Your Comments
1. Liesel steals the book once again from Isla’s library.
2. A red book with black writing. It’s about “an abandoned child who wanted to be a priest.” We are also given a small snippet, “The young priest questions his faith after meeting an elegant woman.”
3. Liesel purely picks the book, the moment it catches her eye, for Max. So she brings it home and reads it to a limp, motionless figure in his beaten sleep. She reads in an attempt to wake him and fight against death itself, or himself. “She thought of Max and his dreams. Of guilt. Surviving. Leaving his family. Fighting the Fuhrer. She also thought of her own dreams- Her brother dead on the train…”
4. It is the link and relationship between Liesel and Max. the story of an abandoned child links with both Liesel and Max’s stories as Liesel has been abandoned from her mother and like Max’s story being abandoned from the outside world. When Liesel reads the story to Max when he is in his deadly sleep Liesel relates her feeling for Max like her brother ‘had max now replaced her brother?’
Past Students' Notes
The Dream Carrier is stolen from the library. The book was “red with black writing on the spine.” It is about an abandoned child who wants to become a priest – therefore it is symbolic of community, new beginnings, renaming. It was read to Max when he was sleeping and awake. Liesel is afraid that Max will die. He has replaced her brother so she feels guilty because she shouldn’t feel more for Max than her brother. She carries Max’s dreams – if she doesn’t wake up he’ll die. She built the snowman downstairs and now Max is ill. She feels guilty about that. Dreams are the future. The book shows Max’s drive to survive. He has dreams of surviving and fighting Hitler. Mere survival is victory. Jews must survive to “bear witness”. Since Max has replaced her brother – he has become Liesel’s dream – hence the book foreshadows survival and waking up ultimately to a new world. Liesel is a beacon of hope for survival. The fact that the book is about an abandoned child wanting to be a priest tells us that Liesel may be an important person to her community like a priest.