Writing a Brief

I chose to write the brief for the illustrations in 'The Book Theif' by Markus Zusak.

The Illustrator for the book was Trudy White, whose style I admire. The book is unusual on many levels and I thought her cover illustrations and the illustrations within it really captured the spirit of the book.

Cover Illustration

The Brief

The publisher is looking for a cover design and 13 internal illustrations for The Book Theif.

Concept: The Book Thief is narrated by Death and is the story of a 9 yearold girl, Liesel and her experiences in Nazi Germany. Liesel deeply affects the world weary Death - he is interested by her - seems to admire her - the book ends with his comments when he comes to take her soul and he speaks to her - he says to her and to the reader... 'A Last Note from your Narrator, I am haunted by humans'.

The cover should encapsulate the relationship between Death and Liesel. Death claims at the beginning of the book to be 'cheerful - aimiable - affable'. Therefore the illustration should show the two of then engaged in something 'cheerful' e.g. dance, something that challenges our preconceptions of 'The Grim Reaper'? He is intrigued by Liesel and keeps and eye on her. He seems to like her and she is not afraid of him. It should have a velum or parchment texture to reflect Liesel's obsession with books and reading. She is 'The Book Thief' and writes a book entitled 'The book Thief' which Death rescues from her bombed out home to give to her before she dies. The style should echo Fairy Tale illustrations from the 1930s, perhaps simple ink lines or etchings. If there is colour it should be restricted to Sepia tones.

The 13 internal Illustrations are from a book written by a Max, a Nazi Jew hiding in Liesel's basement - it is  entitled 'The Standover Man'. It is written for the 9 yearold Liesel by Max. To accomplish this he uses his copy of Mein Kampf (which saved his life on his journey through Nazi Germany) - he rips out 40 pages and paints them white. The pages are described as 'bubbled and humped, under the stress of drying paint... it was done with a small, black paintbrush.'

The illustrations should be naiive, the text states that he used some of the pages to refine his story but he was 'no writer and no artist'. Some text should show through from Mein Kampf. The Standover man should be a 'bird man' because Leisel likens Max's hair to a birdnest when he arrives, his face as eggshell and then his hair becomes soft like feathers after he has bathed.

Liesel and Max share many things, her parents have been taken to a concentration camp and she suffers from Nightmares. He has escaped the Nazi's and is hiding in her foster family's basement - it is cold and camp. He also suffers from Nightmares and it is Liesel who tries to comfort him. The Standover Man is his attempt to describe their relationship and thank her. The Author often refers to them as 'the Jew and the German' - they are divided by circumstance - but they are destined for each other. The illustrations should encapsulate that spirit of friendship. There is a lot of Shadow imagery in the descriptions which should be encoroprated.

Here is the text for each page of Max's Book.

Page 1 - "All my life, I have been scared of Men standing over me"

Page 2 - "I suppose my first standover man was my father... but he vanished before I could remember him"

Page 3 - "For some reason, when I was a boy I loved to fight. A lot of the time I lost. Another boy, sometimes with blood falling from his nose, would be standing over me"

Page 4 - "Many years later, I needed to hide. I tried not to sleep because I was afraid of who might be there, when I woke up. But I was lucky it was always my friend" 

Page 5 - "When I was hiding, I dreamed of a certain man. The hardest was when I travelled to find him"

Page 6 - "Out of sheer luck and many footsteps, I made it."

Page 7 - "I slept there for a long time. For 3 days they told me.....and what did I find when I woke up? Not a man, but someone else, standing over me (note for illlustration: this is Liesel)

Page 8 - "As time passed by, the girl and I realised we had things in common"

Page 9 - "But there is one strange thing. The girl says I took like something else." 

Page 10 - "Now I live in a basement. Bad dreams still live in my sleep. One night, after my usual nightmare, a shadow stood over me. She said, 'Tell me what you dream of'. So I did.

Page 11 - "In return, she explained what her own dreams were made of"

Page 12 - "now I think we are friends, this girl and me. On her birthday, it was she who gave a gift - to me. It makes me undertstand that the best standover man i've ever known is not a man at all."

Page 13 - No text but a concluding illustration of Liesel reading her gift in the basement.

see one of the illustrations on Trudy White's website