“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.” This quote from Andy Rooney helps to describe how everyone wants to live, happy and free, yet they haven't realized that the real fun occurs as you are climbing your “mountain”, and the outcome will be great. In The Book Thief, Markus Zusak does a fabulous job of describing and explaining Liesel’s personal “mountain”. She endured many hardships and took some fabulous people along with her on this amazing thing that we like to call life. On Liesel's journey we go. “Liesel Meminger was a girl with a mountain to climb.” Oh how meticulously correct Death was with this statement. Liesel climbed the most important “mountain”…show more content… She was firstly put in a family crisis situation. On the way to her new foster parents’ house, Liesel watched the death of her own brother. Then she had to leave her mother, and was ostentatiously fought the idea of living with another family. Her foster father and her however became very close. When she thinks that nothing could possibly get better, a Jewish man shows up at her new house, the Hubermanns, doorstep. The Hubermanns, Hans (the foster father) especially, decide to hide the Jew in their freezing cold basement. After a while, Max (the Jew), and Liesel became close. Liesel meets Rudy Steiner, her soon to be best friend, and life is good. One day however changes that all. As a marching of Jews passes through Munich, the town Liesel lives in, a disputed between Hans, a Jew, and an SS officer sets the Hubermanns in an unsafe place. Max is forced to leave and Hans is sent off to war, along with Rudy’s dad, Alex Steiner. After that it was bombs. An accidental one set Molching on fire. Brave, that's what Liesel had to be with this new life awaiting her. Everyone she knew and loved, all gone, but carry on she…show more content… At this point she is most likely the happiest in life, even when her loved ones are no longer with her. As Liesel descended her “mountain”, she was awarded grandkids and great grandkids and was watched by Death, whom kept track of her diary for her. At the foot of her “mountain”, I imagine Liesel surrounded by her family, Death standing off to the side waiting for the right time. I imagine her reliving some of her past memories, readily waiting to meet them in heaven. From Liesel, we should be taught that no matter what life throws at you, there is always a great outcome waiting for us. She taught us that the greatest challenges bring the greatest
