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They were hiding in a tiny schoolhouse in a village called
Vornay, somewhere south of Bourges, in France. The desks were all in perfect rows, and a long-forgotten assignment was still written on the chalkboard.

The author uses the setting of the old schoolhouse to show that they were still running from the Nazi's.

Earrings. The diamond earrings Josef’s father had bought her for their anniversary one year.
Josef remembered Papa giving them to her. Remembered the smile on Mama’s face, the light in her eyes, both long gone now. Mama had sewn her earrings into the lining of Ruthie’s coat! That
was why she had never let Ruthie take it off.

Josef and the readers find out why Josef's mother never let them leave their coats behind. She was prepared for if something like this had ever happened.

The Nazi didn’t care
how much money they had, how many jewels. It wasn’t about that. He was playing with them.This was another game, like a cat playing with a mouse before he ate it.

The Nazi soldiers found joy in torturing the Jews and pretending and treating them as if they weren't human.

One of Rachel Landau’s children would go free, and one of her children would go into the camps.The Nazi soldier smiled at Josef’s mother. “You choose.”

The reader could predict that since Josef was now the man of the family he would choose for his mom knowing she couldn't pick between her kids.Also ends on a cliff-hanger leaving the author to wonder what was Josef's fate.

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From the pockets of her frock she withdrew a little stuffed rabbit made of white
corduroy and offered it to Waleed. His eyes lit up as he took it from her.

Connection to Ruthie from Josef's story, his younger sister.

‘I’m a man now.’ And when those soldiers said one of us could go free and the other would be taken to a concentration camp, Josef said, ‘Take me.’
“My brother, just a boy, becoming a man at last.”

Josef's fate is sacrificing his life so his baby sister Ruthie could survive, his actions proved that he was in fact a real man.

His gaze lingered on the picture. He was filled with sadness for the boy his age. The boy who had died so Ruthie could live. But Mahmoud was also filled with gratitude. Josef had died so Ruthie could live, and one day welcome Mahmoud and his family into her house.

Josef death wasn't a waste, he died so Ruthie could live and later take in Mahmoud and his family in to seek asylum.

It felt like a home.

The author chose Mahmoud's closing words to be "it felt like a home" to emphasize that a home is important to Mahmoud and other refugees.

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This was the coda to Isabel’s song.

Symbolizes the end to Isabel's long, and horrible journey to her new home.The song of her leaving Cuba to find a new home was over.

Isabel played it salsa for Iván, lost at sea, and for Lito, back in Cuba. She played it salsa for her mother and her father, who had left their homeland, and for her little brother, Mariano, who would never know the streets of Havana the way she had. And Isabel played it salsa for herself, so she would never forget where she came from. Who she was.

No matter if Isabel was in Cuba or Miami she would never forget the people that made it possible for her to even be where she is. She was bringing her culture with her to Miami.

but as she played she heard a different rhythm, a beat underneath the one everyone else was clapping to. Her foot tapped in time with the hidden cadence, and she realized with a thrill that she was finally hearing it.She was finally counting clave.

After struggling to count clave like the rest of her family, Isabel in her new home, new country, she realizes you don't have to be in Cuba to here clave.

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Mahmoud’s  heart  lifted.  They  weren’t  invisible  anymore,  hidden  away  in  the  detention center. People were finally seeing them, and good people were helping them.

Mahmoud felt like he hadn't seen good people in awhile and he's appreciative of it.

Mahmoud sagged.
They only see us when we do something they don’t
like, he thought again. The refugees had stopped to get down on their knees and pray, and these people watching them didn’t do that. Didn’t understand. Now the refugees looked foreign again, alien. Like they didn’t belong.

Mahmoud's entire journey he and his family had been wronged, shunned away, and he had thought him entering Austria would have changed that, but he believes it hasn't.

Hungarian people on both sides of the road stopped and stared as Mahmoud and the rest of the refugees marched down the middle of the highway. Men, women, children, they had all come pouring out of the detention center after Mahmoud, joined by the UN observers, and the police had done nothing to stop them.

When Mahmoud walks out of the immigration detention center he inspires other immigrants to leave with him.

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Then we’ll go back,” Papi said. “Together.”

Isabel's father is a dynamic character, in the beginning of the chapters he would have left his family for freedom but now after all the misfortunes they've had he has come to realization that he wants to be with his family.

The Castillo and Fernandez families helped each other up onto the sandy beach, and their wet feet became dry feet.

Their wet become dry feet means that because they made it to Miami the coast guard can no longer pursue them, they are save in America.

