Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars A Funny, Suspenseful, Moving, and Inspiring Historical Fiction In Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars (1989) Annemarie Johansen and Ellen Rosen are best friend next door neighbors living in Copenhagen during the World War II German occupation of Denmark. In the beginning of the novel, the ten-year old girls are racing each other home from school when a pair of German soldiers stop them, scolding them that running makes them look like hoodlums. Soon the Jews of Copenhagen are being persecuted in earnest, seeing their shops closed and their families "relocated." Ellen's parents must go into hiding while leaving Ellen with Annemarie's family to pose as her sister Lise (who died in an accident a few years ago). Things are complicated by Ellen being short and stocky and dark-haired, while Annemarie is tall and lanky and fair-haired, as well as by Annemarie's cute and spunky five-year-old little sister Kirsti being unpredictable. Lowry excels at capturing the innocent, ignorant, self-centered, and charming manner of five-year-olds. Kirsti makes me smile even though the situation of the novel is suspenseful. And although Kirsti makes the ten-year-old girls seem nearly like adults by comparison, at one crucial point Annemarie must try to act like her little sister. Lowry also effectively depicts what it would be like as a ten-year-old girl to live through the terrifying occupation experience, as when Nazi officers barge into the Johansen's home in the middle of the night to demand they tell where the Rosens are hiding and then accuse Mrs. Johansen of having committed adultery to have born a girl who looks so different like "Lise" (Ellen). Lowry efficiently works into her short novel details of life under German occupation then: rationed electricity, curfews, blackouts, absence of coffee, butter, meat, and the like (no cupcakes, much to Kirsti's constant consternation), suspicious black-booted German soldiers on every corner, and so on. She also works in just enough historical background, focusing not on the larger causes and developments of World War II, but rather on how it affected Denmark, including the people sinking their tiny navy to prevent the Germans from using it and their king going on morale-raising horse rides around town sans body guards (except for the entire Danish nation). Lowry also deftly handles the Jewish themes. She doesn’t explain what a ten-year old Danish girl wouldn’t know, that the “relocation” of the Jews is a euphemism for sending them to concentration camps to be mass murdered. Instead, she works in brief cultural details that would interest a ten-year-old Danish girl, like about the Jewish New Year celebration. Neither does Lowry sentimentally smother the reader with overt depictions of how wonderful the interreligious friendship is between Annemarie and Ellen and between the Johansens and the Rosens. Instead, the Johansens decide to do all they can to help their neighbors as a matter of course, as friends and neighbors, as Annemarie protects Ellen at one point by yanking off her friend's star of David necklace and hiding it in her hand just before German soldiers barge into the girls' bedroom. As that early chapter ends, Lowry writes that the Star of David had been imprinted on Annemarie's palm. The novel, then, powerfully illuminates from the point of view of a ten-year-old girl an inspiring side of the horrific war, when many Danish people, at great risk to themselves, unselfconsciously and speedily helped about 7,000 Jewish people escape to Sweden, despite the omnipresent German soldiers and dogs. Number the Stars ends with an interesting and poignant afterword in which Lowry explains where fact ends and fiction begins in her novel, and in which she recounts how her heart broke when, when doing research for her book and getting used to reading about heroism, she came upon the photograph of Kim Malthe-Brunn, a 21-year-old man who'd been executed by the Germans for having been part of the Danish resistance. She excerpts a paragraph from a letter he wrote to his parents the night before he was shot, calling for the creation of "an ideal of human decency, and not a narrow-minded and prejudiced one." Number the Stars, then, like Lowry's other famous novel The Giver, deserves its Newbery Medal. Both books are written with limpid and vivid prose, both feature believable and appealing child protagonists trying to come to terms with life in a world in which adults do mysterious things like telling lies and keeping secrets (not to mention waging war), both make the reader think about important themes (bravery, friendship, humanity, loyalty, kindness, etc.), and both have deeply suspenseful and moving moments, including powerful revelations. I recommend this novel to readers who'd like to see another side of Lowry from her famous dystopia. View all my reviews
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