The Book Thief

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. The destruction of books by governments is a common occurrence in history. Brainstorm different reasons why a political party, government, or ruling group might choose to destroy books.

Teaching Suggestion: This question will orient students to one of the themes of the book: compliance with and resistance to the Nazi Party. Some students might not be aware of the frequency of book burning by different ruling governments in history. Use this question to cite specific historical political parties and groups that limited free speech through the destruction of books, including governments other than the Nazi Party in Germany.

• The following article from Smithsonian Magazine provides important ideological reasons why some governments choose to limit the dissemination of free speech.
• This timeline collected by the Canadian group “Freedom to Read” provides a quick historical snapshot of different ruling governments that mandated the destruction of books.

2. The National Socialist German Workers' Party, also known as the Nazi Party, was a German political party in power from 1932 to 1945.