Why is The Gravedigger’s Handbook so important to Liesel?

The Grave Digger's Handbook is the first book Liesel steals. It is also the first book she reads. As with all her books, this one is bittersweet. It's bitter due to the fact that she steals the book from the snowy graveyard where her little brother Werner has just been buried. It's her only tangible memory of her brother, and also of her mother. So, for Liesel, the book represents great loss, great sorrow, and her feelings of abandonment. It represents the end of one phase of her life, and the beginning of another.