The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The story of Liesel Meminger, a nine-year-old girl in Nazi Germany during World War II. Death is the narrator. Her younger brother Werner dies on a train in 1939. Her mother gives her up for adoption and she is adopted by Rosa and Hans Hubermann. The first book she steals is The Gravediggers Handbook, which she picks up in the snow at her brother's funeral. She can't read it, but it reminds her of him. Hans (Papa) teaches her to read at night when she can't sleep because of nightmares of her brother. Her best friend is Rudy, who lives down the street. He always wants to kiss her, but she refuses. Her mother does laundry and Liesel delivers it. One day the mayor's wife invites her into their home and shows her the library. She begins to read in the library and borrow the books one at a time. One day, a Jewish man, who knew Hans as a boy, shows up at their house. They hide him in the basement and Max and Liesel become friends. The Gestapo examine the basement at one point, but do not find Max. Max writes two books for Liesel, before he leaves and ends up in Dachau concentration camp. The air raids eventually begin and Liesel reads to the other people in the shelter during the raids. Her father, Hans, and Rudy's father, Alex, are drafted into the German army and Hans is assigned to the LSE who clean up the dead bodies after an air raid. He is sent there because he tried to give a Jewish man a piece of bread. He breaks his leg and is returned home. Liesel and Rudy also try to help the Jewish prisoners as they are marched through town and are whipped because of their efforts. Liesel and Rudy steal several books from Ilse Hermann's house (the mayor's wife). She knows they are doing it and leaves the window open and one time, cookies on the desk. One night Himmel Street is bombed and the air raid sirens don't go off in time. Everyone Liesel knows and loves is killed. She survives because she is down in the basement writing. The mayor's wife adopts her. She lives to an old age, marries and has children. When death comes to get her, he gives her The Book Thief, the book she has written about her life in Germany.
This was a marvelous book. Told from the viewpoint of the German people you see a different side of the war. With Death as the narrator, you also get a philosophical viewpoint of death and war. Words and books and writing are key concepts throughout the book and you realize the power of words in people's lives, especially during this time when radio and television were not available to everyone. The book is richly written with many similies, metaphors, personification. I found myself rereading sentences and paragraphs to absorb the richness of the language.

p. 9 - personification
p. 23 - conveyor belt of eternity
p. 26 - irony
p. 29 - grey - the color of Europe
p. 29 - similes and personification in bold print

Hero by S.L. Rottman

Sean is a 15 year old boy who has no parent support at home and is always getting in trouble at school. He lives with his mother who is always drunk. His father has been gone for two years. When he gets in trouble at school again, he is sent for community service to Mr. Hassler's farm. Mr. Hassler has a reputation for helping teenage boys who are in trouble. He takes Sean and with responsibility and caring gets him on the right track. The first night he is there, Manda, one of the mares, gives birth to a colt. Sean has to help with the delivery and becomes Knickers friend. Manda doesn't want her baby and even tries to harm him. Sean identifies with the colt and is angry with Manda, just as he is angry with his own mother for the abuse he has suffered at her hand. When his mother ends up in critical condition at the hospital because her liver is failing, Mr. Hassler agrees to keep Sean even though his father shows up and tries to take him. One of Sean's assignments at school is to write an essay, "My Hero Is.."
He and Mr. Hassler have several discussions about heroes. Mr. Hassler has received several medals from his WWII service. In the climax to the story, Sean's enemy, King shows up at the ranch and threatens to shoot Sean, Mr. Hassler, and Knickers, the colt. Sean is shot, but recovers. His essay expresses his frustration at the world he has to live in and the fact that in his life, he has no heroes, no one he can look up to, but he hopes one day to find one. Mrs. Walker, his English teacher, is another support that he realizes he has at school. James is a farm worker who is older than Sean. Mr. Hassler is an older man - grandfather age. Most of the setting is Mr. Hassler's farm, although the beginning of the book takes place at Sean's school.

Elephant Run by Roland Smith

This is a great book. It was hard to get started, but once I got into the book, it was hard to put down. Nick is a teenage boy living with his mother in England during World War II. When the bombings got too bad in England, his mother decided to send him to live with his father on his plantation in Burma. Nick was safe there for a while, but then the Japanese invaded and captured his father and the plantation. His father was captured and sent to a prison camp. Nick was also captured and kept locked in his room and treated as a slave in his own home. He manages to escape and after hiding, tries to find and rescue his father. His friend Mya has a brother who has also been captured. She goes with him to try to free her brother along with the help of Hilltop, a buddhist monk who helps them. The first two or three chapters were slow and I almost didn't read the rest of the book, so don't give up on it. Keep reading! You'll love it.