

Death won't take you before you're body is dead. No matter what you did or didn't do in life, this Death will treat you just like he does everybody else.

See. Death is saying this to all of us. He doesn't discriminate. His vision of the moment after Death is rather comforting. But, do you think it's plausible? Why or why not?

Death presents dying as a unifier, the one thing that ties all humans together.

This is an important aspect of Zusak's Death. He doesn't cause death, but, rather, exists because people die. He doesn't want people to die. It just means more work for him, and he would prefer to be sunning it up on a tropical island sipping strawberry daiquiris.

This image of her dying brother will haunt Liesel for many years and come to her every night as she sleeps. It's a very traumatic experience that shapes her life in many ways.

All the references to Liesel's first book cast a spooky, morbid cast over the novel. It's a great way to highlight the theme of death and book stealing in one fell swoop.

One of the saddest parts of the novel is when Liesel misses out on kissing Rudy when he's alive, and kisses him instead when he's dead.

This is a good one. This makes dying sound not half bad. But, the big mystery is, where does Death take us after all this gentleness? For some clues, see the novel's final chapter.

This is to accentuate the number of Jewish people dying during the Holocaust, in Germany, and other locations in Europe. Normally, Death sees colors like, black, white, blue, etc. But, during these times, there were so many Jews being murdered, that they overshadow the other colors as Death takes them across the sky.

Death can get just a tad sarcastic, especially when people he doesn't approve of die. This is his comment on Reinhold Zucker, the man who dies after forcing Hans to swap seats with him, and thus, unwittingly, saving Hans' life.

We quote this passage to show you those who didn't die – Liesel and Max. Were you surprised when Max walks through the door of Alex Steiner's tailor shop? If not, how did you see it coming?