The Book Thief Chapter 10

The Other Side of Sandpaper

• One day in May of 1939 the "NSDAP (otherwise known as the Nazi Party) […] marched" through Molching (10.4).
• They chant, "Deutschland uber alles"—Germany over Everything" (10.4).
• (NSDAP stands for National Socialist German Workers Party. The word "Nazi," by the way, comes from German. It's the "phonetic spelling of the first two syllables of Nationalsozialist, National Socialist."
• The people watch, clap, cheer.
• Liesel is with Rudy and Hans on the street.
• Death tells us that in 1933 (the year Hitler took power), ninety percent of Germans voted for Hitler.
• Ten percent of Germans did not support Hitler. Hans Hubermann is part of this ten percent, and he has his reasons (as we'll soon learn).
• That night, Liesel dreams of the brown-shirted Nazis. They take her to a train and show her Werner.
• This time, she not only screams, but also wets the bed.
• Papa helps her get cleaned up. As he's taking off the sheet, something falls from the bed onto the floor—it's the book.
• Hans reads the title out loud: The Grave Digger's Handbook.
• He asks Liesel if she wants to read it, and she says she does.
• In four years, Liesel will be writing her own book. In it she will write about how Hans teaches her to read.
• Before they begin, Hans asks her why she would want to read a book about digging graves.
• She tells him she took the book from the snow, near Werner's grave.
• Hans shows her a page and asks which words she knows. She only knows three, "the three main German words for "the" (10.7).
• Hans decides to start by teaching her the alphabet and some words.
• He has sandpaper for his painting work, and he uses the smooth side of the sandpaper as paper.
• He draws letters, words, and figures for Liesel.
• They study long into the night.
• Afterwards, in the dark, Papa sits in the chair in case she needs him. Liesel doesn't close her eyes because, "She was watching the words" (10.31).