The Book Thief (one of many posts by that title)

"'Do you still play the accordian?' Of course, the question was really, 'Will you still help me?'" (Zusak). This quote is important because it sparks the new fear and anxiety within the Hubberman household. Afterall, hiding a Jew is a crime punishable by death. This question, asked by Max Vandenburg, the Jew, marks the start of a new way of living for the Hubbermans. Fear of being caught by members of the Nazi party, the Hubbermans must do everything they can to keep their secret safe. This means Max must live in the cold basement behind a sheet and some paint cans. Liesel is sworn to secrecy by her father, after being told that he can be taken away from her if anyone discovers the jew in the basment. Max gets very sick after being in the cold basement all day everyday, so the Hubbermans decide that, once cured, he should come upstairs each night to warm up and get a change of scenery. During the days that Max is unconcious from sickness, Liesel collects gifts for him, in hope that they will help him wake up and get better. These gifts consisted of a destroyed soccer ball, a ribbon, a pinecone, a button, a stone, a feather, two newspapers, a candy wrapper, a cloud described on a piece of paper, a toy soldier, a miraculous leaf, and also Liesel read her book The Whistler to Max. A deep relationship formed between Max and Liesel. They shared nightmares with eachother, and Liesel would, very often, visit Max in the basement to keep him company. As a birthday gift, Max wrote and illustrated a book called The Standover Man for Liesel. Max's book defined his and Liesel's realtionship in a story. Here's a quote from the story: "Now I think we are friends, this girl and me. On her birthday, it was she who gave a gift-to me."

Much Ado About Nothing

Thus far in the play, Hero has been successfully wooed for Claudio, even with the evil Don John trying to cause trouble with Claudio by telling him the Prince only wants Hero for himself. Also, Leonato, Don Pedro, and Claudio trick Benedick into falling in love with Beatrice. They do this by making sure that Benedick overhears them talking of the great love Beatrice has for him, and how, even though her tongue is sharp, she is just expressing her love for him. Hero and Ursula do the same with Beatrice, making sure that she overhaers them talking of Benedick's deep love for Beatrice. Both tricks are successfull and Beatrice falls in love with Benedick, and he with Beatrice. All this happiness makes Don John unhappy, he only wants to cause havoc and discomfort. So, he makes a devious little plan with Borachio and Conrade. This plan will, to their hope, break apart Claudio and Hero and therefore make Don Pedro unhappy (which I believe is their ultimate goal). The plan consists of Borachio having relations with Margaret, Hero's lady in waiting, in Hero's bed chamber. BUT, instead of Margaret being Margaret, she will act as Hero. Don John will make sure that Claudio can hear Borachio call Margaret "Hero"(and vice versa) in their love making and consequently destroy the young relationship. Will the plan work? Technically in comedies, everything turns out for the best, so we already know that everything will work out between Claudio and Hero. But we don't know how this conflict will be solved.

The Book Thief

For a class assignmanet Liesel is asked to write two letters, one to a friend and one to somenone in the another class. Liesel chose to write one of these letters to her mama. Not Rosa Hubberman though, her birth mama. Liesel spent hours in the basement, while her father painted, working on the perfect letter to send to her mama. In the letter she told mama about everything she had encountered since their separation. Since she didn't have her mama's address, Liesel was encouraged to give her letter to Frau Diller, who was the woman who brought Liesel to the Hubberman's home and worked with the foster agency. Then she started waiting. Each day Liesel would check the mail box for any letter from her mama. Later, Liesel overheard her foster parents talking about her mama:
"What was she doing writing to her mother?"...
"She asked me," Papa answered, "and I couldn't say no. How could I?"
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." Again with the whisper. "she should just forget her. Who knows where she is? Who knows what they've done to her?

Liesel is once again forced to ask herself:
"Where was she?
What had they done to her?
And once and for all, who, in actual fact, were they?"

Shakespeare

In class, we are in the midst of reading Much Ado About Nothing, a comedy by Shakespeare. So far I am enjoying the play very much. The handsome war-hero, Claudio, has fallen deeply in love with the beautiful, doting daughter of Leonato, Hero. Leonato is keeping Don Pedro, the prince, as well as Claudio and Benedick as guests in his home, for they have recently returned from battle. Also staying with Leonato is Don Pedro's half-brother, Don John the bastard and his two comrades Borachio and Conrade. Don John is the villain in the story and wants to cause trouble and discorde, for the discomfort of his half-brother. When he hears that Claudio wants Hero's hand in marriage, and that Claudio and Don Pedro have planned a way to woo her and talk with Leonato about the marriage, he wants to do whatever he can to make sure the marriage doesn't happen. The reason he wants to do this, is because he is a mean guy, it's just in his nature. The plan that Don Pedro and Claudio have conjured to win Hero over is as follows: Don Pedro will woo Hero in Claudio's name at the masked ball, and also talk to her father about the marriage. Then once Hero is won over, Claudio will take Don Pedro's place as himself. Clearly, there are many ways Don John can cause confusion and mayhem at the masked ball, and that's exactly what he intends to do.

