Summary and Analysis
Part 6: The Dream Carrier:
Thirteen Presents
Summary
Weeks pass and Max doesn't wake. Death says that he goes to visit Max, but the Jew fights him, and Death leaves. Liesel starts gathering gifts, beginning with a deflated soccer ball, and leaves them at the end of his bed to show that she cares and so that they have something to talk about when he wakes. She reads The Whistler to him and still he doesn't wake. Liesel cries over him and drops a tear on his face.
Analysis
In many ways, this chapter recalls Max's arrival to Himmel Street. In his illness, his feathery hair returns to twigs. He sleeps, only this time for much longer. Liesel continues to bring gifts from the outside world to Max, and she reads to him, hoping that words will be powerful enough to heal him. The image of the tear on Max's face is important in that it evokes the yellow tear that Liesel cried earlier for her mother, and it also alludes to a tear that will be important later in the story.