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Mahmoud expected his father to laugh it off, but he wasn’t joking anymore. Instead, Dad sat on his cot, his face and arms purple and bruised, staring off into space. Getting beaten and thrown into prison by the Hungarians had finally broken his spirit.

Due to the Hungarian soldier beating Mahmoud's dad his dad dynamic has changed from making jokes to lighten the situation to quiet

But making something happen meant drawing attention. Being visible. And being invisible was so much easier. It was useful too, like in Aleppo, or Serbia, or here in Hungary. But sometimes it was just as useful to be visible, like in Turkey and Greece. The reverse was true too, though: Being invisible had hurt them as much as being visible had.

Mahmoud realized being invisible and visible was helpful and bad, Still he was determined to do something to finally help his family after feeling helpless for so long.

“Mahmoud!” Waleed said, panting as he ran up alongside his brother. His eyes were bright and alive for the first time Mahmoud could remember. “Mahmoud! What are you doing?”

Another Dynamic chacter, for majority of the book Waleed had been characterized as closed off and distant. But when Mahmoud had finally decided he was done being invisible Waleed had been excited for the first time since before the war.

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The line got a laugh, but a sad one. Josef was all too aware of the long shadow cast by Nazi
Germany, and so was everyone else. Still, as long as the Nazis stayed in Germany, they would all be safe. Wouldn’t they?

Hints that something might happen, they weren't going to get the happy ending that they'd hoped.

Josef smiled, remembering the story of Noah from the Torah. But he felt less like Noah and
more like Moses, wandering in the desert for forty years before reaching the Promised Land.Was that France? The Promised Land, at last?

Josef had described his long journey as wondering 40 years before reaching his possible forever home.

“You see?” Mama said. “I told you somebody would think of something. Now, stay close,
and don’t lose your coats.”

Josef's mother has mentioned the coats earlier in the book, might hints that something she values is being hidden in the coat.

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“Don’t worry about me, Chabela! If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s treading water,” Lito yelled back. “Now, row! Mañana is yours, my beautiful songbird. Go to Miami and be free!”

When Lito had stated he was good at threading water it was a symbol meaning that he lived with the regret of sending the Jews away for so long and he not done anything about it.

A calm came over Lito, as though he’d come to some sort of understanding, some decision. “I see it now, Chabela. All of it. The past, the present, the future. All my life, I kept waiting for
things to get better. For the bright promise of
mañana. But a funny thing happened while I was
waiting for the world to change, Chabela: It didn’t. Because I didn’t change it. I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.

Lito was finally at peace with his regret, later sacrificing himself to go back to Cuba so Isabel and company could live a better life in Miami.

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What if they had lost them forever? Mahmoud was beside himself. This trip, this odyssey, was pulling his family apart, stripping them away like leaves from the trees in the fall.

Mahmoud compared the journey to leaves stripping from trees, tearing his family apart.

Head down, hoodie up, eyes on the ground. Be unimportant. Blend in.
Disappear. That was how you avoided the bullies.

Motif-invisibility, Mahmoud felt it was necessary to be invisible to survive.

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So  this  was  the  last  verse,  Isabel  thought.  After  everything  they’d  been  through,  after everything they’d lost, their climactic ending wasn’t going to be climactic after all. Theirs wasn’t a son cubano, with its triumphant finale; theirs was a fugue, a musical theme that was repeated
again and again without resolution.

After everything they'd been through, after all the conflicts they had faced that they were never going to getting the resolution they wanted and they were going in circles like a clock.

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But he wasn’t a kid anymore. He had responsibilities. Like keeping his sister and his mother safe. Papa had told him what the concentration camps were like. He couldn’t let that happen to Ruthie and his mother.

Motif:maturing; Josef was the man of the family now since his father had left them in Cuba

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Mahmoud’s tears came harder, fueled by everything that had come before—the bombing of their house, the attack on their car, struggling to live in Izmir, the long hours in the sea, and of course, Hana. Mostly Hana.

Mahmoud still blamed himself for giving Hana away, He had tried to stay positive but finally he broke down.

they got to Germany?

Mahmoud questioned wether they would ever come to the end of their journey.

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Terror rose in Isabel like the water filling the boat. She couldn’t drown. Couldn’t disappear beneath the waves like Lita. Like Iván. No.No!

Isabel was terrified and refused to end up like her best friend and her Lita washed up on sea.

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"you can life as a ghost, waiting for death to come or you can dance" means you can live life to the fullest or live to die.

means you live life to the fullest or wait around for death.