May 15

Life Is Beautiful

Book Summary:

I recently finished reading Life Is Beautiful. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find it as a book. We found a copy in Portuguese but not in English. So I read the screenplay of Life Is Beautiful. I chose to read the screenplay because it provided more insight into World War II but from a different country’s perspective. In this case, the country was Italy.

Major Characters:

  • Guido
  • Dora
  • Joshua
  • Ferruccio
  • Uncle
  • Dr. Rodolfo
  • Dr. Lessing
  • Bartholomew
  • Laura
  • Upholsterer
  • Secretary
  • Inspector
  • Principal
  • Ernesto

 

Life Is Beautiful, the screenplay, first covers the story about how Guido and Dora met and eventually got married. Dora was engaged to Dr. Rodolfo at the beginning but later met Guido and married him. The screenplay then fast forwards a couple years to when their son, Joshua, is 6 years old. On his birthday, Guido, Joshua, and Uncle were taken away by the Nazis while Dora was out. When she came back to the house, she saw that the door was smashed and things inside the house were broken. She had an idea as to where they were taken. She went to the train station where Italian Jews were being loaded on to cars to be taken to concentration camps. As the train was leaving, she told the officer there that she needed to get on that train. He told her that she didn’t want to get on that train and to go home. But she insisted that she did so they stopped the train and put her on. During this whole ordeal, Joshua had been constantly asking where they were going, how long it would take to get there, and why were they going without Mommy. Guido told his son that this was a birthday surprise and that it would be a lot of fun. He told Joshua that all of what was going on was a game. He said that the prize, if he won, was a real tank. The only rules were that he had to hide all day and do exactly as Guido told him to do. Guido risked his and Joshua’s lives in order to keep Joshua alive. Did they make it out of the concentration camp alive? Did they ever see Dora again? If you want to find out what happens to Guido, Dora, Joshua, and Uncle, read the screenplay or find the book.

I thought that Life Is Beautiful is great. I will be honest though. Reading a screenplay is tough at first. But it got easier as I kept reading. I would recommend this screenplay to anyone who wants a different perspective on World War II. Overall, I thought that it was a great screenplay and a very heart-warming story.

 

Final Project:

For my final project, I chose to do digital posters. The digital posters are very similar to the Hidden Reflections projects that I’ve done. For most of my posters, you will have needed to have read the Life Is Beautiful screenplay in order to fully understand what my posters represent. I enjoyed doing the digital posters because it allowed me to complete several posters whereas the Hidden Reflections projects would be only one poster. If you have the read the screenplay, or even the book, comment below as to what you think my posters represent.

               

Check out my classmates blogs to see what books they read and their final projects.

http://oliviaglca.edublogs.org/

http://pedroglca.edublogs.org/2017/05/15/a-prisoner-and-yet-may-15-2017-sumary/

http://joaoglca.edublogs.org/2017/05/15/the-hiding-place/

http://prakritiglca.edublogs.org/

http://keeganglca2.edublogs.org/


Posted May 15, 2017 by annaglca in category Uncategorized

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