A long times ago I read Of Mice and Men, and I didn't really like it because not too much happened during the whole book, and then at the very end all of the sudden there was a flash of action. This book almost felt like that, but it was better. Not too much happens throughout this book, it's kind of just showing you the day to day life of this girl, and her life just happens to be taking place on a backdrop of major world events. But things do happen, and it also creates a sort of emotional connection between the reader and the characters, and then of course at the end a bomb falls on the city and everyone is killed. You do get a warning in the middle of the book that Rudy dies, but it still leaves you heartbroken at the end, with the all of the intense detail about the complete and utter destruction. It leaves you feeling so terrible for Liesel, she's lost everyone important to her in her life. It's like once she's finally able to build up her life make friends, become a family with her foster parents, all of that is gone in one second, and it leaves her with one one left to turn to.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The Book Thief- Question Prompt 1
This was an overall enjoyable book, there was only one part that was really weird. There's this boy named Rudy and he and Liesel are best friends and all he wants from her is a kiss, he's always doing things for her in hopes she'll kiss him. But she never does. Then at the very end of the book her town gets bombed and everyone dies but her (because she was sitting in the basement). So she's running around looking for her dead friends and family and she finds Rudy and she kisses him for a really long time, and then weirdest of all she goes and tells his father (who survived because he was away at war). But other then that weird little bit it was really good, it's written with tons and tons of description. Death sees moments in colors, "The last time I saw her was red. The sky was like soup, boiling and stirring. In some places, it was burned. There were black crumbs, and pepper, streaked across the redness." Overall I definitely recommend it, it's very interesting (and slightly confusing) and it's written in a beautiful and very interesting style.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The Book Thief- Question Prompt 3
In the beginning and throughout most of the book it seems that the antagonist is Hitler. For Liesel, Hitler represents everything bad in her life, he's the reason her mother abandoned her, the reason Max had to hide, the reason her papa had to go to war. In the end of the book though you could say death was the antagonist because though Hitler tried to take away everyone from her life, he wasn't fully able to do so. However death takes away her parents, her brother, Rudy, and everyone else she knows and loves.
The protagonist is Liesel, at the very beginning of the book she is completely innocent, all she knows is her brother is dead and her mama doesn't want her anymore. And suddenly she is in the care of complete strangers. Without the help of her papa she never would have been able to fully grow and become the book thief. He's there for her every night when she is most vulnerable.
Liesel represents innocents and good in the world. Hitler represents all the bad, because by the end of the book he's managed to take away everything from her.
The protagonist is Liesel, at the very beginning of the book she is completely innocent, all she knows is her brother is dead and her mama doesn't want her anymore. And suddenly she is in the care of complete strangers. Without the help of her papa she never would have been able to fully grow and become the book thief. He's there for her every night when she is most vulnerable.
Liesel represents innocents and good in the world. Hitler represents all the bad, because by the end of the book he's managed to take away everything from her.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Night question prompt four (DONE!!!!!)
"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.
Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."
This quote really struck me, because it kind of sums up how he changes during the book. At the beginning of the book he talks a lot about religion and holidays and studying Torah, but by the end he doesn't even say Kaddish for his father. Because his faith is crushed, he no longer has any reason to believe there is a God. Because if there was one why would he have done something so horrible. His will to live anything he'd ever hoped for or dreamed of doing, all of that was crushed. All because of the horror, the pain, and the suffering he witnessed. To see all the smoke in the sky and know that it's made up of people. People who once had lives, and families, and jobs, and friends, and people who cared about them, all turned to ashes.
Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."
This quote really struck me, because it kind of sums up how he changes during the book. At the beginning of the book he talks a lot about religion and holidays and studying Torah, but by the end he doesn't even say Kaddish for his father. Because his faith is crushed, he no longer has any reason to believe there is a God. Because if there was one why would he have done something so horrible. His will to live anything he'd ever hoped for or dreamed of doing, all of that was crushed. All because of the horror, the pain, and the suffering he witnessed. To see all the smoke in the sky and know that it's made up of people. People who once had lives, and families, and jobs, and friends, and people who cared about them, all turned to ashes.
Night question prompt three
Five things you learned from your book
1. The intense brutality of the Nazi's. They lead a whole group of people right to the door of the ovens and then they turned and lead them to the barracks. That is just beyond cruel, to make everyone think they're gonna die, just to redeem them, so they can see their friends and gasses and burned to ashes.
2. 2/3 of all European Jews were killed, see my other post for a deeper look at that. But really think about how many people that really is. 6,000,000 is a very big number, imagine how many children and grandchildren they could have had, had they not been killed.
3. At first no one thought anything bad was gonna happen, he talks about how initially they had befriended the German soldiers. And when someone brought news of the horrors no one believed them until they came to take them too.
4. An estimated 1.1 million children were murdered and many witnessed the murders of their parents right in fount of them.
5. When the Red Army drew very near all of the prisoners were taken on a death march where a great deal of them died from the cold, and the lack of food and rest. The Nazi's thought it better to have them all die then be taken in by the Red Army.
1. The intense brutality of the Nazi's. They lead a whole group of people right to the door of the ovens and then they turned and lead them to the barracks. That is just beyond cruel, to make everyone think they're gonna die, just to redeem them, so they can see their friends and gasses and burned to ashes.
2. 2/3 of all European Jews were killed, see my other post for a deeper look at that. But really think about how many people that really is. 6,000,000 is a very big number, imagine how many children and grandchildren they could have had, had they not been killed.
3. At first no one thought anything bad was gonna happen, he talks about how initially they had befriended the German soldiers. And when someone brought news of the horrors no one believed them until they came to take them too.
4. An estimated 1.1 million children were murdered and many witnessed the murders of their parents right in fount of them.
5. When the Red Army drew very near all of the prisoners were taken on a death march where a great deal of them died from the cold, and the lack of food and rest. The Nazi's thought it better to have them all die then be taken in by the Red Army.
Night question prompt two
Think about our grades (7th-8th) for a second. And think about the fact that in the holocaust two-thirds of all European Jews were killed. 2/3 of 25 is about 17, meaning that 17 of us would have been killed, which leaves 8 people. Since there are 8 people in 7th grade, it's almost like had we been there all of the 8th graders would have died. That is truly insane to think about, think about your family and your friends, two-thirds of them dead, when thought about that way it's easier to understand how many people were really killed. Imagine if one day you had to leave your house, leave your school, leave everything you know, just because someone decided they didn't like you because you were Jewish, and because of that know you and your entire family had to die. So look around tomorrow and think about three of your closest friends and think about how horrible it would be to be in the holocaust and know only one of them is gonna make it out alive.
Night question prompt one
Q. What made you chose the book and did it deliver?
When I initially looked at the book list Night by Elie Wiesel caught my eye. It was one of the few I'd heard of and I'd also heard about it from a friend. My friend told me that Night is what caused her to lose her faith, because if there was a God he wouldn't have let something like that happen. So with that ever so inspiring and highly uplifting recommendation I went and got the book.
It was very depressing, from the first page onward people were dying. In the first selection it was his mother and siblings who were chosen, along with many other people from his town. Unlike my friend who'd told me about it, it didn't cause me to lose stop believing in God. It was mire like I questioned not only God but the whole world. If you really think about the multitude of people who were killed, you can see how truly horrible it was. It was a very good book and I recommend it, but it's not a light read, and it really makes you think.
When I initially looked at the book list Night by Elie Wiesel caught my eye. It was one of the few I'd heard of and I'd also heard about it from a friend. My friend told me that Night is what caused her to lose her faith, because if there was a God he wouldn't have let something like that happen. So with that ever so inspiring and highly uplifting recommendation I went and got the book.
It was very depressing, from the first page onward people were dying. In the first selection it was his mother and siblings who were chosen, along with many other people from his town. Unlike my friend who'd told me about it, it didn't cause me to lose stop believing in God. It was mire like I questioned not only God but the whole world. If you really think about the multitude of people who were killed, you can see how truly horrible it was. It was a very good book and I recommend it, but it's not a light read, and it really makes you think.
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