Once

Chapters 1-5

Reading Check

1. Because his glasses steam up (Chapter 1)

2. He tries to convince Mother Minka to let Dodie be first in line for the bath. (Chapter 1)

3. Whether his parents will recognize him after almost four years (Chapter 2)

4. The “torture squad” (Chapter 2)

5. There are not as many food shops as he remembered. (Chapter 5)

6. Bread and water (Chapter 5)

Short Answer

1. Felix believes that receiving a whole carrot is a sign from his parents that they will finally come to retrieve him from the orphanage. (Chapter 1)

2. Felix’s yellow notebook is a gift from his parents. He knows his parents will recognize it because it is the “only notebook with a yellow cardboard cover” in the orphanage. He uses it to write creative stories about his parents’ travels for their bookstore. (Chapter 2)

3. Mother Minka tells Felix that Sister Elwira put the carrot in Felix’s soup because “she felt sorry for [him].” Felix begins to worry that his parents are not aware that there is a group of “thugs” burning Jewish books. (Chapter 3)

4. Felix’s mission is to find his parents and tell them that their bookshop is in danger, as well as hide all the Jewish books in the bookstore. (Chapter 4)

5. Felix finds a recently abandoned house where he is able to eat and change his clothes. He then passes several trucks with poorly clothed people going on “holidays”; he tries to signal the cars to stop, but they don’t. At one point, a soldier shoots at him, but Felix thinks it is a mistake. (Chapter 4)

6. Felix learns that a new family is living in his old house, and that the bookstore is no longer operational. He also learns from Mr. Kopek that all the Jewish residents have been taken to the city. (Chapter 5)

Chapters 6-10

Reading Check

1. Fire (Chapter 6)

2. In a haystack (Chapters 6-7)

3. “Dirty Jews” (Chapter 8)

4. Tell them a story (Chapter 9)

5. In a cellar (Chapter 10)

6. Because Felix “asked the man at the visa desk if the red blotches on his face were from sticking his head in a dragon’s mouth” (Chapter 10)

Short Answer

1. Felix discovers a mother and father who he believes have been murdered by the Nazis. He also sees a little girl, named Zelda, who is still alive, and decides to rescue her. (Chapter 6)

2. While watching a crowd of Jewish people forced to march by the Nazis, Felix and Zelda are discovered by a Nazi soldier. They are forced to join the group. (Chapter 7)

3. The Nazis begin to separate the adults and the children as they enter the city. As a soldier attempts to take Zelda from Felix, a man intervenes and manages to persuade the soldier not to separate them. (Chapters 8-9)

4. Barney is a man who helps take care of Felix, Zelda, and other children. Initially, Felix thinks Barney is “an idiot.” (Chapter 9)

5. Felix learns from the other children that Adolf Hitler is the leader of the Nazi party. This surprises Felix because Father Ludwick at the orphanage spoke very highly of Hitler. (Chapter 10)

Chapters 11-17

Reading Check

1. “[T]o use a new word as much as possible after hearing it for the first time” (Chapter 11)

2. “To earn food” (Chapter 11)

3. To see if they can find their parents (Chapter 12)

4. “[T]o work” in the countryside (Chapter 13)

5. Aspirin and a carrot (Chapter 14)

6. The story he wrote for the officer (Chapter 15)

Short Answer

1. Felix persuades Barney to let him leave the cellar with him in hopes of finding his parents, claiming that they possess the medication for his “rare illness.” Barney is amused and surprises Felix by asking for his help as a dentist assistant. He wants Felix to tell stories to his patients while he works on their teeth to distract them from the pain. (Chapter 11)

2. After Felix admits to Barney that he knows the truth about Zelda’s parents, Barney says Felix should break the news to Zelda. When Felix tells Zelda that her parents are dead, she does not believe him and starts to cry. Eventually, all the children share the stories of the loss of their families. (Chapter 12)

3. Barney gives Felix a new pair of boots because “everybody deserves to have something good in their life at least once.” (Chapter 13)

4. Felix realizes that in the photo in Zelda’s locket, her father is wearing a Nazi uniform. Felix determines that she still deserves help even though her father is a Nazi because “she can’t help what her father did.” (Chapter 14)

5. After discovering a hole in a train car, some of the passengers begin to jump from the moving train. Felix, Zelda, and Chaya decide to take a risk and jump, leaving behind the other children as well as Barney. Chaya is shot and killed by a Nazi guard, while Felix and Zelda manage to escape. (Chapters 16-17)