One Book, One Chicago

COMING SOON!

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 09:15:37 -0600

Hi Folks! Our tumblr will be under construction a bit until late March, when we’ll have a fancy new look. Stay tuned for exciting announcements!

Open Books: We're on a Manhunt for Positive Male Role Models

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 10:52:25 -0600

Open Books: We're on a Manhunt for Positive Male Role Models:

openbooksorg:

Refer a male friend to volunteer in an Open Books literacy program and you’ll not only earn a $10 gift card to the Open Books store but you’ll be the catalyst for a high-need student’s transformational learning experience too!

Basics:
During the month of January, you can earn a $10 gift card…

You can now listen to the event last month with Markus Zusak in...

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 12:33:27 -0600

You can now listen to the event last month with Markus Zusak in conversation with Dawn Turner Trice on The Book Thief, thanks to WBEZ’s Chicago Amplified.

Enjoy!

A Great October!

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 12:18:32 -0500

Some photos from a wonderful month spent with The Book Thief, Markus Zusak, more wonderful speakers and Chicago readers!

thebigdrawchicago: We were lucky enough to have TWO amazing...

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 16:22:35 -0500

thebigdrawchicago:

We were lucky enough to have TWO amazing artists (Steve Musgrave and Jenny Goldstick) working with us for “Read, Draw, Discuss”, our One Book, One Chicago and Chicago Public Library collaboration!

In three different Chicago Public Library locations, we met up with CPL facilitators and teens to discuss this year’s One Book, One Chicago pick, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The unique narrator (Death himself) and the twists and turns of the story gave us lots to talk and draw about! Here, Jenny explains how to choose a moment for creating visual imagery to accompany a text.

It's super speedy survey time!

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 07:50:21 -0500

It's super speedy survey time!:

One Book, One Chicago is made possible by funding through the Chicago Public Library Foundation. Thanks to our sponsors in 2012, BMO Harris and Allstate.

Our foundation and its funders want to hear from you! How did you participate in the most recent OBOC? Tell us a bit about yourself in this very short survey so that we can report back to our sponsors on the success of this fall’s program!

The Book Thief (and Friends)

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 08:16:21 -0500

A list of characters from The Book Thief, fully described and brought to you by Chicago’s librarians.

PRIMARY CHARACTERS

LIESEL MEMINGER is the book thief. She is 9 years old at the beginning of the story, when after the death of her brother she is taken in by the Hubermann family.

HANS HUBERMANN is Liesel’s foster father. Once a reluctant soldier during World War I, he is a house painter and accordionist. He teaches Liesel to read.

ROSA HUBERMANN is Liesel’s foster mother. She washes and irons clothing for the wealthy people of Molching.

RUDY STEINER is Liesel’s neighbor and eventual best friend. He is one of six children and is obsessed with American track athlete Jesse Owens.

MAX VANDENBURG is a young Jewish man who changes the Hubermanns’ lives.

DEATH is the sympathetic narrator of Liesel’s story. Death’s duty is to carry the souls of the dead away.

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

(listed in alphabetical order by last name)

Klaus BEHRIG is a neighborhood boy. Liesel runs into him on purpose during a game of soccer.

Arthur BERG is the leader of a group of young thieves who steal food. He shows kindness to Liesel and Rudy, and proves to be fair.

Viktor CHEMMEL is Arthur Berg’s successor as leader of the group of thieves. He is cruel to the others.

Franz DEUTSCHER is Rudy’s sadistic Hitler Youth leader.

Frau DILLER is the owner of the corner shop and a fervent Nazi sympathizer. One must say “Heil Hitler” in order to be served in her shop.

Wolfgang EDEL is a Nazi Party acquaintance of Hans.

The FIELDERS are a family that lives six houses down from the Memingers. Their basement serves as a bomb shelter during air raids.

Rolf FISCHER is a Nazi who sees Hans painting Joel Kleinman’s door.

Wenzel GRUBER is the first boy Max fought with as a child.

