The novel The Book Thief is narrated by Death, an entity, or concept, that most humans fear. Death follows the life of Liesel Meminger through a book that she wrote about her life as well as their close encounters. Though Death is very familiar with humans, he doesn’t really understand them, and throughout the novel, he asks questions about the human race, and at the end, states, “I am haunted by humans” (Zusak 550). These questions can be summed up, in a way, as this: What is human? Why do we do the things we do? Why do we matter?

As far as why the human race matters, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure I can answer that. A common belief is that we are meant to better ourselves, the lives of others, and the planet. But look how far that’s gotten us. Anxiety and depression rates are rising, and with that, suicide. We are killing each other, with 76 mass shootings that have already occured this year at the time of me writing this. AND not only that, but we are slowly killing our only home and not doing much about it.

So if not for the entirety of the human race, if not for each other, and if not even for ourselves, then why do we matter? Who do we matter to? Some may say God, or some sort of other religious figure, but who knows if that’s even true? We can’t prove that some higher power exists. If one does exist, then I guess we matter to them. If not, then again, why do we matter?

This just proves my point I made earlier: I can’t answer this question. Nobody can. We can believe that we are here to do good, we can believe that someone is looking out for us, but we don’t know for sure. We know that we must matter, but we don’t know why.

As far as human nature goes, I think we try to be good. It’s like that thing where every villain believes that they are right and the hero is wrong, but the hero believes that they are right and the villain is wrong. We all try to be good and improve life to the best of our abilities, but we can’t see that some of our actions are evil.

One thing that is commonly recognized as human nature is greed, meaning that one thinks that they should have everything because of this, that and whatever. But this too follows the hero/villain phycology. For example, let's say that you are at a party and there is only one slice of cake left. You, along with three other people, want that slice. Now the best way for this situation to be resolved is to cut the slice into four even pieces and share, like we all learned in kindergarten. But in that moment, whether you want to admit it or not, you come up with explanations or excuses as to why you deserve the entire piece. You never say it, but you think it. And you think that you are right. Well, the other three people are doing the same, and they too, think they are right.

However, all of this doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in the human race. I think, and I hope, that we can eventually solve all our problems and everyone can live long happy lives. Not believing in the human race can take many forms, but the most common one, and the one that everything ties into, is hatred.

Whether it be for a single person of an entire race or gender, hatred is one of the most dangerous things to humans. Hatred is what causes these mass shootings, the anxiety, all of that. In The Book Thief and when studying the Holocaust, it is clear that hatred is at the center of all the terrible things that happened. An entire society turned on an entire race, leading to the murder of millions and another war. Hatred kills. If that’s not enough to show how dangerous hatred can be, then I don’t know what is.

Reading The Book Thief from Death’s perspective provides us with a new look on humans. The reader learns both the rewards and the consequences of human nature. They learn the great things that it can bring, along with the worst and the worst. It shows them that human nature can be “so ugly and so glorious” (550).

For my altered book, I chose to focus on one main theme: the power of words. This idea is present throughout the novel, from the meaning behind The Gravedigger’s Handbook to Liesel’s own book, The Book Thief. I chose to focus on the later parts of the novel since I felt that that is where this theme is the most significant and meaningful.

My altered book centers around Liesel’s book and The Word Shaker. These two things I felt were the most powerful symbols for the power of words. The Book Thief, which Liesel writes in her basement, saves her life during an unannounced air raid. This can also be interpreted as the words saving her life. The Word Shaker shows that kind words can cut through hate, in a way. Also, at the beginning of the short story, it describes Hitler planting a forest of words and pouring them into people’s minds. This shows that, when used correctly, words have the power to control an entire nation.

The cover of the altered book is the cover of Liesel’s book, and throughout the book I put excerpts from her book. I did this because I wanted her book to be throughout my altered book to show the significance of it’s symbolic meaning.

The second page is based on The Word Shaker story. As previously said, The Word Shaker is a strong symbol for the power of words. On the page, I cut out Liesel’s tree along with five other trees from Hitler’s forest. On one of the branches of her tree is Liesel, sitting and watching the forest. I made her tree the only tree with leaves to make it appear friendlier in a way, since it is made out of a seed of friendship. This also shows the tone for that section of the novel by making the reader feel happier when looking at the big tree than at the smaller trees. The sentence “The word shaker understood the true power of words” is on the trunk to show yet again the power of words. The sentence “Listen to me lie” is also highlighted above Hitler’s forest to show what those trees are meant to do and also to set a more eerie and mean tone when the reader looks at those trees.

The fourth page shows yet another scene from The Word Shaker. As described in the second paragraph, this is the scene where words are being poured into people’s brain. The words I chose to come out of the bucket are words that are illustrated in The Word Shaker as well as words that I have heard throughout this unit. The head of the person also opens up to show the words inside it. This page is mainly to show the tone of that part of the story as well as many other parts of the book where characters are “brainwashed” in a way. It makes the reader want to stick their hand under the pouring words to stop them from going inside the person’s head.

The last page of my altered book shows what to me is the most significant, symbolic and powerful scene. As said earlier, it can be said that words save Liesel’s life, showing how powerful words can be. On one side, there is a crater created by one of the bombs, along with the red sky and more bombs falling from the sky. On the other side, there is a cutout of the basement, and inside of it is Liesel, sitting on a paint can, writing her book, safe from the bombs. Around the scene are the words from the last page of her book. These words were the reason that she was down in the basement in the first place, since it was that night that she finished the book.