The Book Thief Update

Rudy Steiner, Liesel's new friend and companion, has this strange obsession with the olympic runner Jesse Owens. This 4-time gold-medalist had a real impact upon the young Rudy, and there is a certain incident that the people of Himmel Street will never forget. Though this incident happened before Liesel's arrival, she feels that she was there when it happened, because she can picture it perfectly. The incident was so bizarre that it would be hard to ever forget. After Rudy's family watches Jesse win his 4 gold medals, Rudy dashes into the kitchen and smears charcoal all over his body, so that it covers every inch of his white skin. He then headed out the door to the Hubert Oval. Upon arrival at the track, Rudy begins his uncoordinated stretches. Impersonating Jesse Owens, he takes off down the track, commentating on himself the entire time. He imagines the crowd chanting his name, which at this moment was no longer Rudy, but instead he was the unbeatable Jesse Owens. Rudy realizes he is in trouble when he sees his father standing at the finish line waiting for him. On the way home Rudy's father lectures him about his strange behavior. The discussion leads to Rudy's father telling him to never ever again paint himself black. When Rudy asks why not, his father tells him "Because they'll take you away" (Zusak 60) Again Rudy asks why, and his father tries to explain that anyone who isn't "like them" is not safe. Blacks and Jews especially. Here's a small section from the reading that had a great impact on me...
"Mr. Steiner...explained, 'I know son--but you've got beautiful blond hair and big, safe blue eyes. You should be hapy with that; is that clear?' But nothing was clear. Rudy understood nothing, and that night was the prelude of things to come. Two and a half years later, the Kaufmann Shoe Shop was reduced to broken glass, and all the shoes were flung aboard a truck in their boxes" (Zusak 61).

END OF RESEARCH PAPER and start of Shakespeare

The research paper unit is finally over! I believe that my research paper was definitely my best paper of this school year, and hopefully I will recieve a very high grade that reflects the time and effort I put into this paper. Ms. West asked us to complete a reflection on our papers, after we turned them into the wire basket. We were asked various questions about what we thought of our paper, also we were asked to make a list of the steps we would take to write another research paper. These are the steps that I would follow:
1) Find a topic that interests you.
2) Find atleast 5 credible sources for that topic.
3) Annotate all your sources.
4) Make an informal outline that will help structure the paragraphs in your paper.
5) Write notes for key information that you annotated in your sources. (paraphrase, quote, summarize)
6) Design a Flee Map that will help to better organize each paragraph and help you to lay out exactly what you will say in your paper.
7) Construct a rough draft to be edited.
8) Write your final draft.
These steps will prove to be very useful later on in my college career. After all research papers were turned in with our reflections, we started a movie all about Shakespeare. I enjoyed the movie very much. The most interesting thing I learned from it is that we actually don't know a lot about Shakepeare. I think they said in the movie that we only actually know 3 things about him. That's so weird because he's one of the most famous names in history and literature.

The Book Thief Update

Recently in The Book Thief Liesel begins school, however because of her level of education she is in a class with kids much younger than herself. When Liesel wakes up screaming from her nightmares, a nightly routine, Hans Hubberman will read from The Grave Digger's Handbook (the small black book Liesel found/stole from her brother's grave site) to comfort her. One night, when Hans asks Liesel how many words on the page she can read, she replies that she can read about half. Hans later discovers that she can only read three words. Later, he begins to re-teach Liesel the alphabet and and shows her how letters are arranged to make words. They call this nightly session their "midnight class", these "classes" start after Liesel's bed-wetting incident (she became so terrified of her nightmare that she had a little accident). Eventually, Liesel is moved up into the class with kids her own age, though she still can't read as well as the rest of them. Among her classmates is a boy by the name of Rudy Steiner. Rudy and Liesel become very good friends and walk to school together every day. They also play daily soccer games with the other children in the neighborhood. Rudy decides that he is in love with Liesel, and he sticks up for her when she reads aloud in front of the class, a complete disaster. Liesel is made the "heavy-weight champion of the school-yard", when she beats up two boys for making fun of her reading ability. A lot of things are going on right now in the book, this was just a quick summary of the key events.