Friendship In The Time Of Hardship

I watched this amazing movie/documentary the other day called Nicholas Winton:  The Power of Good about a man who's seemingly simple actions saved over 600 children during World War II and can I just tell you it was so amazing, seriously made me cry like a baby in a good way.  This powerful movie reminded me of one of my favorite books Number the Stars by Lois Lowry a story of friendship and sacrifice during an insanely difficult time.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD.

Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen live a typical life of grade school girls in Denmark.  They are vaguely aware of the German soldiers that have appeared on every street corner, but since they are mostly left alone, don't really worry about it.  This all changes one night when soldiers barge into Annemarie's house where Ellen is spending the night.  The soldiers question the Johansnes about the Rosen's whereabouts and are suspicious of Mr. Johansens claims of Ellen being his daughter due to her darker hair.  They are able to appease the soldiers when Mr. Johansen rips the pictures of his three daughters out of an album to show them, what the soldiers don't know is one of the pictures is actually Annemarie's older sister who was killed years ago. Annemarie and Ellen are told that the soldiers were looking for Jew's to "relocate" aka take to the concentration camps and that Mr. and Mrs. Rosen were in hiding and Ellen was to stay with the Johansen's.   Mrs. Johansen takes Annemarie, Ellen and the youngest Johansen girl Kirsti to her brothers house in the country.  Annemarie starts to realize the hugeness of what is going on and resolves to help in any way she can.  One night a wake for an unknown aunt is to happen, with a casket delivered to the house.  Many people come to the wake, including Ellen's parents who had been hidden for safe keeping.  Soldiers again barge in and after some great acting leave the party to their "wake".  Turns out that Mrs. Johansen's brother is part of an underground group that helps smuggle persecuted Jews across the channel to Sweden.  Ellen and her family are scheduled to go with him in the bottom of his fishing boat.  Unfortunately Mrs. Johansen is hurt helping their friends to the boat and is up to Annemarie to deliver an important package to her uncle.  She accomplishes this despite a scary run in with the soldiers.  She is sad that her best friend must leave, but is happy she could help her when push came to shove.  The end of the book wraps up most of the stories of the people we meet in the book, some good, some sad, some tragic, but all there.

I have always had a fascination with WWII.  I think the sheer horror of what the Nazi party did, the horrors and hurt of the actual warfare in all the countries involved and the amount of pain and suffering and death is oddly contrasted with the stories of friendship, bravery and showcasing of the good of most of humanity is what draws me to this era.  This book in particular has always been a favorite of mine for several reasons.  The biggest one is just the sheer readability of it, I am a fan of this authors books and this one is no exception.  It is geared for the YA crowd and I think it does a fantastic job of balancing a scary and tragic topic with speaking to a younger audience.  The author does not sugar coat anything, there is plenty of realistic tragedy and sadness, but it is tempered with a hope and a highlighting of the good people did for each other in these dark times.  The setting was awesome as it is not one you see a lot in stories about WWII.  Most stories are set in German, Poland, or France so seeing Denmark, a smaller country, doing what it had to to survive was great.  The characters were great, I liked seeing the family units and how they interacted.  I loved Kirsti as the youngest sister, adding a sense of absurd and realism to the whole proceedings.  Annemarie shows a beautiful growth arc that is bittersweet and beautiful.  I don't really have anything bad to say about this book.  I would recommend it to just about everybody, and would suggest this one as a school reading assignment, or one to read out loud with your family to inspire discussion.  I give it 9 out of 10 Star of David Necklaces.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Stealing Words To Stay Alive

Wow...um...hmmm...gee's, well I'm not really sure how to review this book so I guess I will just jump right in and hope you can figure out what my jumbled little brain is trying to say.  I just finished The Book Thief, it was a really tough read, but I am so glad I did.  First off, there will be spoilers, yep lots and lots of spoilers so you have been warned.  This is also a kind of jumpy all over the place book, so my rambling will probably be even more jumpier and all over the place than usual.  Ok here we go.

