I live two blocks away from a stellar children’s book store. It’s a habit of mine to visit several times a month. I enjoy keeping tabs on what the kids are reading these days (graphic novels) and which titles have staying power. The pale blue cover of Number the Stars is always on display in the middle reader section. The fact that Lois Lowry, an author born in 1937, still has books occupying prime shelf space is an amazing feat—but not surprising to me, given I think about The Giver on a monthly basis.
Number the Stars is a gentle introduction to the Holocaust, the flip side of bleak and dark-as-pitch Night (Elie Wiesel). Our hero Annemarie is a 10-year-old girl in German-occupied Copenhagen. Her life is a happy one, defined by her loving family, a good school, and her very best friend, Ellen. She notices adults are both frightened and defiant when it comes to dealing with the omnipresent Nazis. The tension comes to a head when Danish Jews are stripped of their businesses and doomed to deportation. Annemarie’s family risks prison and worse in order to shelter Ellen until the Resistance can spirit her out of the country. Because Lowry decided to write about human goodness, innocents are saved and plucky heroes escape Nazi wrath by virtue of lack of evidence. And lest the reader think the ending is overly sunny, Lowry explains that her story is historically accurate. All of Denmark worked together to save their most vulnerable citizens—a full 90% of their Jewish population—simply because it was the right thing to do.
Recommended for anyone seeking a self-contained story about bravery and friendship.