Today was such a successful literature circle. We made many connections together about the themes of the novel and the characters themselves. I think these connections have made each of us more excited to read the rest of the book.

We all agreed that the chapter beginning of page 174 was a good source of information. Previously, we read about the grandfather's side of the story of him leaving the grandmother. This chapter gave us the grandmther's side of the story and cleared up any confusion we might have felt when the grandfather told us the story.

On page 184 the name "Mary" appears in the novel for the third time. We took time as a group to search for the other referances to this minor character and now we all know she was a schoolmate of the grandmother's when they were younger. I feel like maybe her minor role in the novel will become significant in the next few chapters.

We all got "heavy boots" for Oskar when the kids at school were teasing him on the playground and during his class presentation. Poor Oskar :(. I also found it kind of disturbing that Oskar knows so many sexual terms for a boy around the age of 10 and I think the group agreed with me on this.

I brought up the discussion about the signicance of the word "buddy". When Oskar makes a visit to Doctor Fein on page 200, the doctor refers to him as "buddy" and Oskar responses saying, "Actually, I'm not your buddy." I linked this back to page 14 when Oskar's father is tucking him into bed. The last live word Oskar's father said to him was "buddy". The next time Oskar heard his father's voice was on the message machine on September 11th. I think that Oskar treasures the word "buddy" because it was the last word his father spoke to him.

I am happy that I am not the only one who got so lost on page 202 (the discussion between Doctor Fein and Oskar). There are no breaks in the page or anything - just straight quotations and it can be hard to distinguish is saying what.

We talked about the chapter beginning on page 208. Oskar's father has obviously read this letter before because it is marked with red pen and Oskar's father used to make corrections in the newspapers with red pen. We discussed how we thought that Osker's grandfather was afraid to fall in love again and then lose everything he loved. Oskar loved Anna and he loved their unborn baby. He lost both of these important people in Dresden. Whe Oskar's grandmother told his grandfather that she was pregnant, Oskar's grandfather got scarred of losing someone again so he just decided to leave.

Kaitlyn and I mentioned how there is a possibity that the renter living in the grandmother's apartment is the grandfather. The grandmother mentioned in one of her chapters that the grandfather had written an "I'm sorry" card to her the day of her son's funeral. However, his funeral was over a year ago. What has happen in the past year between the grandmother and grandfather? Because we read about the renter in Oskar's eyes, we saw the renter as an imaginary friend. Oskar does not really know much about his grandfather anyway so we think that the renter might be the grandfather and he just does not want to see Oskar because he is afraid he will fall in love with him and then lose him.

The chapter titled "The Sixth Borough" links back to page 13. Earlier in the novel, we read the beginning of this story that Oskar's father told to him. This chapter tells us the whole story. We all seemed to enjoy this chapter.

We discussed so much today, so I am afraid I am missing something important in this post. However, once we each read each other's blogs I think we will have covered everything.

Enjoy your break guys and do not forget to read! :)