So there you have it.

Liesel Meminger, however, cannot be put into that category.

I know.

You know.

3. Playing soccer on Himmel Street.

4. The seizure of a different stealing opportunity.

1. Advancing through The Shoulder Shrug every night.

The authorities' problem with the book was obvious. The protagonist was a Jew, and he was presented in a positive light. Unforgivable. He was a rich man who was tired of letting life pass him by -- what he referred to as the shrugging of the shoulders to the problems and pleasures of a person's time on earth.

You're well aware of exactly what was coming to Himmel Street by the end of 1940.

The Shoulder Shrug, she decided, was excellent. Each night, when she calmed herself from her nightmare, she was soon pleased that she was awake and able to read. "A few pages?" Papa asked her, and Liesel would nod. Sometimes they would complete a chapter the next afternoon, down in the basement.

2. Reading on the floor of the mayor's library.

AND THE NOMINEES ARE…

For the book thief, the summer of that year was simple. It consisted of four main elements, or attributes. At times, she would wonder which was the most powerful.

The next attribute, as I've mentioned, was the mayor's library.

To exemplify that particular situation, we can look to a cool day in late June. Rudy, to put it mildly, was incensed.

"Schlaf gut, Papa," the girl said at those times. "Sleep well," and she slipped around him, out of bed, to turn off the light.

In the early part of summer in Molching, as Liesel and Papa made their way through the book, this man was traveling to Amsterdam on business, and the snow was shivering outside. The girl loved that -- the shivering snow. "That's exactly what it does when it comes down," she told Hans Hubermann. They sat together on the bed, Papa half asleep and the girl wide awake.

Sometimes she watched Papa as he slept, knowing both more and less about him than either of them realized. She often heard him and Mama discussing his lack of work or talking despondently about Hans going to see their son, only to discover that the young man had left his lodging and was most likely already on his way to war.

Who did Liesel Meminger think she was, telling him she had to take the washing and ironing alone today? Wasn't he good enough to walk the streets with her?

"Stop complaining, Saukerl," she reprimanded him. "I just feel bad. You're missing the game."

He looked over his shoulder. "Well, if you put it like that." There was a Schmunzel. "You can stick your washing." He ran off and wasted no time joining a team. When Liesel made it to the top of Himmel Street, she looked back just in time to see him standing in front of the nearest makeshift goals. He was waving.

She started to run, to Grande Strasse and the mayor's house.

"Saukerl," she laughed, and as she held up her hand, she knew completely that he was simultaneously calling her a Saumensch. I think that's as close to love as eleven-year-olds can get.

The mayor's wife, having let the girl in for the fourth time, was sitting at the desk, simply watching the books. On the second visit, she had given permission for Liesel to pull one out and go through it, which led to another and another, until up to half a dozen books were stuck to her, either clutched beneath her arm or among the pile that was climbing higher in her remaining hand.

Certainly, there was sweat, and the wrinkled pants of breath, stretching out in front of her.

But she was reading.

Liesel sat on the floor. The books were scattered around her.

After forty minutes, she left. Every title was returned to its place.

On this occasion, as Liesel stood in the cool surrounds of the room, her stomach growled, but no reaction was forthcoming from the mute, damaged woman. She was in her bathrobe again, and although she observed the girl several times, it was never for very long. She usually paid more attention to what was next to her, to something missing. The window was opened wide, a square cool mouth, with occasional gusty surges.

As summer set in, the roomful of books became warmer, and with every pickup or delivery day the floor was not as painful. Liesel would sit with a small pile of books next to her, and she'd read a few paragraphs of each, trying to memorize the words she didn't know, to ask Papa when she made it home. Later on, as an adolescent, when Liesel wrote about those books, she no longer remembered the titles. Not one. Perhaps had she stolen them, she would have been better equipped.

"Goodbye, Frau Hermann." The words always came as a shock. "Thank you." After which the woman paid her and she left. Every movement was accounted for, and the book thief ran home.

