Hi, I'm Kitty Felde, and we are counting down to Book Club for Kids' 10th anniversary by revisiting our top 10 episodes from the past decade.
This week, we talk about the school library journal and Publisher Weekly's best children's book of 2006, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.
It's a novel with the most unusual and rather disturbing main character.
Give a listen. It's the Book Club for Kids.
It's the Book Club for Kids.
It's the Book Club for Kids.
It's the Book Club for Kids podcast. Hi I'm Kitty Felde.
Our novel this week is The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak.
It's a story with a pair of very grim topics, the holocaust and death itself.
Topics that don't seem to faze our readers from Stuart Hobson Middle School in Washington, in DC.
I don't think about death because we're still young.
We want to live our lives, we want to have fun.
So what does death sound like?
Please, again, I ask you to believe me.
I wanted to stop, to crouch down.
I wanted to say, I'm sorry, child.
That's our celebrity reader, actress Melanie McQueen.
Our writer Marcus Zusak tackles our very favorite question, what's your favorite book?
I would say that the book that I've reread the most and that I give away the most as a gift is Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon.
This is the book love for kids, the show where kids talk about books.
We'll tell you how you can be on the show a little later on but first, let's meet our readers.
Oh and just a warning our discussion contains spoilers.
Okay guys go ahead and introduce yourselves.
Hello my name is Farrah.
Hello my name is Anders.
Hello my name is Maria.
We are sixth graders at Stuart Hobson in Washington DC.
So the book is The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak.
How would you describe the plot?
What's the book about?
um so the book is about Lisa Neminger, she is a 10 year old who just recently lost her brother when going to a foster home and when she was at her brother's memorial she stole a from the grave digger and when she took it onto the train with her she didn't know how to read at that time then when she got to her new foster parents house Rosa and Hans Hoberman.
Hans taught her to read.
after he was taught to read there was still a problem she was still below on reading speed and she was still mocked and made fun of daily as well as her mother had disappeared.
where does book take place?
Time, place? It takes place in 1938 Nazi Germany.
And what's it like in 1938 to be in Germany?
It is rough because some people can't like read because of laws and it's just like very unfair.
Particularly for one particular group of people.
Who's that? For Jewish, the Jewish people and for those who helped the Jewish people.
It's called the book thief so obviously our heroin keeps stealing books, but to what end?
Why is that such a big deal?
I mean, we can just go to the library and get a book.
But libraries were very hard to find at that time, probably, because they were burning all the books that were thinking about good things about Jews, and Hitler did not want them, so they would always burn them in the fire.
And Liesl caught one and started stealing books because she found her lover books when she learned how to read.
She learned to love books and she actually finds someone who will help who helps her with this with the mayor's wife Elsa who actually provides her with with hundreds of books and almost her own personal library was this the first holocaust related novel you guys read yes yes I read um I saw Hitler we saw a movie recently called the boy in stripe pajamas so how does this book compare in most Holocaust books there is normally there's always one hero who tries to unite all against Hitler and I would think there's a similar theme except in this case there are multiple people who are against Hitler, Liesel
the main protagonist Hans Huberman her foster father and Rudy her best friend There's an unusual narrator of this book.
Is Death? Well, let's hear a bit from Death herself.
Our celebrity reader is actress Melanie McQueen.
The last time I saw her was red.
The sky was like soup boiling and stirring.
In some places it was burned.
There were black crumbs and pepper streaked across the redness.
Earlier, kids had been playing hopscotch there, on the street that looked like oil -stained pages.
When I arrived, I could still hear the echoes, the feet tapping the road, the children voices laughing, and the smiles like salt, but decaying fast. Then bombs.
This time, everything was too late.
The sirens, the cuckoo shrieks in the radio.
All too late. Within minutes mounds of concrete and earth were stacked and piled.
The streets were ruptured veins, bloodstreamed till it was dried on the road, and the bodies were stuck there like driftwood after the flood.
They were glued down, every last one of them.
A packet of souls. Was it fate?
Misfortune? Is that what glued them down like that?
Of course not. Let's not be stupid.
It probably had more to do with the hurled bombs thrown down by humans hiding in the clouds.
Yes, the sky was now a devastating, home -cooked red.
The small German town had been flung apart one more time.
