Popular Culture Review Vol. 23, No. 2, Summer 2012 | Page 56

52 Popular Culture Review Hans sacrifices his cigarette ration to pay for these books. However, on Hitler’s birthday in April 1940, Liesel steals her second book from a bonfire of banned books. The Shoulder Shrug is the name of the book, and the mayor’s wife sees her confiscate this smoldering book from the bonfire and hide it inside her uniform. This sizzling book generates pain for Liesel, yet it also makes her happy, thus illustrating the sacrifice and sanctuary motifs in the novel. Books and the words in them almost always seem to be involved with the events of Zusak’s The Book Thief. Thus, when the young Jew Max Vandenburg arrives on Hans and Rosa Hubermann’s doorstep seeking refuge, he carries a copy of Mein Kampf as a ruse to hide who he really is. Later on, Liesel and Max will pull out the pages of the Hitler book, paint over the text, and use the now-clean painted pages for their own writing paper. Amid fear and pain, the written word can lead to a degree of sanctuary—especially when the canvass is stripped of polluted words for a fresh approach to the creativity of what it means to suffer in a world upside down. At another time in The Book Thief Liesel visits the mayor’s house to pick up and deliver the washing and ironing that Liesel’s foster mother takes in for some extra money during these hard times for ordinary German citizens. Ilsa Hermann, the mayor’s wife, is the person who earlier saw Liesel steal the book from the bonfire. Ilsa allows Liesel to read some of the books in her home library. One such book is the murder mystery entitled The Whistler. In the mayor’s wife’s library, Liesel gains a measure of sanctuary from the outside wor ld of war, hunger, and fear of the Nazis’ finding out about her foster family’s harboring a Jew in their basement. When the mayor and his wife must cancel the washing and ironing service, Liesel then breaks into the library room and steals The Whistler, true to her name as the book thief. Simultaneously, Max and Liesel read each night in the cold basement on Himmel Street. Max even writes a story with sketches for Liesel. This thirteen-page book, called The Standover Man, is written on the painted-over pages of his copy of Mein Kampf Here Zusak uses symbolism in that the Jew Max’s story obliterates the Fuhrer’s famous words. Liesel and Max closely bond in their time together, as they share stories, words, and writings in the basement. In a sense, their work together mitigates their sacrifices and sufferings, provides some sanctuary, and even leads to some redemption or hope for a time after the war. In fact, while many on Himmel Street will die before the novel’s close in 1943, Liesel and Max do survive and live on, as Death explains. Survival may be conceptualized as fortune, “the survival of the species,” the sheer will to live, or resilience. But Zusak helps us think about the nourishment of the human spirit, in this case through the creation of the popular written word, as a way of thriving and surviving. Still another book that Liesel steals from the mayor’s wife’s library is The Dream Carrier. Often the library room’s window is left open, allowing Liesel easy access once she climbs up and reaches it. This book is about an