Fritz HAMMER is an older neighborhood boy who introduces Liesel and Rudy to the gang of thieves.

Herr HECKENSTALLER is a supervising teacher who oversees the humiliating medical examination of Rudy and other boys who are being considered for elite Nazi schools.

Frau HEINRICH is the woman from the foster care agency who brings Liesel to the Hubermann home.

Heinz HERMANN is the mayor of the town of Molching.

Ilsa HERMANN is the wife of the mayor of Molching. Her son, Johannes Hermann, was killed in World War I and she mourns his death with her silence. She introduces Liesel to her library.

Frau HOLTZAPFEL is the Hubermanns’ hostile neighbor. She spits on their door every time she walks past.

Michael HOLTZAPFEL is Frau Holtzapfel’s son who returns from the war injured.

Robert HOLTZAPFEL is Michael’s brother. He never returns from the war.

Hans HUBERMANN, Jr. is the Hubermanns’ grown son. He is a Nazi Party member who believes his father is a coward for not supporting Hitler.

Trudy HUBERMANN is the Hubermanns’ grown daughter. She is a live-in housemaid for a wealthy Munich family.

The JENSONS are a family that use the Fielders’ basement during air raids.

Joel KLEINMANN is a Jewish shopkeeper whose store door is defaced, then repainted by Hans Hubermann.

Walter KUGLER is Max Vandenberg’s friend, with whom he used to fight in his youth. Walter helps Max hide from the Nazis before he goes to the Hubermann home.

Thomas MAMER is a grocer who calls for police when Rudy steals the largest potato. Teacher Herr Link defends Rudy.

Paula MEMINGER is Liesel’s mother, who gives her up into foster care. Her husband was taken away for being a communist and Paula awaits the same fate.

Werner MEMINGER is Liesel’s brother.

Harald MOLLENHAUER is a neighborhood boy and a leader in the Himmel street soccer games.

Tommy MÜLLER is Liesel and Rudy’s classmate whom Liesel beats up after misunderstanding his reaction to her being teased. He has chronic ear infections, twitches a lot and is not athletically inclined.

Frau OLENDRICH is Liesel and Rudy’s teacher.

PFIFFIKUS is an old man who likes to whistle. The children taunt him and he taunts them back.

Andy SCHMEIKL is Ludwig’s older brother and also a member of the group of thieves.

Ludwig SCHMEIKL is a student in Liesel’s class. He makes fun of her for not being able to read, and Liesel beats him up.

Boris SCHIPPER is an Air Raid Special Unit sergeant during World War I. Hans Hubermann is a member of his unit.

Stephan SCHNEIDER is Hans’ sergeant during World War I.

Jürgen SCHWARZ and Olaf Spiegel are fellow school boys who are examined by Herr Heckenstaller.

Sister Maria is Liesel’s teacher who doles out corporal punishment.

Alex STEINER is Rudy’s father. He owns a tailor shop and is a member of the Nazi Party but does not hate Jews.

Barbara STEINER is Rudy’s mother.

Kurt STEINER is Rudy’s older brother. Rudy’s other siblings are Emma, Bettina, Karin and Anna-Marie.

Otto STURM is a somewhat wealthy boy who is targeted by Arthur’s gang and is knocked off his bicycle by Liesel and Rudy.

Erik VANDENBERG is Hans’ German Jewish friend and fellow World War I soldier. He is also Max’s father.

Ernst VOGEL, the PFAFFELHÜRVERS, Helena SCHMIDT and the WEINGARTNERS are Rosa Hubermann’s washing/ironing customers. Ernst was the first of the customers to tell Rosa he wouldn’t be able to use her services any longer.

Dieter WESTHEIMER is the owner of a bar called the Knoller.

Reinhold ZUCKER is an Air Raid Special Unit member who trades seats with Hans on a truck.

Accordionist Robert Cruz channels Hans Hubermann and turns the...

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:40:01 -0500

Accordionist Robert Cruz channels Hans Hubermann and turns the marble lobby of the Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago into a German public square circa 1940 from Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief.

openbooksorg: Book spine poetry!