Snowflakes of ash fell so lovely you were tempted to stretch out your tongue to catch them, taste them.
Only they would have scorched your lips.
They would have cooked your mouth.
Clearly, I see it. I was just about to leave when I found her kneeling there.
A mountain range of rubble was written, designed, erected around her.
She was clutching at a book.
Apart from everything else, the book thief wanted desperately to go back to the basement, to write or to read through her story one last time.
In hindsight I see it so obviously on her face.
She was dying for it, the safety of it, the home of it.
But she could not move.
Also, the basement didn't even exist anymore.
It was part of the mangled landscape.
Please, again, I I wanted to stop to crouch down.
I wanted to say, I'm sorry child, but that is not allowed. I did not crouch down.
I did not speak. Instead, I watched her awhile.
When she was able to move, I followed her.
She dropped the book.
She knelt. The book thief howled.
Basically, Liesel is the main character and Death is another main character.
Liesel was the person that wanted to write the book, and she gave her hopes up.
Then Death picked up her book and gave it back to her.
I believe there is a bit of a pattern in what Death does and what Liesel does.
In the beginning death takes Liesel's brother and it's a bit of a circle really he takes Liesel's brother and Liesel's mother and he gives back by giving her foster parents who teach her to read and write and he takes from her again later in the story when um Heimel Street is bombed and and everybody Lisa loves dies and she quits writing her book, and after that again, death gives back by giving Lisa her book to allow her to live once again.
Well, Death, he's the third person omniscient character.
He's all -knowing of all the characters and he tells all of the characters point of view but not through one person but through everybody and it just gives dynamic twist for the story.
Talk about that. I mean, you're using big literary words - third person omniscient narrator here.
Would it have been a different book if the writer Mark Azuzak had decided to do this through Liesl's eyes or a different voice in this book?
Yes. How? Because Liesl doesn't know what every single character is thinking of, of every moment, so it will be changed to haunt her plot and the twists of it.
Unlike Death, Liesl would probably showcase her opinions and we would hear probably a lot of her thoughts as well as see everything through her eyes and that would probably change the plot a lot.
We would more understand things from her point of view and less understand things from others.
Liesl don't know anything that's going on with like some of the characters in the book.
I feel like Death only knows what's going on the character She's the narrator of the story.
So that was a good choice by the writer.
I think yeah Cuz most of the time you don't know what people are thinking of Were you surprised when you found out who the narrator was?
I was kind of surprised when death became a character because His opinions were very very skeptic about humans and like what they and their opinions as well as he was very very neutral and you couldn't really tell his opinion but he also had an opinion of what the humans thought of him because early in the book he slightly threatened the reader in a way and then he quickly corrected himself And tried to make it seem like he was not a villain and tried to make it seem like he was a result of a villain Well, I was surprised that death was a character Because he just seemed like the person that was shut
out He just looked over people and he wasn't actually in the book.
He wasn't living in the book He was just shadowing over everything.
Well, what do you guys think about death in general?
I mean, is this something you think about often?
Not really because I just want to live my life until I die.
So you don't think about death?
Not really, no. One time I did, though, when there was a lockdown in our school.
Either there was some shooting in like, kindergarten or something.
I normally think about death in general but never really to or from others.
You don't think about your own mortality, the fact that someday you're gonna die.
No, it just makes life less pleasant.
It's like, you're just making it worse.
You're not actually focusing on what could happen.
You're basically saying, oh, at the end of the day I'm going to get a bad haircut, better just not do anything at all because it's inevitable.
I don't think about death because we're still young, we want to live our lives, we want have fun so it just feels depressing for me to think about it so that's why I don't well this book deals with two depressing topics you know the Holocaust and death itself is it a depressing book I would say it's a sad book on probably depressing for some people because later in the story as soon as you get fully connected with most of the characters basically everyone besides Lee sold dies and then she has to live for most of her life without the people she loved I agree with Anders death is like a character
that will like kill people but really he really never gives their lives back like um he did to Lee's all in the book did you find the book depressing oh a little bit yeah I found the book a little bit depressing because it talks about a sad story at a sad time when there was still love.
But at the end, when they just bombed everything and her life was destroyed, it became like the moment where Lisa just shut down.
There was nothing that could make her happy again.
