The Theme Of Death In Markus Zusak's The Book Thief

Find your own happiness, because soon enough everything will be over. You’ll be dead in the dirt and so will all the people you've ever known. You may not know it, but Death is always closer than you think. Carpe Diem. Seize the day while you still have a chance. Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief takes the reader back to Germany in World War Two to a little fictional town called Molching, right outside of Munich, Germany. Narrated by Death, the book follows the story of a little girl named Liesel Meminger. We meet little Liesel at the young age of nine years old. She was at a very bad time in her life, suffering from the death of her brother and the separation from her mother. She is taken in by Hans and Rosa Hubermann, who live in Molching. She soon realizes it is abnormal for her to be illiterate and becomes determines to learn to read. Hans teachers her how to read in secret midnight lessons that occur in the basement of their house at 33 Himmel Street. The book they read during these midnight lessons, The Grave Digger’s Handbook, is very peculiar as it was taken from the scene of her brother’s burial. She starts to become closer with the accordion-playing, cigarette-smoking, window-painting Hans Hubermann. Along with Hans, Liesel becomes very close with her
I’ve read it three times, and each time I read it I notice more of the little things. I notice how Death describes a person’s death and how often Death foreshadows the bombing of Himmel Street. I notice how Death uses colors when talking about the moment of a person’s death and how he uses these colors to reflect how a person lived their life. My favorite quote from the book is by Death; he says “The question is, what color will everything be at that moment when I come for you? What will the sky be saying?” The narrator also changes my perspective of the book. Zusak doesn't portray Death as a thing to be feared, but rather a thing to welcome, Death