What is the significance of color in "The Book Thief"?Give 2 examples of how it was used and the effect it had on you as a reader. 2-3 paragraphs...

This question seems to be an essay question that your teacher has asked you to respond to; I can help to give you some ideas, and I hope that you can use them to spark your own opinions and examples to use in an essay that you write yourself.

Color, in "The Book Thief" is used by the narrator, Death, to describe the skies and souls in the moments that he comes to take people's spirits away.  It is also, as Death states a couple pages in, a "distraction..vacation...in colors."  It is a way of distracting him from his awful job; he notices the colors of the day around him, and of the souls that he takes.  It is highly symbolic; on peaceful days, the skies are blue.  On awful days of war and destruction, the skies are blood-red and the color of fire and smoke.  The colors represent either the events of the world or area at that time, or, the personality and temperment of the soul that Death is taking.  For excellent quotes to use for your essay, look to the first few pages of the book, where Death describes some of the significance of colors.

The first specific reference to a color coordinating with an event is white, where Death comes for Liesel's brother. It is white because it is winter, and there is snow everywhere, a "blinding kind" of white.  Here, color represents both the environment that death has come to, and, a second function, a distraction for him.  He mentions,

"I studied the blinding, white-snow sky...I practically inhaled it, but still, I wavered.  I buckled--I became interested."

The scene of Liesel and her mother grieving piqued his interest, and he tries desparately to distract himself with the color white around him, but fails, and sticks around a while to learn more.  So in this quote, a few pages into the novel, we see color used as both a descriptor of environment, AND a distraction for death.  For other great examples, look to the beginnings and endings of the chapters--this is most often where Death steps in and talks about colors.  You'll find good examples there.

To describe how color impacts you as a reader, think about what images each color that you use in your examples conjures up in your mind.  What feelings or images come to mind with each color mentioned, and how does that add to the emotional impact of the example itself?

I hope that these thoughts can help to get you started; good luck!