Cause all the people she loved were gone.
Well, would you recommend this book then, since it's so sad and depressing?
Yes, it's a good book.
The only thing is that it takes a long time to read, but I would recommend this book.
I would recommend this book.
There are a few foul words in German, so as long as you don't know too much German, I think it's fine for you, but yeah.
I would recommend this book, even though it's very long and it took a while to read, it's good book and it talks about a good time through a sad moment in history.
We like to ask everybody on the show the hardest question in the world.
What is your favorite book and why?
Our friends at the Australian bookstore Booktopia asked writer Marcus Zusak that very question.
I'd say the book that made me want to be a writer in the end was probably or in the beginning was The Outsiders by S .C.
Hinton, which I read when I was 14 and I think when I read it again I read more of her books when I was 16, that's when I decided I'm going to be a writer and nothing's going to stop me.
But I wrote about eight pages and those eight pages could be entered into a competition for the worst book ever written, so there was plenty of work still to do.
The book I re -read the most, and I re -read a lot of books, I think that's how I ended up being a writer, was not reading really widely but to read the same books over and over again.
One would be, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
Because it just teaches a great lesson as a writer and that is that great characters make great books and that book is just loaded with great characters.
I would say the book that I've reread the most and that I give away the most as a gift is Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon, and it's just got a whole lot of elements that come together all the time, you're laughing and yet at the same time you're just amazed at the kind of gems he can put onto a page and it's just a to read.
The book I wish I had written, there are so many, but this, I'm gonna choose something totally different for this, it's a book I wish I'd translated and that's because Emily Wilson has done the most amazing translation of The Odyssey and I can't imagine someone having an intellect like that and it's It's quite mind -blowing so get a hold of that one if you can.
What about you Melanie McQueen, what is your favorite book?
Winnie the Pooh is my favorite book because Pooh takes his time in life and I like to take my time in life with my friends and the forest. Alright hardest question, what's your favorite book?
My personal favorite, The Girl Who Drank the Moon.
I like it mainly because of the rai humor and the silly aspect but also because of the complicated, yet very sensical plot.
And we should mention that we love that book too, The Girl Who Drank the Moon is one of our Book Club for Kids podcast episodes and if you want to listen to that conversation we will have a link at our website, BookClubForKids .org.
Okay, who's got a favorite book?
Maria. Dork Diaries, and it's basically about this girl named Nicky that always liked this boy Brandon and it's just like funny, and comedy, and all that stuff.
My favorite book is Harry Potter, the Prisoner of Azkaban cuz it's like so fun.
It's so mysterious and you want to know who Sirius Black is, like, why he went to and why did he kill these people.
And it's just so awesome.
We'll have a list of everybody's favorite book at our website bookclubforkids .org.
And if you know some young readers who would like to be on the Book Club for Kids podcast, all you need to do is use a smartphone.
If you send us an email to kitty at bookclubforkids .org, we will send you all the information.
that's Kitty at Book Club for Kids.
F -O -R kids dot O -R -G.
Thanks this week to producer Isla Setsial and our associate producer, Hannah Matzekki.
Oh, and by the way, do you like our new music?
Well, thank you Brandon Baker for composing and recording this fabulous theme.
Emma Steinkeller designed our logo.
Thanks to our celebrity reader, Melanie McQueen and writer Marc Ozusak, and the Australian bookstore, Booktopia.
We will have a link to their YouTube channel, Booktopia TV, at our website.
And thanks, of course, to our readers this week, Farrah, Anders, and Maria and their teacher, Vernestine Black from Stuart Hopson Middle School in Washington, D .C.
This episode is funded in part by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation which is dedicated to advancing the education of exceptionally promising students who have financial need.
And by the Capitol Hill Community Foundation, helping to build a stronger and more caring community.
A place where families can flourish and where every resident can share in a better future.
We have a free newsletter for teachers, parents and librarians full of free tips about how to turn kids into lifelong readers.
You can sign up at our website, bookclubforkids .org.
And if you're looking for a way to introduce civics to your kids, give a listen to our new podcast, the Fina Mendoza Mysteries.
It takes place on Capitol Hill with a behind -the -scenes look at Congress.
Next week we'll be back with some great book suggestions.
I'm Kitty Felde, thanks again for listening.
