MAX VENDEBURG

Max Vandenberg was feeling scared, nervous, and unwanted. When he was traveling to the Huberman’s, he was so nervous that  his hands were swimming in sweat and his fingers were clutched to the book Mien Kampf.
I’ve been in the same position Max is in. I've tried to convince people that I was someone I really wasn’t. I didn’t change what I look liked or what I wore, but I did change the way I talked, and my attitude. I started treating my parents wrong and lost a lot of my good friends. I can kind of relate to this because Max changed to help someone out but I changed to look good in front of people who weren’t really my friends. At the moment that I was doing it I felt like I was doing the right thing but after problems started happening I felt like I had to leave and get away from those people that were making me the person I wasn’t and didn’t want to be.
“I’m leaving soon” (Zusak 158)
“Goodbye” (Zusak 159)

These quotes relate to the topic because they explain Max changing, and it relates to me because it explains me leaving the people I thought were my friends and starting my life all over.

                                                             WORK CITED
Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Print.

The heavy weight champinon of the school-yard.

Sister Maria made everyone in the classroom read. She would keep looking at her list and not call on Liesel. Everyone had read and she still didn't call on Liesel. Liesel wanted to read in front of the class and show everyone that she could do it, but Sister Maria didn't want her to. Finally she let her read, but Liesel didn't know how to read. So she just stared remembering what her papa had read to her from THE GRAVE DIGGERS HANDBOOK. After she said everything she remembers everybody started being meant to her. A boy named Ludwig Schmeikl who went up to her and made a smart remark.
   "Hey, Liesel...I'm having trouble with this word! Could you read it for me?"(Zusak p.78)
Liesel was so angry she took out all her anger out on Ludwig because he kept teasing her, and she also beat up Tommy Muller for smiling while she was beating Ludwig up. Everyone was scared.
   "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.....she's going to kill him!"(Zusak p.79)

 

This reminds me of when I started 3rd grade I had just came from Mexico and I didn't know how to speak English. The teacher kept calling on me and I didn't want him to because I didn't know how to answer anything. All the kids would make fun of me to. And one day I got really angry and frustrated that I blew up on everybody. I started saying curse words in English that I had heard people say. I didn't know exactly what they meant but I still said them. My teacher heard me and sent me to the principal’s office and I got in trouble and sent home. I wasn't really my fault because kids kept teasing me. So that's why I really don't think what Liesel did was that wrong, because someone always has a certain limit to where they just break down.

WORK CITED
Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. NY: Alferd A. Knopf,2005. Print.

ABBANDONMENT

        Liesel has a really sad life. She's been abandoned by almost all of her loved ones. First her mother abandoned her; she didn't want to, but it was for Liesel's own good.  Then Liesel's brother Warner abandoned her when he died.  "Next to the train line, foot-prints were sunken to their shins. Trees wore blankets of ice. As you might expect, someone had died" (Zusak 6).  Warner was only six years old and he was very sick. Liesel must have been really sad riding in the train with her sick brother knowing that she was never going to see him again. After the funeral, Liesel proceeded to her foster parents. I can't imagine how Liesel felt knowing that this might be the last time she ever saw her mother. I also can't imagine what it would be like having to go live with a new family that could provide for her. Leisel's mother couldn't even provide for herself so she definitely couldn't provide for 2 kids. Leisel was too young to understand at the time, but when she grows older she'll understand why her mother had to leave.

      I can relate to Leisel's abandonment very much. When I was 6, my parents left me in Mexico for 2 years.When I moved to the United States at the age of 8, my mom was in prison and I was confused and always wondered where she was. My dad always told me that she was at school. I was too little to understand. When I graduated from 5th grade, everybody's parents were there and I felt really sad being around everyone. When I was walking up to get my certificate I looked at the crowd of people and saw my mom sitting there with a big bouquet of flowers.  It was a huge surprise and I felt really happy that she was back. After graduation my entire family went home together and we've been together ever since.

WORK CITED

Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Print.

surviver story about Jeannine Burk

         Jeannine was born in Brussels, Belgium on September 15, 1939. She was a hidden child.

         During the war and the holocaust Jeannine had to be hidden because she was a Jews. Jeannine's father drove her in a streetcar to a woman's house. That was the last time she ever saw her father. She lived in that house for 2 years. She didn't have a normal childhood and just because she was a Jew. She didn't have no toys and she barley got to go outside. She had to invent imaginary friends cause she didn't have none. When she did go outside she could only go to the back yard so that she wouldn't get seen. She never felt loved of cared for. In those 2 years she never got a hug from no one or a kiss. The Nazis would always have parades, and when they did everybody had to open their house doors and watch. Jeannine would get hidden in the outhouse in the back yard. Jeannine always hide in a little Conner of the little house. The little house had a crack on the door and Jeannine never looked out it because she was to afraid that she would get seen by the Nazis. In 1994 Jeannine and her family were reunited except her father. He got exterminated by the Nazis. The day that she reunited with her family she remembers going to her old house and seeing alot of soldiers. And she remembers a soldire walking up to her and giving her a chocolate. Jeannine also started school that year.

          I think its horrible how even little kids had to hide so that they wouldn't get killed or tortured. I mean they didn't even now what was going on. The Nazis really didn't have no heart. I think its horrible that they would do such a thing just because of the way you looked. If you didn't fit their needs you would get killed. The people who were doing wrong to other people should of been the one that were getting killed. Like Jeannine said that her father never robbed, killed, or hurt no one, and they still killed him. I think that is just play cruel.


[THE PICTURE ABOVE IS AN IMAGE OF JEANNINE WHEN SHE WAS 7 YEARS OLD]