Michael L. Printz Award

Seeing Colors In A New Way The book, The Book Thief is arguably one of the most popular and beloved books of it’s time, and for good reason. It is the story of a young girl in Munich, Germany, who is taken from her parents and sent into the foster system. Yet, she finds love along with many more emotions among her new foster parents and friends. There are many aspects to this story which the author, Zusak, incorporated in order to connect with a broader audience. However, he also had individual…

The Tongue Toys Words are the secret currency of influence and power and the novel “The Book Thief” demonstrates this. The novel “The Book Thief” was written by Markus Zusak and published in 2005. The novel is about a young German girl named Liesel Meminger and her experiences living in Nazi Germany. The thematic statement for the novel is “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”. This statement is quoted from the Christian bible, which shows a…

The Book Thief is “just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . .” (pg6) Sounds familiar, right? But don’t be tricked by the premise. The Book Thief is, without a doubt, one of those books that will stay with you all your life, or should I say it will haunt you. Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s novel follows the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl…

“I go to see a great perhaps.” This quote is from Looking for Alaska, a book written by John Green. In this novel, the main character, Miles, is fascinated with his dad’s collection of biographies and finding the last words of these people. When Miles is going off to boarding school, he uses Rabelais’ dying words to show that he is looking for something greater than he already has. I think that Rabelais used these words to explain that he was to use his afterlife to find ways to better himself…

She didn’t dare to look up, but she could feel their frightened eyes hanging on to her as she hauled the words in and breathed them out…For at least twenty minutes, she handed out the story. The youngest kids were soothed by her voice, and everyone else saw vision of the whistler running from the crime scene. Liesel did not. The book thief saw only the mechanics of the worlds-their bodies stranded on the paper, beaten down for her to walk on (Zusak 381). This quote was taken from the part of…

Fiction is important to the curriculum and removing it would be very disappointing and devastating. Looking For Alaska portrays how fiction novels educate readers about different topics and life lessons. The story starts off giving background about the main character, Miles Halter and how he doesn’t have any friends at school to invite to his going away party. When he arrives to Culver Creek he meets his roommate named Colonel who introduces Miles to his friends. Miles ends up becoming friends…

In the fictional book, Looking for Alaska by John Green, John writes an adult novel of 221 pages speaking of a young boy who learns a lot about love, depression, regret, and adventure. This book was published by Penguins Young Reading Group in on August 14, 2008. It is a good book for teenagers ages 14-18. Miles Halter is regular boy who is tired of being predictable. He is very smart and his talent is memorizing last words of memorable people. He has little to no friends and he is always…

“Looking for Alaska” written by John Green is about Miles Halter, who moves to Birmingham Alabama. Miles joins a boarding school when he gets caught up in the intriguing, sexy, intelligent, and confusing world of Alaska Young. When Miles meets Alaska his whole world was turned upside down. Alaska makes him question everything, from birth, to death. The main question in Miles’ head at the end is “how will I ever escape this labyrinth?” Labyrinth is a complicated irregular network of passages or…

“The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak is written very uniquely. For starters, the narrator is death. Normally in books the messages are straight forward but in this book several people can read it and each person can get something different out of it. It should continue to be taught today because it emphasizes the power of words, how to have hope in the darkest times and how to remain loyal. If your eyes could speak, what would they say? Humans often do not realize the power we have with using our…

This is an appropriate title for this book because the story is about the main character, Miles, looking for a girl named Alaska. The title grabbed my attention because I knew it meant someone or something was searching for something by the word “looking”. I like the name of the book because it may make you think of something to do with the state Alaska but it twists your ways of thinking and is about and actual person named Alaska. The time period of this book is in the present day. This…