I have a whole set of Lois Lowry’s young adult novel Number the Stars in my classroom, which is why it’s one of the books I brought home for my summer reading.
The story takes place in Denmark in 1943. Word gets out that the Nazis will be relocating all of Denmark’s Jews, and ten-year-old Annemarie Johnsen and her family take in Annemarie’s best friend and neighbor, Ellen, who is a Jew.
During the Nazi occupation of Denmark the Danes helped nearly all of Denmark’s Jews escape to Sweden and Number the Stars is a fictional version of that larger story centered around one child on whom many people’s lives come to depend.
The best thing about the book is the way Lowry evokes place. I have never been to Denmark, but Lowry’s descriptions of the small fishing village across the water from Sweden became as vivid as my own memories.
I also get hung up on weird details such as the apparently true ruse the fishermen used to fool the Nazi dogs so they wouldn’t smell the human cargo. A powder made of dried blood and cocaine would be sprinkled on something the dogs would smell. The blood would attract the dogs, and the cocaine would temporarily destroy their sense of smell. I’m not sure what it says about me that that detail is what sticks out from a moving and well-written book about human courage, but there it is.
Since I already have a class set, I’ll probably use this one next year with my younger students. My high schoolers will stick with Elie Wiesel’s Night.
James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.
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