When You're Young. (The Book Thief by Markus Zusak)

In the book “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak It takes place during the World War I and World War II. In this time many people, including the main character Liesel, aren’t treated fairly compared to Germans and Nazis. People hated by Nazis like Jews were not supposed to, in the opinion of the Nazis, do things like learn, read, practice their religion, or even be themselves. This being many children did not know how to read and were not being taught by anybody. Liesel is a little girl who has never even read a book before and has many questions that should be answered but nobody can help here learn the answers of life.

As I read through the beginning of the book I realized that constantly Liesel is asking many questions.  And I know what you’re thinking. You think they are the common little kid questions that don’t mean anything but every time you answer they respond in “why?” making you keep explaining and explaining until you don’t even know what you’re talking about anymore. But no, these questions do relate to the word “why?” a lot but they are not the questions that little girls should need to know or need to worry about. For example, Liesel asked the question, “What’s a Communist?” Communist is a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. Why would a little kid be asking a question like this? Another example when Liesel was given to another family because her parents couldn’t take care of her she asked, “If her mother loved her, why leave her on someone else’s doorstep? Why? Why? Why? A little kid should not be have to be left by their parents that love them because things are getting hard (because of the war).

I can relate this to my life and probably every kid’s life ever born. When growing up you always ask thousands of questions. The questions don’t have meaning and don’t matter to us at all but when we are young and don’t know about anything yet there are so many questions in are head that we don’t understand that we need to tell a parent or guardian all of them. I remember when I was little asking why it rained. I didn’t really care why it rains but I didn’t understand it and when we look at parents we look at them as if the know everything. After she explaining to me that it raining because water comes from the sky I asked why? Then my mom explained how the water came from clouds. I responded again with why and she explained how water came from the earth and turned into the clouds and I continued asking why until my mother didn’t even know how or why. The main point is children should be asking adults why it rains, why there is day and night, and why the sky is blue they should have to worry and wonder about communism or orphanage and their parents leaving them.