The Complete Duden Dictionary and Thesaurus

The Complete Duden Dictionary and Thesaurus is not merely a reference book in Liesel Meminger’s story. It is the object she steals from Ilsa Hermann’s library, the material proof that her clandestine visits have been noticed, and the source from which she learns that a word can carry an ethical demand as well as a definition. When Ilsa Hermann later gives Liesel a black notebook instead, the dictionary’s function is transformed: its vocabulary has prepared Liesel to understand forgiveness, while its theft helps lead her toward becoming a writer.

Appearance and Discovery

The book enters the story in the last days of August, when a gift is noticed rather than formally presented. Liesel is watching Kristina Müller jump rope on Himmel Street when Rudy Steiner arrives on his brother’s bicycle and asks whether she has time. The encounter becomes a new episode in their stealing, but the object they find is unlike the ordinary prizes of a raid. Inside Ilsa Hermann’s house, Liesel raises her head and reads the title: The Complete Duden Dictionary and Thesaurus. She mouths to Rudy that it is a dictionary; he responds by holding out his arms, leaving the decision and the risk to her.

The book’s identity immediately changes the character of the theft. Liesel is not simply taking a story for the pleasure of possession. She is reaching for an instrument of language, a book whose purpose is to explain words and their relations. The scene emphasizes her nerves: her palms sweat, and she works methodically as she slides the window upward. From outside, she imagines her hand rising into the room until the dictionary is brought down, surrendering slowly like a falling tree. The image gives the book a physical presence of its own; it is heavy, resistant, and yet finally yielded to the thief’s hand.

Theft and Exposure

The dictionary becomes the decisive evidence that Liesel’s visits to the library have been seen. After taking it, she encounters Ilsa Hermann at the window. Liesel is so shocked that she says nothing to Rudy or to herself. Instead, she raises her hand in a motionless wave, acknowledging the woman above her while still holding the stolen object below. The gesture is neither a successful escape nor an open confession. It suspends the relationship between them in a moment of recognition: Ilsa Hermann knows who the thief is, and Liesel knows that her secret is no longer secure.

The book therefore operates as an index of absence and presence. Its removal leaves a trace in the library, and the trace leads back to Liesel’s body. Ilsa Hermann later explains that she first thought she had misplaced a book, but then noticed the outlines of feet on the floor in patches of light. The footprints make the theft legible. They convert Liesel’s private desire for books into a visible pattern, while the dictionary itself becomes the object around which discovery, shame, and continued contact gather.

The Dictionary as Ethical Vocabulary

One of the book’s most important functions is revealed through the entry for forgiveness. The text identifies the second meaning of the relevant word as “Verzeihung—Forgiveness,” followed by the definition, “To stop feeling anger,”. The dictionary thus interrupts the action with a small lesson in moral language. Its pages do not erase the theft, but they provide Liesel with a term through which the emotional consequences of the theft can be understood.

That definition is especially powerful because the dictionary is itself part of the offense. The stolen object teaches the thief the language by which injury might be released. Its reference function becomes relational: a word that appears to be neutral and alphabetical is placed beside the anger, humiliation, and possible reconciliation between Liesel and Ilsa Hermann. The book’s meanings are not isolated information. In Liesel’s experience, they acquire force through the circumstances in which she encounters them.

Letter, Library, and Writing

The dictionary is also connected to Ilsa Hermann’s letter. Ilsa writes that Liesel may find her pathetic and loathsome, directing her to look up the latter word if she does not know it. She says that she had noticed the footprints in the library and that, after seeing the first missing book, the outlines made her smile. The letter turns the evidence of theft into a form of communication. Instead of responding only with punishment, Ilsa Hermann interprets the traces and addresses the girl through the shared medium of books and words.

The dictionary’s influence reaches its clearest consequence later, when Liesel apologizes to Ilsa Hermann for what she did in the library. Ilsa quiets her, removes a small black book from her bag, and explains that it contains lined paper rather than a story. Because Liesel is no longer going to read more of her books, Ilsa suggests that she write one instead. She praises Liesel’s ability to write and tells her not to punish herself or become like Ilsa Hermann. The notebook is not the dictionary, but it is offered as its successor: the earlier book supplied words to be learned, while the new one offers blank space in which Liesel can make words of her own.

The contrast is reinforced by the notebook’s material appearance. Its cover is heavy and matted like The Shoulder Shrug, linking Liesel’s future writing to the books she has stolen and read. Ilsa Hermann gives it to her with both hands, and Liesel touches the paper before thanking her and inviting her inside. The sequence moves from a dictionary taken through a window to a writing book offered through an encounter, from secrecy to acknowledgment, and from consuming language to producing it.

Narrative and Thematic Significance

As an object, The Complete Duden Dictionary and Thesaurus marks a change in what books mean to Liesel. Earlier, stealing can be understood as acquisition, adventure, and resistance; the dictionary adds study and interpretation to those motives. It makes language materially available to her, but it also exposes the human relationships that language must negotiate. The title first announces a coveted possession, then becomes evidence in a letter, and finally stands behind the possibility of forgiveness and authorship.

Its narrative path is therefore a compact version of Liesel’s larger development. The dictionary is found during an afternoon on Himmel Street, taken through a raised window, recognized by its owner through footprints, and recalled when Ilsa Hermann gives Liesel the means to write. The object links physical movement with moral movement: a hand reaches into a library, a word is looked up, a letter names what has happened, and blank pages open a different future. Its decisive significance lies in that progression. The dictionary does not simply contain meanings; within the story, it helps make a meaning possible for theft itself—one that passes through discovery and remorse toward forgiveness and writing.