Silhouette Book Talk

Letters About Literature

Dear Susan Bartoletti,

My name is Josh Darling. I am a junior attending Carbondale Community High School. I am participating in Letters About Literature, and am writing this, based off of your novel; The Boy Who Dared. I read this book as a part of Read For a Lifetime, over the course of the first quarter this year. I was inspired by this piece of literature. It gave me an understanding of the human nature.

Although Helmuth knew it was against the law, and he could be killed for the act, he made the decision to seek out the truth. He couldn’t bear not knowing what was really happening as the war progressed. He wanted to learn not only of the victories, but the losses that Germany faced. He not only found out, for himself, the way that his country was lying to its citizens, but he didn’t keep it a secret. He shared it with all of those who would listen. He took it so far as to offer the opportunity to know the truth, to those that he knew where loyal to the Fuhrer. He risked everything to let people know that they were being lied to.

This impacted my understanding of the human mind, and the natural morals that we set up for ourselves even when we are not taught to. Many of us are not lectured on the ability to seek out the truth, and especially not to risk our lives to share it. But it is a natural longing inside of us to know what is legitimate and what has been falsified by those speaking it. I have found that I share many of the characteristics that Helmuth portrayed. Although, I am not sure if I would risk my life to tell someone that they were being lied to, unless that lie could ultimately end their life. I do share some, in a sense that unless the news is personal and could harm someone individually, I am always eager to pass it on to others. I believe that this is probably a common trait between most people, and I would make the accusation that this is due to the unspoken morals that I mentioned a moment ago. The fact that we don’t want people to be uninformed of the truth, in a way, proves this to be true.

I have also found, that reading this has made me reflect on my own decisions in life, and ask myself why I chose to respond to situations the way I did. Helmuth had such a strong will for truth and justice that it clouded his mind and stopped him from having the ability to be afraid of what his actions could unveil, in his own life, and in the life of his friends and family. His reasoning was solely based off of what he knew was right. So often, I am confronted with situations in school where I see people who aren’t as smart, or aren’t as popular, get treated with disrespect, and shame, and it is so easy to look at these things and think “I don’t want to get involved in this” or “It’s not my fight”, but these responses are the polar opposites of the right attitude toward situations such as these. The right thing to do, would be stand up what I know is right, and do my best to put a stop to it, just as Helmuth did.

The Visible Story

Nailer's Story In Pictures

Living on a run down beach, In a one room shack that could fall over at any time.

Always wondering if he would be able to sleep that night. Every night, wondering if he would be beaten. Every night, wondering if he would have to face a drunk, angry father.

He dreamed of sailing out of his miserable life on a pearly white clipper-ship.

He kept pictures of them, so that he could go there in his mind.

He hoped one day he would see the white sails from below as he skimmed along the water.

 

He woke up every morning, before sunrise, to work the ship yards, on a light crew.

He spent hours and hours a day in the dark maze of rusty ventilation of massive oil tankers from the past.

He spent his day hauling up scraps that could be salvaged and sold.

 

All of his time and energy was put into hauling coil up from these dark corridors. 

In constant hope to hit a lucky strike such as a pocket of oil that had been undiscovered that could get him out of the ship yards, and on to a life of luxury.

A city destroying storm blew in and demolished everything that he had, and almost killed his father, and some of his closest friends. But out of the turmoil and fear, he and his crew mate discovered something that could change their life forever.

A wrecked ship lay on the torn up beach. This ship was no ordinary tanker. It was a white clipper ship, nicer than those in Nailer's pictures. 

Inside they found luxury's greater than they could have even imagined. They found great amounts of food. They found silver. they found... a survivor.

A survivor could ruin everything. They had to kill her.

But they held back when she offered them riches...

and a life greater than anything they had ever heard of, in exchange for them to return her to her RICH father.

Over the next couple weeks, they went from eating scraps, and plain foods to...

Feasting every night. But could they trust the girl? How could they know whether or not she could deliver the promise she made to them?

Nailer made the decision to trust her, and soon they were on the run, trying to make it to her father before they were caught by her father's rivals, who wanted to use her as leverage against her father.

They hopped a train and made their way to freedom, only to find that more danger and trouble awaited them.

Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi