Blog Post #6

I just finished reading a novel that my Dad wrote.  He just got it published and I was excited to read it when it was in the actual bound, professional style.   I have a very bias view, but I thought it was good.  It was about a 14 inch tall boy who lived in a colony of small people hidden in a world of big people.  He was considered a freak for being the tallest.  The book is for younger kids around 12, but I still liked it.  I liked the adventurous story and i thought that the imagery was fun.  I loved seeing the cover and seeing it as an actual book.  It was so fun to read!!

Book Thief #4

I finished The Book Thief last week.  I thought it was good.  The story wasn't really driven by a suspenseful plot, so by the end I was getting somewhat bored.  Overall, I really enjoyed it and I would recommend it for the people who like books like books like that.  

This is somewhat of a stretch, but the ending reminded me of the movie Titanic.  Liesel, the main character, who was a young girl living in the middle of World War Two, was forced to move to a small town In Germany and live with her foster parents.  She made many friends, her best friend was a boy named Rudy, and she loved her foster parents.  The book itself was nothing like the story of Rose and Jack on the Titanic, but the endings had the same feel.  Throughout the book, Liesel didn't act like a normal German girl should.  She played with boys, stole, and wanted to learn how to read, but most of all she liked the Jews and opposed the Nazis.  This is somewhat like how Rose didn't want to live a rich, lady-like life, and how she opposed her parents.  At the end of the book, the whole town was bombed and nobody survived, much like when the ship sunk and only few survived.  Liesel was the only survivor, and it was only because she was in the right place at the right time, just like Rose luckily floated above the water until the rescue boats came.  Then, her best friend Rudy died in the bombing and Liesel was very sad because she loved him.  This is the same idea in the Titanic when Jack died.  Liesel then moved on in life, got married, and lived like a normal person, just like Rose did.

I think the book really had a powerful ending and I though the characters were very good.  I also like that the book was narrated by death, I don't think the story could have been told in a better way.

The Book Thief #3

I am almost finished with The Book Thief.  In the story as the war goes on, the Nazi's prove to be less innocent.  They march long lines of starving Jews through Liesel's city on the way to the camp.  They whipped Liesel's dad for giving bread to the starving Jews, and forced him to go to war as his punishment.  His job was to pick up dead bodies during  air raids.  The book is really good.  The story is told in a way that makes you feel you are in the story.  It' not very plot driven but you understand the characters so well and it gives you new perspectives on World War Two.  You understand the lives of the average German citizens better, instead of categorizing them all under the idea of Nazi's.  In the story everyone is suffering of hunger and air raids.  Families lose their fathers and even young sons to the war, after being drafted without a choice.  People are taken away for the smallest thought of rebellion and cities are being destroyed.  The feelings of the characters relate very much to those of the characters in Night, and many other WW2 books I have read.