The Book Thief is about a lot of things, it is about life, death, words, power, hunger, friendship, family, neighbors, idea's, and hope and that is just in the first chapter.  The book is narrated by Death, which at first threw me off as his prose was a little flowery and disjointed for my taste (not everything needs to be described like modern art!), but as I got into the book the rhythm started to flow a lot better. Having Death as the voice for this book was a great choice as it allowed the reader to pretty much know everything in a way that made sense.
Death tells us the story of Liesel Meminger, a young girl who will also be known as the book thief.  She and her younger are on their way to a foster home, when the boy dies on the train, this is Death's first meeting with Liesel.  The boy is buried and Liesel picks up a book dropped by the apprentice grave digger, it is her first foray into book thieving and she does it without even knowing the reason why.  She is taken to Himmel Street in a little town outside Munich and left with Hans and Rosa Hubermann.  Rosa is a foul-mouthed slab of a woman who shows her affection with vulgarities and pet names such as Saumensch which translates into pig.  Hans is a quiet man who takes to Liesel immediately.  Liesel has nightmares about her dead brother and Hans comes in to comfort her every night.  One night he discovers her stolen book and asks her if she would like to read it.  Liesel does not know how to read, she does not even know what her book is called (The Grave Diggers Handbook) and so begins her lessons. Hans (who is a painter by trade) takes his foster daughter to the basement and has her paint words on the walls until she knows them, and they read a little bit of her stolen book every night after she awakes from her nightmares.  This begins Liesel's attachment to books and words.  One night she is at a book burning in honor of the Fuhrer and she steals a book that escaped the flames, the book is called The Shoulder Shrug.  She is seen taken this illicit book by the mayors wife.
Meanwhile the Jewish son of a man who saved Han's life in the first war has arrived at the home of the Hubermanns.  Max is hidden in the cold basement in an attempt to save him from the growing persecution of the Jews by Nazi Germany.  Liesel befriends him and they start a beautiful, fragile friendship.  Through out all of this Liesel and her best friend Rudy (who once painted himself black and ran around the athletic track calling himself Jesse Owens) are constantly getting themselves into one scrape or another.  Rudy is in love with his friend and is constantly asking her for a kiss.  I wish I could better describe Rudy for you all with out rehashing the whole entire book because he is a great character, a good friend, strong, protective, brash, silly, confused, all of these things and so much much much more.  Liesel makes friends with the mayors wife who allows her to read the books in her private library, until one day she angers Liesel and in retaliation she starts to steal books from the mayors library.  Later it is discovered that the mayors wife was leaving the window open for Liesel and even leaving out cookies and such for the young book thief.  Max writes a book for Liesel using the painted over pages of the Nazi propaganda book Mein Kampf .  The book is called The Standover Man and is given to the girl for her birthday, this becomes one of her most beloved possessions. Bombings start to occur with a regular occurrence and while everybody is jammed into the bomb shelters, Liesel starts reading aloud to the group to keep everyone calm. Parades of captured Jews are soon brought marching through the town on their way to Dachau, the site of a concentration camp.  Hans and Liesel go to watch and Hans cannot help but try and alleviate the suffering of these wretched humans as they pass.  In punishment Hans is drafted into the army and sent to fight in Russia.  Max decides it is to dangerous for the Hubermanns if he
stays so after a tearful goodbye he leaves the family.  Rudy's father is also drafted into the army after refusing to let Rudy be taken away to be made into a super soldier.  Life and death continue on Himmel street and Liesel continues to steal books as a way to manage the chaos in her life.  One day Rosa gives Liesel another book that Max had left for her, this one is called The Word Shaker complete with illustrations, this has to be one of the most beautiful parts of this book.  Hans is injured in the war and is allowed to come back home to his family to the great joy of his wife and foster daughter.  The war continues and more Jews are marched through the streets.  While watching this dreadful parade, Leisel sees Max and goes to him, this results in a whipping for both of them.  Liesel in a fit of rage sneaks into the mayors wife's library and rips up a book, she leaves a note apologizing and says as punishment she will no longer come to the library.  The mayors wife show shows up on her doorstep with a blank journal for Leisel to write her own story.  Liesel takes her blank book down to the basement, the same basement where she learned to read, and where she spent time with her friend Max.  The painted words and pictures are still on the walls.  Liesel is in the basement finishing her story when one last bombing occurs.  This bombing completely wipes out Himmel street, along with two others.  Everybody is dead, Hans, Rosa, her neighbors, Rudy.  She is saved only because she was in the basement, saved by the very words that she had stolen over the years.  Leisel says finally kisses the dead lips of her best friend Rudy and she tries to say goodbye to her parents in the rubble of the street she had called home.  She is taken in by the mayor and his wife and eventually is reunited with Max who survives the concentration camps.  Death informs us that she eventually moved to Sydney Australia, got married and had children and grandchildren.  The last page is Death finally having a brief conversation with the book thief.

As long as that synopsis was, it did not capture even a little bit of what this book was about.  Every character, even ones only mentioned once or twice has a story.  The best part about Death being the narrator is that he could put in all these little asides (almost mini announcements) about what a character did, or was thinking, or what ultimately happened to them.  This book is technically mainly about Liesel, but

Rudy, Hans, Rosa, Max and all of the characters I did not have room to mention play just as big a role as the title character.  This is not a happy book at all, it is dark and depressing, yet oddly compelling.  The horrors in this story are all there for a reason and dealt with in a very humane way.  The portrayal of Death as a weary tired entity, just doing his job made each death that more poignant.  I liked the premise of this fairly ordinary little town in Germany and everything that they had to endure during the war.  We are so used to pointing to Germany and Germans being the bad guys in WWII, but I think we sometimes forget that it was a twisted man and a group of loyal idiots who inflicted most of the horrors on the world.  These little towns had to give everything to the cause, money, resources, family members, and if you did not agree with what was happening you suffered the hideous consequences.  These people lived their lives in fear, hunger and cold, they listened for the air raid sirens and were killed by bullets and bombs, just like the Allied countries. This glimpse into the lives of ordinary people really drives home the insanity of any war, where the people who suffer the most are the ones who have no say in the matter.

Again, I can not really express everything this book is without reprinting the whole thing, but I would recommend it to most people.  Be aware this is not a sweet book about a little girl overcoming adversity, it is a look at lives lived, lost, shattered, and put back together again. It is not a linear story told beginning to end (Death gives out spoilers generously throughout the book, in fact you know within the first few chapters that Rudy is going to die young in a bombing).  This book is not about surprises, or twist endings, but about humanity. It might take a little while to get into the flow of the book (it took me about 50 pages to get really immersed in it), but once you do it is hard to put down.  Read it and let me know what you think, I really want to hear other peoples reactions to this book.