The friendship between Liesel and Max

In the last 100 pages that we have read, I must say that the friendship between Max and Liesel is one of the more important parts of the book. When we first meet Max, he is in a train coming to Molching, with a notecard with Hans Herman’s information, who apparently knew Max’s father in the war. When Max comes to Liesel’s family door, Liesel is living a pretty nice life of normalcy by playing with her best friend Rudy, and reading every night with her family. At first, Liesel stays away from max, until she learns of his nightmares and his passion for reading. Time passes, and the reader sees Max and Liesel form a friendship.

Max and Liesel are becoming closer and closer as friends, and begin to connect on a complex level because of the danger that their family heritage creates by being in Nazi, Germany. Liesel, has mentioned earlier in the book, has parents who are communist, which is why she can’t be with her family and why she must live with a foster family. Liesel knows that her mother has lost contact with her foster family, and Liesel believes that the Fuher might have something to do with it. Max, on the other hand, has obviously suffered under Hitler’s rule, because he must hide in his friend’s basement with only some scraps of food to get by. They both will have become closer through their knowledge of having each other to depend on with their fear of the Nazi world they live in. Friendship is a major motif in this story, because it represents the connection of two people through one of the toughest times in history.