The Book Thief pages 1-30

Prologue
The story is introduced from the perspective of Death.  He explains that death is inevitable for everyone, and wonders what colors everything will be when you die.  Death sees the world in colors and describes everything he sees by what color it is.  Death uses the colors as a distraction from survivors -- one in particular: the book thief, who he saw three times.

The first death that Death describes is one that is in blinding white.  A boy had died on a train, and his mother and sister were standing with him as the guards argued over what to do.  Eventually, Death takes the boy's soul and sees the book thief for the first time.

Death's next encounter with the book thief is at a plane crash that is black.  He immediately takes a little boy, to whom the book thief has given a teddy bear.

Death's final encounter with the book thief was red.  Children were playing as bombs came down.  He finds the book thief clutching a book until she finally drops it.  The book is collected and put into a garbage truck.  Death takes the book and often thinks about the book thief as he looks over it.

Part 1
Death begins describing the train ride on which the little boy dies after a fit of coughing.  The 9-year-old book thief, Liesel Meminger, wakes up to find her brother dead, her mother still asleep.  The mother wakes up, wailing, and takes the boy off of the train where the two guards argue about what to do. Liesel notices a book on the ground where two gravediggers had just been digging.  She picks it up and gets on the train with her mother.  The train was taking them to a foster home, where Liesel would live with the Hubermanns, her new foster parents.  Afterward, a car delivers Liesel to a foster home.  She sees her foster parents, but she refuses to get out of the car.  After 15 minutes, Hans Hubermann, Liesel's foster father, finally gets her out of the car and brings her inside.  The Grave Digger's Handbook, the book Liesel stole, lies at the bottom of her suitcase and is the first of many books that she will steal.