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Part 9: Homecoming
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Book Thief, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Death
Words and Language
Books
Stealing and Giving
Color, Beauty, and Ugliness
Summary
Analysis
Death gives another glimpse of the character's ultimate fates – Himmel Street will be bombed, and Death will come for Rudy, Rosa, Hans, Frau Holtzapfel, Frau Diller, and Tommy Müller, but not for Liesel. Liesel will survive because she is in the basement reading over her own life story. Later the local LSE will pull her from the wreckage and she will scream for her Papa, still clinging to the book that saved her life.
Death describes the tragedy that awaits in more detail this time. The novel is almost over by now, so the suspense intensifies. Knowledge of the horrible ending makes the action leading up to it seem that much more tragic. Death implies that Liesel's life will literally be saved by a book.
Themes
