Author: Lois Lowry
Title: Number the Stars
Genre: Realistic History
Subgenre: Young Adults
Theme: Courage comes at any age.
Primary and Secondary Characters: Annemarie, Ellen Rosen, Lise
Awards and Date of Publication: Newberry Award Winner, published in 1989.
Publishing Company: Houghton Mifflin Company
Number the Stars is a courageous story about a ten year old girl named Annemarie Johansen. In 1943, Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, has been occupied by Nazi soldiers. Soldiers stand on every street corner. Wartime food shortages and the psychological terror of the Nazi takeover have made life difficult for Danish citizens. Nazis have decided to relocate all of Copenhagen's Jewish families. Soldiers stand on every street corner, and life is changed irrevocably for ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen. Ellen is Jewish, and is scared the Nazi's will come to get her and her family. Annemarie lost her oldest sister, Lise, just two weeks before her wedding day. When Nazis raided a resistance meeting. She was intentionally run down and killed by a military car. Later in the novel, Annemarie follows her sister's example, risks her own life to help Jews. Jews and non-Jews alike among Denmark's population suffer terribly at the hands of the Nazis. Ellen and her family flee Denmark on a boat, with Annemarie's help. They flee to Poland where they are safe. After the war Annemarie asks her daddy if she can get Ellen's Jewish necklace fixed so she can give it to her when she comes home.
This book is a good book to read to students to teach them how devastating life was for Jews and non Germans during this time. Also, to teach them that even kids can have courage to help people that need it.
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