Her brother's death is a big part of the story and it lays the path for everything else that happens.
On the train ride to Molching, her mother is asleep while she witnesses her brother dying of sickness and lack of food. When the train stops they get off and bury him in a grave yard. Liesel seemed to be slightly cold to his death until it was time for them to go and she stayed by the grave that had been dug and cried not getting up until her mother grabbed her. While leaving she saw a book left in the snow, The Grave Digger's Handbook, and hid