Which line from extremely loud and incredibly close reveals a melancholy tone? as for the bracelet mom wore to the funeral, what i did was i converted dad’s last voice message into morse code, and i used sky-blue beads for silence, maroon beads for breaks between letters . . she said it was the best gift she’d ever received. i asked her if it was better than the edible tsunami, from when i was interested in edible meteorological events. she said, “different.” i wanted to tell her she shouldn’t be playing scrabble yet. or looking in the mirror. or turning the stereo any louder than what you needed just to hear it. it wasn’t fair to dad, and it wasn’t fair to me. i made her other morse code jewelry with dad’s messages—a necklace, an anklet, some dangly earrings, a tiara—but the bracelet was definitely the most beautiful, probably because it was the last, which made it the most precious.

Read the excerpt from elie wiesel’s all rivers run to the sea. why were those trains allowed to roll unhindered into poland? why were the tracks leading to birkenau never bombed? i have put these questions to american presidents and generals and to high-ranking soviet officers. since moscow and washington knew what the killers were doing in the death camps, why was nothing done at least to slow down their “production”? that not a single allied military aircraft ever tried to destroy the rail lines converging on auschwitz remains an outrageous enigma to me. birkenau was “processing” ten thousand jews a day. stopping a single convoy for a single night—or even for just a few hours—would have prolonged so many lives. based on the paragraph, the author would most likely agree that it is best to avoid confrontation at all costs. people need to be proactive when they witness an injustice. countries should remain neutral to keep alliances strong. moscow and washington are to be blamed for the holocaust.