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 12:55:10 -0500

openbooksorg:

Book spine poetry!

Death, Personified: A List

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 14:08:23 -0500

The Book Thief provides one of the most memorable portrayals of Death in recent memory. Here are more, from 18th century literature to current pop culture. To read the full (and fully entertaining) list, go to onebookonechicago.org.

“The Masque of the Red Death”

Short story by Edgar Allan Poe, 1842

As a horrible plague rages outside, Prince Prospero shelters the nobility in his abbey and welds the doors shut to prevent anyone else from entering. Later they celebrate with a masquerade ball but become fearful and angry upon seeing someone costumed in a bloody shroud and a corpse mask. They confront the figure and pull away his mask but find nothing inside, realizing it is the Red Death himself.

The Seventh Seal
Film directed by Ingmar Bergman, 1957
In this classic film, actor Bengt Ekerot introduces the iconic dark-robed and hooded figure of Death subsequently parodied by many filmmakers. A medieval knight journeys home while the Black Plague ravages the land. Throughout the story he delays his own demise by playing a game of chess with Death.

“(Don’t Fear) the Reaper”
Song by Blue Öyster Cult, 1976
These heavy metal iconoclasts scored a hit song with a defense of Death featuring menacing guitars, eerie vocals and a darkly ambiguous message. Many people thought the lyrics, which mention Romeo and Juliet, alluded to a murder/suicide pact. However, songwriter Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser says he intended it as a metaphysical love song.

Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life
Film directed by Terry Jones, 1983
The Grim Reaper, played by John Cleese, arrives unexpectedly at a dinner party, scythe in bony hand. He is repeatedly interrupted by the stereotypical loud-mouthed American guests, while the very British hosts attempt to engage him in small talk.

Family Guy

Fox TV series created by Seth MacFarlane, 1999–2002 and 2005-present
Radio personality Adam Carolla is the voice of Death in eight episodes of this irreverent animated comedy. The iconic black-robed, scythe-carrying character has a grating personality and still lives with his mother. His pet dog, voiced by comedian Jimmy Kimmel, reaps canine souls.

A Dirty Job

Novel by Christopher Moore, 2006
In this humorous fantasy novel, Charlie Asher is a neurotic beta-male whose wife has just died after giving birth to their daughter Sophie. He meets a pastel-suited stranger in the hospital and begins working with him as a minor death merchant, collecting souls from the recently departed and protecting them from forces of evil.

From Brain Pickings, some lovely images and a list of...

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:33:32 -0500

From Brain Pickings, some lovely images and a list of little-known children’s books by well-known authors.

The above by Sophie Blackall is an illustration from Aldous Huxley’s “The Crows of Pear Blossom.”

YES, indeed, best gif...

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:24:25 -0500

YES, indeed, best gif ever.

openbookstore:

neil-gaiman:

kylecassidy:

Spent the weekend at Castle Gaiman relaxing gloriously and working on a Top Sekret art project. This is not the Top Sekret art project; this is Neil on a trampoline.

As promised.

Use it wisely.

I did not know I was being sneakily filmed. It was early in the morning and I was trying to wake myself up….

Best gif ever? Best gif ever.

"If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for..."

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 12:07:20 -0500

“If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.”

- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (via fabula)

In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, Liesel is a young German...

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:13:57 -0500

In Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, Liesel is a young German foster child, and Max is the Jewish man that her family is hiding from the Nazi regime in their basement. Their strange and beautiful friendship is built as they use drawing to share their fears, their dreams and to tell their stories.

