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Ms.

Hamiltons 8th Grade English Class


Period 2
Del Mar Middle School
105 Avenida Miraflores
Tiburon, CA 94920
November 17, 2014
Brian Percival
Care of Sunswept Entertainment
18560 Vanowen St.
Reseda, CA 91335
Dear Brian Percival of Sunswept Entertainment:
My name is Stella and I am an 8th grader at Del Mar Middle School. I am
writing this letter to inform you on my thoughts of why The Book Thief
was an unsuccessful/unpopular adaptation from a book to a movie.
There were parts where I thought it was done really well, including the
setting and scenery of the book, it was similar to what I had imagined
while reading the book, but some sections clearly need improvement in
order for it to be a successful adaptation.
The movie of The Book Thief had to cover over 500 pages of material
into just 2 hours. There was a lot of crucial information that it left out
from the book. This information the movie lacked help us analyze and
make important connections between the main characters of the book,
which helps for us to know the characters more in-depth. Because the
book was so long, I understand that it is not possible to fit every single
detail into the movie, but the scenes added or taken out were not the
best changes because it misses out on key components to the original
storyline. Much of Ilsa and Liesels relationship was excluded in the
movie and I feel like that leaves out a big part of Liesels experience of
growing up. In the book, Liesel matures into a fluent reader by
constantly reading different books at the library in the Mayors house.
Ilsa is very flexible with Liesel being in her house and does not mind
having her there. The movie does not show much of Ilsa and Liesels
interactions, and that is a key component to the story that the movie
did not include.
A different aspect of the movie was Death, the narrator of the story.
Death was only in the beginning and the end of the movie, making me
feel like he is a very minor part of the story, but Death took part
throughout the book, with entire chapters of him talking about how he
felt towards Liesel and his fear of humans. Furthermore, Maxs dream
of being a boxer and fighting Hitler was also left out in the movie. His

dream was important to show us his overwhelming hate towards Hitler,


and his audacity towards what he believed in.
In addition, the author of The Book Thief, Markus Zusak, did not take
part in the screenwriting of the movie, and that is a possible factor that
led to how the movie turned out. For example, the Harry Potter movies
were successful; J.K. Rowling, the author of the series took part in
producing and writing the film. Another example is The Hunger Games.
Suzanne Collins, the author of the book, also took part in making the
movie, in which turned out to be extremely popular and successful.
The reason why I think it is better to have the author be part of the
production team of the movie is that they know what is important to
include in an adaptation and what details are okay to let go of.
In all, I believe that The Book Thief was an enjoyable movie but it
couldve been a better adaptation if the suitable moments of the story
were captured and put in, and if the author took part in screenwriting
the movie.
Thank you,

Stella

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