Foreshadowing In The Book Thief

In Markus Zuask’s brilliant novel The Book Thief Liesel Meminger is introduced as a young German girl that of which is coping with the recent loss of her younger brother while growing up during WWII in the care of her two new foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubberman. As a family the three of them risk everything they have, including their very own lives, in order to hide a young Jewish man named Max in their basement for an extended period of time. Throughout the book Leisel and Max develop a friendship like no other and begin spending time reading together thus resulting in an unbreakable bond between the two of them. Despite the story line, this book is not like any other book out there due to the fact that Zuask chose to use death as a narrator therefore affecting the novel drastically for each and every reader.
Although it may seem strange to choose a character who is often times seen as harsh and unforgiving to describe in depth a series of events, it

For example, on page 3 death says, “You are going to die.” This quote, although strong and interesting, leads to confusion among many readers due to the fact that they don’t realize it is a huge foreshadowing of the end of the book. In addition to that on page 241 death says, “He didn’t deserve to die the way he did.” The “he” death is referring to happens to be Liesel’s best friend, the young boy with the hair of a lemon, otherwise known as Rudy. He had died, along with many others including Liesel’s mama and papa, in a tragic bombing. These quotes, both spoken directly by death, were found toward the beginning and middle of the book. Showing that the things death says are often times so honest and direct that they reveal the ending therefore leaving a slight possibility of Zuask losing a portion of his audience’s interest and or losing them all