Brothers Below Zero

By: Tor Seidler                                                                                                           February, 24, 2013

Title: Brothers Below Zero, Author: Tor Seidler, Number of pages: 137

The theme in the book Brothers Below Zero is the relationship between two brothers. At the beginning of the book Tim was the one hidden in John Henrys shadow, because John henry was the talented one and the smart one. Even though Tim was older he was smaller than John Henry and weaker and has always been compared with John Henry so he felt unappreciated. Their aunt Winifred was a great artist and decided to teach Tim how to paint. Before he even new it he became a great artist and painted a picture which was held up on the living room wall. His parents were so proud of him while John Henry thought that the painting wasn't so much to be proud of. Sadly aunt Winifred had died so Tim was very sad and disappointed because he thought that she was the only person he could talk to about anything. Christmas was coming so Tim decided to paint a picture of his mom and dad and decided that that would be their christmas present from him, so he wrapped the present and put it under the tree. With such interest to see what Tim could have possibly bought for his parents for christmas John Henry went down stairs in the middle of the night and when he saw what Tim has painted he couldn't control his emotions of hearing how good and talented Tim was so he drew watts and a mustache on Tim's painting. In the morning when they found out, Tim had been sent to his room, being surprised to what have happened not knowing how those hurtful details were added to the painting he got dressed and jumped out of the window into the snow and went towards aunt Winifred's house. When his parents went up to check on him and saw that he wasn't their they went downstairs grabbed their jackets and went into the car leaving John Henry behind in case Tim would come back. Every cop in town was on the look out for Timmy but still his parents have  been driving with their car around looking for any signs of Tim. John Henry feeling guilty took his jacket and left a note for his parents that he has left to look for Tim. He followed his foot steps in the snow and found him in the woods. He hugged him and did his best to keep him warm because he was only in a couple of jumpers and he had no shoes. This is one of the examples of the relationship between two brothers this has happened on page (Seidler 102). Through out the story the theme is the relationship between two brothers.

At the beginning it was competitive and then when Tim had found his talent John Henry started to be jealous because suddenly Tim had found his talent and had been appreciated more, but at the end he forgot about all that and wanted to protect his brother.