In honor of storytelling through drawing, we are teaming up with The Big Draw Chicago, an October 2012 festival celebrating just that. With them, we’ll offer drawing workshops for teens following discussions of The Book Thief. For dates and times visit our program listing at onebookonechicago.org. In the meantime, here is a lovely look at what The Big Draw has offered in other cities, and what we have to look forward to here in Chicago this October:

thebigdrawchicago:

Another wonderful Big Draw event at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Museum of Art. We are looking forward to hosting our own “Big Draw Day” on October 6th! With so much fantastic inspiration, how could we go wrong?

em-ilyxoxo: How About A Kiss, Saumensch? by TreeSoul

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 09:50:18 -0500

em-ilyxoxo:

How About A Kiss, Saumensch? by TreeSoul

Interview with Markus Zusak

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:04:47 -0500

Actress, writer and director Heidi Stillman wrote the stage adaptation of The Book Thief, playing at Steppenwolf Theatre this fall. Heidi and Markus Zusak took part in the below conversation via email in spring 2012.

H.S.: This novel is so finely plotted and the characters so fully formed, that people love to hear about the genesis for this story. Can you tell us a bit about when the concept for a novel about WWII, narrated by Death and about a girl book thief, came to you? Which idea came first and how did you build upon it?

M.Z.: Like most ideas, I stumbled across bits and pieces over time and started using them for no apparent reason. Once, when my computer was broken, I was writing the book I was working on at the time on foolscap paper. In the middle of it, I wrote a page about a girl stealing a book in modern-day Sydney. I didn’t do anything with it at the time, but a few years later, when I started thinking seriously of writing about my parents and their childhoods in Germany and Austria during World War II, I thought, “Maybe I should put that book thief in.” I guess that’s how things start. You put two unrelated things together and at some point, you understand: they’re actually not unrelated at all, they’re perfect for each other.

The next realization was also a bit of a fluke. I was working with some kids at a high school and got them to write about color. I did the exercise with them and realized I had written about red, white and blue—but more importantly, about three different deaths, from Death’s point of view. Again, I thought, “How about just throwing that in to that book set in Nazi Germany as well?” I didn’t wonder if it made sense at first, I just wrote, and very slowly, the ideas formed a little more clearly. As an example, it wasn’t until many months working on the book that I saw that the colors in the prologue should actually be red, white and black, in the colors of the Nazi flag…

At the end of the day, there’s a whole range of answers to this question. You could say the concept of the book was always there. It was waiting while I was growing up in Sydney, listening to my parents’ stories in the kitchen with my brother and two sisters. In so many ways, that’s where the book truly began.

The power of words and language is so wonderfully emphasized in this novel. Liesel writes, “I’ve hated the words and I’ve loved them;” and the narrator points out that “without words the Fuhrer was nothing.” Is this a theme that you felt you could explore more in telling this story than in anything else you have worked on?

It felt like it by the time I’d finished, but I never set out to do that. Like most writers, I start to understand what a book is about as I’m writing it, and sometimes even afterwards. In The Book Thief I started to make those connections as I considered using Mein Kampf in the story and having characters paint over it and write their own story over the top. From another point of view, it wasn’t until the book was published when I saw that it was also about people doing beautiful things in even the ugliest times. I guess you do know it as you’re writing, but not in such a definable way. The more time you spend with it, the clearer (and sometimes murkier) it all becomes.

Find the rest of this interview and more in the Chicago Public Library resource guide to The Book Thief, available online or in print at your local library!

When will the guide to The Book Thief be available in book stores.I want a hard copy.

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 13:42:31 -0500

It’s here! It will be at any Chicago Public Library. Thanks for asking!

scribnerbooks: The Last Book Sale Pulitzer Prize-winning author...

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 13:33:16 -0500

scribnerbooks:

The Last Book Sale

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry on how he auctioned off over 300,000 books in the 116-degree Texas heat.

The beautiful, glorious and amazing guide to The Book Thief

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 14:39:49 -0500

Our guide to Markus Zusak’s novel is now online, complete with author interview, October events listing, World War II timeline, and even an insightful list of other books, songs and films in which Death has been personified!

Thanks to Allstate and BMO Harris whose sponsorship of through the Chicago Public Library Foundation makes One Book, One Chicago possible!

openbooksorg: Summer Reading flow chart to help high school...

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 08:31:12 -0500

openbooksorg:

Summer Reading flow chart to help high school students find great books!