FEAR

"Fear" Barrette for The Bead Journal Project 2007

beads

Inspired by the book Book Thief by Markus Zusak

A very powerful book, about the events that lead up to the holocaust, told from the point of Death, the narrator. I highly recommend it.

More from Bambi...for educational purposes only.

"He (Bambi) liked the night very much now. Everything was alive, everything was in motion. Of course he had to be cautious at night too, but still he could be less careful. And he could go wherever he wanted to. And everywhere he went he met acquaintances. They were always less nervous than in the daytime.

At night the woods were solemn and still. There were only a few voices. They sounded loud in the stillness, and they had a different ring from daytime voices, and left a deeper impression.

Bambi liked to see the owl. She had such a wonderful flight, perfectly light and perfectly noiseless. She made as little sound as a butterfly, and yet was so dreadfully big. She had such striking features, too, so pronounced and so deeply thoughtful. And such wonderful eyes! Bambi admired her firm, quietly courageous glance. He liked to listen when she talked to his mother or to anybody else. He would stand a little to one side for he was somewhat afraid of the masterful glance that he admired so much. He did not understand most of the cleaver things she said, but he knew they were cleaver, and they pleased him and filled him with respect for the owl.

Then the owl would begin to hoot. "Hoaah! - Ha! - Ha! - Haa!- ah!" she would cry. It sounded different from the thrushes song, or the yellow-birds', different from the friendly notes of the cookoo, but Bambi loved the owl's cry, for he felt its mysterious earnestness, its unutterable wisdom and strange melancholy.

Then there was the screech-owl, a charming little fellow, lively and gay with no end to his inquisitiveness. He was bent on attracting attention. "Oi, yeek! oi, yeek!" he would call in a terrible, high-pitch voice. It sounded as if he were on the point of death. But he was really in a beaming good humor and was hilariously happy whenever he frightened anybody. "Oi, yeek!" he would cry so dreadfully loud that the forests heard it for a mile around. But afterwards he would laugh with a soft chuckle, though you could only hear it if you stood close by.

Bambi discovered that the screech-owl was delighted whenever he frightened anyone, or when anybody thought that something dreadful had happened to him. After that, whenever Bambi met him, he never failed to rush up and ask, "What has happened to you?" or to say with a sigh, "O, how you frightened me just now!" Then the owl would be delighted.

"O, yes," he would say laughing, "it sounded pretty gruesome." He would puff up his feathers into a grayish- white ball and look extremely handsome.

There were storms, too, once or twice, both in the daytime and at night. The first was in the daytime and Bambi felt himself grow terrified as it became darker and darker in his glade. It seemed to him as if night had covered the sky at midday. When the raging storm broke through the woods so that the trees began to groan aloud, Bambi trembled with terror. And when the lightning flooded and the thunder growled, Bambi was numb with fear and thought the end of the world had come. He ran behind his mother, who had sprung up somewhat disturbed and was walking back and forth in the thicket. He could not think about nor understand anything. The rain fell in raging torrents. Everyone had run to shelter. The woods were empty. But there was no escaping the rain. The pouring water penetrated even the thickest parts of the bushes. Presently the lightning stopped, and the fiery rays ceased to flicker through the tree-tops. The thunder rolled away. Bambi could hear it in the distance, and soon it stopped altogether. The rain beat more gently. It pattered evenly and steadily around him for another hour. The forest stood breathing deeply in the calm and let the water drain off. No one was afraid to come out any more. That feeling had passed. The rain had washed it away. "

I love how Felix Salten uses the imagery in words to bring his characters to life and to create mood .