There was a young man parceled up in barbed wire, like a giant crown of thorns. I untangled him and carried him out. High above the earth, we sank together, to our knees. It was just another day, 1918.

The woman's face did not alter, yet somehow she managed to speak. "He is nothing now in this world," she explained. "He was my…"

THE NAME OF A BOY

Liesel bit down on her lip, but she could not resist it for long. From the floor, she turned and looked up at the bathrobed woman and made an inquiry. "Johann Hermann," she said. "Who is that?"

"Apart from everything else," she said, "he froze to death." For a moment, she played with her hands, and she said it again. "He froze to death, I'm sure of it."

Liesel apologized. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be asking such things…" She let the sentence die its own death.

THE FILES OF RECOLLECTION

The woman looked beside her, somewhere next to the girl's knees.

Oh, yes, I definitely remember him.

The sky was murky and deep like quicksand.

Johann Hermann

What she did remember was that one of the picture books had a name written clumsily on the inside cover:

She could have shot herself, scratched herself, or indulged in other forms of self-mutilation, but she chose what she probably felt was the weakest option -- to at least endure the discomfort of the weather. For all Liesel knew, she prayed for summer days that were cold and wet. For the most part, she lived in the right place.

The mayor's wife was just one of a worldwide brigade. You have seen her before, I'm certain. In your stories, your poems, the screens you like to watch. They're everywhere, so why not here? Why not on a shapely hill in a small German town? It's as good a place to suffer as any.

When Liesel left that day, she said something with great uneasiness. In translation, two giant words were struggled with, carried on her shoulder, and dropped as a bungling pair at Ilsa Hermann's feet. They fell off sideways as the girl veered with them and could no longer sustain their weight. Together, they sat on the floor, large and loud and clumsy.

The point is, Ilsa Hermann had decided to make suffering her triumph. When it refused to let go of her, she succumbed to it. She embraced it.

TWO GIANT WORDS

She was a girl.

Again, the mayor's wife watched the space next to her. A blank-page face.

I'M SORRY

At times, Liesel wondered if she should simply leave the woman alone, but Ilsa Hermann was too interesting, and the pull of the books was too strong. Once, words had rendered Liesel useless, but now, when she sat on the floor, with the mayor's wife at her husband's desk, she felt an innate sense of power. It happened every time she deciphered a new word or pieced together a sentence.

"For what?" she asked, but time had elapsed by then. The girl was already well out of the room. She was nearly at the front door. When she heard it, Liesel stopped, but she chose not to go back, preferring to make her way noiselessly from the house and down the steps. She took in the view of Molching before disappearing down into it, and she pitied the mayor's wife for quite a while.

In Nazi Germany.

How fitting that she was discovering the power of words.

And how awful (and yet exhilarating!) it would feel many months later, when she would unleash the power of this newfound discovery the very moment the mayor's wife let her down. How quickly the pity would leave her, and how quickly it would spill over into something else completely…

Part three, thank God, was a little more lighthearted -- Himmel Street soccer.

By the start of July, she finally managed to convince him that she wasn't going to kill him. Since the beating she'd handed him the previous November, Tommy was still frightened to be around her. In the soccer meetings on Himmel Street, he kept well clear. "You never know when she might snap," he'd confided in Rudy, half twitching, half speaking.

The coarse bounce of ball on road.

Feet scuffing road.

They were directed at Tommy Muller.

Now, though, in the summer of 1940, she could not see what lay ahead, in more ways than one. She was witness only to a sorrowful woman with a roomful of books whom she enjoyed visiting. That was all. It was part two of her existence that summer.

All were present on Himmel Street, as well as the sound of apologies, as summer further intensified.

The apologies belonged to Liesel Meminger.

Shouted words: "Here! This way! Scheisse!"

In Liesel's defense, she never gave up on trying to put him at ease. It disappointed her that she'd successfully made peace with Ludwig Schmeikl and not with the innocent Tommy Muller. He still cowered slightly whenever he saw her.

The rush of boyish breath.

Allow me to play you a picture:

"How could I know you were smiling for me that day?" she asked him repeatedly.

"Get back in there!" a boy named Harald Mollenhauer finally ordered him. "You're useless." This was after Tommy tripped him up as he was about to score. He would have awarded himself a penalty but for the fact that they were on the same side.

She'd even put in a few stints as goalie for him, until everyone else on the team begged him to go back in.

Liesel came back out and would somehow always end up opposing Rudy. They would tackle and trip each other, call each other names. Rudy would commentate: "She can't get around him this time, the stupid Saumensch Arschgrobbler. She hasn't got a hope." He seemed to enjoy calling Liesel an ass scratcher. It was one of the joys of childhood.

In fairness, there were many things that brought Rudy and Liesel together, but it was the stealing that cemented their friendship completely. It was brought about by one opportunity, and it was driven by one inescapable force -- Rudy's hunger. The boy was permanently dying for something to eat.

Another of the joys, of course, was stealing. Part four, summer 1940.

On top of the rationing situation, his father's business wasn't doing so well of late (the threat of Jewish competition was taken away, but so were the Jewish customers). The Steiners were scratching things together to get by. Like many other people on the Himmel Street side of town, they needed to trade. Liesel would have given him some food from her place, but there wasn't an abundance of it there, either. Mama usually made pea soup. On Sunday nights she cooked it -- and not just enough for one or two repeat performances. She made enough pea soup to last until the following Saturday. Then on Sunday, she'd cook another one. Pea soup, bread, sometimes a small portion of potatoes or meat. You ate it up and you didn't ask for more, and you didn't complain.

At first, they did things to try to forget about it.

Rudy wouldn't be hungry if they played soccer on the street. Or if they took bikes from his brother and sister and rode to Alex Steiner's shop or visited Liesel's papa, if he was working that particular day. Hans Hubermann would sit with them and tell jokes in the last light of afternoon.

"Come on," Rudy coaxed her in. "Just here. It isn't so deep here." She couldn't see the giant hole she was walking into and sank straight to the bottom. Dog-paddling saved her life, despite nearly choking on the swollen intake of water.

With the arrival of a few hot days, another distraction was learning to swim in the Amper River. The water was still a little too cold, but they went anyway.

"You Saukerl," she accused him when she collapsed onto the riverbank.

The nerve of him!

He called after her. "Does this mean I don't get a kiss for teaching you?"

It was inevitable.

Rudy made certain to keep well away. He'd seen what she did to Ludwig Schmeikl. "You can swim now, can't you?"

Which didn't particularly cheer her up as she marched away. Her hair was pasted to the side of her face and snot was flowing from her nose.

"Saukerl!"

The depressing pea soup and Rudy's hunger finally drove them to thievery. It inspired their attachment to an older group of kids who stole from the farmers. Fruit stealers. After a game of soccer, both Liesel and Rudy learned the benefits of keeping their eyes open. Sitting on Rudy's front step, they noticed Fritz Hammer -- one of their older counterparts -- eating an apple. It was of the Klar variety -- ripening in July and August -- and it looked magnificent in his hand. Three or four more of them clearly bulged in his jacket pockets. They wandered closer.

The boy only grinned at first. "Shhh," and he stopped. He then proceeded to pull an apple from his pocket and toss it over. "Just look at it," he warned them. "Don't eat it."

"Where did you get those?" Rudy asked.

The next time they saw the same boy wearing the same jacket, on a day that was too warm for it, they followed him. He led them toward the upstream section of the Amper River. It was close to where Liesel sometimes read with her papa when she was first learning.

There were a few such groups in Molching at the time, some with members as young as six. The leader of this particular outfit was an agreeable fifteen-year-old criminal named Arthur Berg. He looked around and saw the two eleven-year-olds dangling off the back. "Und?" he asked. "And?"

"And he's fast," said Liesel.

"I'm starving," Rudy replied.

