A "Hook" is what authors use to bring in the reader, or get the reader into the book better. To me, a good hook at the beginning of a story is the use of a cliffhanger, context leaving you thinking about it, basically persuading you to read on.
The hook I picked out for The Book Thief is listed below.
"A mountain range of rubble was written, designed, erected around her. She was clutching at a book. Apart from everything else, the book thief wanted desperately to go back to the basement, to write, or to read through her story one last time. In hindsight, I see it so obviously on her face. She was dying for it--the safety of it, the home of it--but she could not move. Also, the basement didn't even exist anymore. It was part of the mangled landscape. Please, again, I ask you to believe me. I wanted to stop. To crouch down. I wanted to say: "I'm sorry, child." But that is not allowed. I did not crouch down. I did not speak. Instead, I watched her awhile. When she was able to move, I followed her. She dropped the book. She knelt. The book thief howled." -Zusak 13-14
A scene from the movie "The Book Thief" (above) depicting what it looked like on Himmel Street after the bombing.
Explanation:
The explanation behind this hook is, to me, kind of obvious. The last part seems like a cliffhanger, at least when I read that part for the first time. I had many thoughts running through my mind. Did she get shot? Did her family die? Did her friends die? Did she lose her home? What happened? Why is she "howling"? But after reading the book, everything made sense. The narrator in the hook, and the entire book was Death. He was summoned to the area where Liesel was because her foster parents died from the bombing. He wanted to tell Liesel that he was sorry, but him being Death, he couldn't. The basement that used to exist became rubble from the bombing, along with the rest of the house and some neighboring houses. To me, it was one of the best hooks I've read.
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