Theme Of Once And Then By Morris Gleitzman

Once and Then was originally two books combined into one. Morris Gleitzman wrote this book from a 10 years old’s perspective. Felix had to grow up before his time and had to take care of a little girl on his journey to find his parents. He lost his innocence and came out of the little bubble he was in before.There were things that he came across and saw things he shouldn’t be seeing at such young age. But Felix’s imagination helped him distract himself from what’s actually happening. He had to make big decisions to keep him and Zelda alive. In times of fear and horror, hope keeps a person alive. The theme of the book is that hope and imagination defeats hardship. But does it always?
His notebook and the carrot is an example of how strong his
As mentioned before, he was full of hope and imagination when the story began. This shows his innocence. At the beginning of the book when the Jews were getting shot by the Nazis, Felix thought it was the hunter shooting rabbits. He thought sunset is when loads of rabbits come out or maybe, the reason he’s hearing the gunshots is because the hunters are “using up their bullets to save carrying them home.” Even when the river turned red from the blood of the Jews, he thought it was just because the sun was setting and it’s just a “trick of light”. He tells himself stories and makes himself believe them. But later on in the book, he understood how cruel the real life is. When the Nazis were holding onto Zelda’s hair with a gun pointing at her, he knew what was really happening “I wait for my imagination to come up with a reason I can tell him why he mustn’t shoot her, but my head is burning and everything is spinning round and I fall down shouting but not words. I don’t know what to do. I haven’t got any more stories.” This shows how he used his imagination to go through hardship. If he knew the blood in the river weren’t the rabbits’, maybe he wouldn’t continue his journey. But because of his imagination, he did. But now he doesn’t have any imaginations left because he is facing reality. When the Nazis were holding onto Zelda, he couldn’t do anything but close his eyes and wait for something to happen. How his hope changed throughout the story can be seen through lot’s of things. For instance, the carrot. At the beginning, he was so hopeful that his parents were coming back to come get him because of a carrot. But then it changed. He now sees carrot as just a carrot, just another vegetable that is good for health. “something that will help Zelda just as much as the