Q3 Outside Reading Post #2

In the next section I read, I found out more about the town Liesel was living in.  It was a small town in Germany named, Molching, more specifically, Himmel Street.  Markus Zusak writes, "On the whole, it was a street filled with relatively poor people, despite the apparent rise of Germany's economy under Hitler" (46).  Even though the economy as a whole was doing well, there were many smaller towns around who were still poor.  The debt of the war had a very lasting negative effect on many people.  Even though the street was poor, the people didn't let that stop them from being happy.  Zusak writes, "On Himmel Street, friendships were made outside, no matter the weather" (47).  The children were all friends with each other.  Since they were all poor, they had something to relate to and there wasn't any competition on who had more money or better toys.  They were all in the same boat.  Although Liesel moved into a poor household, anything seemed so much better than where she came from.

In this section, we also meet a new character who lives on Himmel Street with Liesel, Rudy Steiner.  Zusak describes him as, "the boy next door who was obsessed with the black American athlete Jesse Owens,"(46) and, "He was eight months older than Liesel and had bony legs, sharp teeth, gangly blue eyes, and hair the color of lemon.  One of six Steiner children, he was permanently hungry" (48).  We get a good picture of Rudy through this.  He seems to be the tough kid on the block who the kids fear.  We also find out that he secretly likes Liesel along with all the other ladies.  Markus Zusak writes, "He liked girls a lot, and he liked Liesel (hence, the snowball).  In fact, Rudy Steiner was one of those audacious little bastards who actually fancied himself with the ladies" (48-49).  This might be foreshadowing something that comes later in the book.  I wonder if something will spark between Liesel and him.