A group of five boys, some lanky, a few short and lean, stood waiting.

Berg looked at her. "I don't recall asking for your opinion." He was teenage tall and had a long neck. Pimples were gathered in peer groups on his face. "But I like you." He was friendly, in a smart-mouth adolescent way. "Isn't this the one who beat up your brother, Anderl?" Word had certainly made its way around. A good hiding transcends the divides of age.

Another boy -- one of the short, lean ones -- with shaggy blond hair and ice-colored skin, looked over. "I think so."

Andy Schmeikl walked across and studied her, up and down, his face pensive before breaking into a gaping smile. "Great work, kid." He even slapped her among the bones of her back, catching a sharp piece of shoulder blade. "I'd get whipped for it if I did it myself."

When they reached the farm, Liesel and Rudy were thrown a sack. Arthur Berg gripped his own burlap bag. He ran a hand through his mild strands of hair. "Either of you ever stolen before?"

Rudy nodded.

Arthur had moved on to Rudy. "And you're the Jesse Owens one, aren't you?"

Rudy confirmed it. "It is."

"Clearly," said Arthur, "you're an idiot -- but you're our kind of idiot. Come on." They were in.

"You can't eat books, sweetheart."

"Of course," Rudy certified. "All the time." He was not very convincing.

Liesel was more specific. "I've stolen two books," at which Arthur laughed, in three short snorts. His pimples shifted position.

TWO DEBUTANT APPLE THIEVES, WHISPERING

"No, no, look, you throw the sack on. See? Like them."

"Look at the barbed wire, Rudy. It's so high."

"I can't!" Hesitation. "Rudy, I --"

"Move it, Saumensch!"

"All right."

He pushed her toward the fence, threw the empty sack on the wire, and they climbed over, running toward the others. Rudy made his way up the closest tree and started flinging down the apples. Liesel stood below, putting them into the sack. By the time it was full, there was another problem.

"Liesel -- are you sure? Do you still want to do this?"

"Come on then!"

"Richtig." It was a chorus.

From there, they all examined the apple trees, who stood in long, twisted rows. Arthur Berg gave the orders. "One," he said. "Don't get caught on the fence. You get caught on the fence, you get left behind. Understood?" Everyone nodded or said yes. "Two. One in the tree, one below. Someone has to collect." He rubbed his hands together. He was enjoying this. "Three. If you see someone coming, you call out loud enough to wake the dead -- and we all run. Richtig?"

"How do we get back over the fence?"

"Good work," was his final comment on the matter.

The answer came when they noticed Arthur Berg climbing as close to a fence post as possible. "The wire's stronger there." Rudy pointed. He threw the sack over, made Liesel go first, then landed beside her on the other side, among the fruit that spilled from the bag.

"Not bad," landed the voice from above. "Not bad at all."

Next to them, the long legs of Arthur Berg stood watching in amusement.

When they made it back to the river, hidden among the trees, he took the sack and gave Liesel and Rudy a dozen apples between them.

That afternoon, before they returned home, Liesel and Rudy consumed six apples apiece within half an hour. At first, they entertained thoughts of sharing the fruit at their respective homes, but there was considerable danger in that. They didn't particularly relish the opportunity of explaining just where the fruit had come from. Liesel even thought that perhaps she could get away with only telling Papa, but she didn't want him thinking that he had a compulsive criminal on his hands. So she ate.

On the riverbank where she learned to swim, each apple was disposed of. Unaccustomed to such luxury, they knew it was likely they'd be sick.

"Saumensch!" Mama abused her that night. "Why are you vomiting so much?"

They ate anyway.

The apples, she thought happily. The apples, and she vomited one more time, for luck.

"Maybe it's the pea soup," Liesel suggested.

"That's right," Papa echoed. He was over at the window again. "It must be. I feel a bit sick myself."

"Who asked you, Saukerl?" Quickly, she turned back to face the vomiting Saumensch. "Well? What is it? What is it, you filthy pig?"

But Liesel? She said nothing.