Death was talking about himself, because he wanted the reader to understand who he was and what war did to him. He talked of how he looked like all of us and how he, contrary to popular belief, hated war. It caused him pain to have to leave some, who wanted to die, behind and war overburdened him with work. He also talked of the book thief and how she, at that moment, was carrying snow down into her basement.

It was Christmas Eve and Liesel decided to give Max the gift of snow. The whole family gathered in the basement to throw snowballs and make a small snowman. It gave them the greatest Christmas they could ever have, a Christmas of fun and frivolity.

Then the snowman melted and Max began to get sick. He progressively became more ill, until one night in February he almost collapsed. He was put in Liesel's bed and she slept in her parents' room. He couldn't seem to get warm, instead he became more frail.

Max would not wake up, Death came for him, but Max struggled against him so he lived a while longer. Meanwhile he did wake briefly while Rosa was feeding him soup, then a week later he opened his eyes again.

Liesel decided to bring him presents of things she found on her journey to and from school. She brought him thirteen presents in all; the final one was the book she had stolen, The Whistler. All any of them, Hans, Rosa, and Liesel wanted was for Max to wake up.

Liesel stole The Dream Carrier from the mayor's house and she began to read it twice a day to Max. She told her mother to tell her when Max woke up no matter where she was or when he awoke. In mid-March, Rosa came to Liesel's school to tell her Max was awake.

Liesel happily returned home that evening to talk to Max. He told her he was afraid of falling asleep, so she read to him all night. He slowly improved and by mid-April he was once again sleeping in the basement.

On May 30^th bomber planes dropped their deadly cargo on the town of Köln or Cologne. Death collected five hundred souls that day and thousands more were left homeless. As he was transporting the soul of teenage girl, he heard a group of ten-year-old girls talking about something dropping from the sky. It wasn't a bomb, but instead an empty fuel container from one of the airplanes. The children collected the containers to take home, while Death continued to collect souls to take with him.

The NSDAP were inspecting houses to see if the basements would make good bomb shelters, after the bombing of Cologne. Liesel injured herself while playing soccer, so Papa would come and get her. She then warned him about the men inspecting the basements, but they came to their door before they could move Max. Hans warned Max and the rest of them acted as if everything was fine. The basement was not big enough to be a shelter, which was good. They all were relieved when the NSDAP man left the house.

As soon as the man inspecting the basement left, Rudy came to see if Liesel was okay. He smelled cigarette smoke on her, which gave him an idea. They could steal some of Papa's cigarettes and sell them to make money to buy food. Liesel wouldn't do it, which angered Rudy, because she would steal books but not cigarettes. She told him she and everything else was fine. The month was June and little did Liesel know that soon everything would not be fine.

Death spoke of how the summer was full of Jews for him. He took them from Auschwitz and Mauthausen, just to name a few of the concentration camps he took souls from. He took them as they were being gassed and as they tried to escape by jumping off a cliff. He especially remembered a group of French Jews in a prison camp located in Poland. He tried to be gentle, even kissing some as he took them away.

Molching prepared for the bombings in the summer of 1942. Papa's painting business began to pick up, because people needed their windows painted black, so the bombers couldn't see their homes.

Sometimes the people could only pay him with a cookie, this was fine by Papa. He also always took his accordion along to play for Liesel during their breaks. She didn't realize it, but this was the best time of her life. The bad times were coming fast, but for now she enjoyed her time with Papa and Mama.

At the Hitler Youth carnival Rudy participated in four events, winning three of them, because he was disqualified from the last event for false-starts. He proved to himself and Franz Deutscher he was a winner after all.

Liesel stole another book from the mayor's library. Then a week later Rudy told her she needed to go back to the library, because there was a book leaning against the window waiting for her to take it. It was a dictionary and thesaurus; Liesel saw the mayor's wife waving to her as she rode her bike away from the house. Inside the books was a letter to Liesel from the mayor's wife, which told Liesel the mayor's wife knew all along Liesel had been stealing books and she hoped she would come to visit the right way next time. Liesel tried to go back to talk to her, but she couldn't.

The war is coming closer to Molching, but first Max needed care because he had become deathly ill. His recovery was a source of joy for the family. Papa has discovered Liesel's secret and so had the mayor's wife, but neither of them were angry with her for stealing books. Rudy meanwhile, proved to himself and others he was not only smart, but athletic also.