Number The Stars by Lois Lowry

Number The Stars by Lois Lowry is a book that I first read in middle school. The novel Number The Stars can fit into more than one genre, since this story is set in 1943, in one of the most dangerous times for one to be a Jewish person under the Nazis regime.

If one looks up this book on goodreads, which I personally, recommend this website for those who are avid readers because it suggest books that one may not know about. As well, it helps one find books by their favorite authors too.

Anyway, back to the genre, Number The Stars can fall under ten different genres according to  goodreads.  Though I’m going to pick a couple and list them in the macro to the micro genres: Juvenile, Young Adult, Historical Fiction, and History, World War II, World War II, Holocaust.

Number The Stars is set in Copenhagen Denmark in the 1940s at the heart of the Nazis regime. The main character Annemarie Johansen, a ten-year-old girl and her best friend Ellen Rosen lives in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark under the Nazis occupation. In the course of the story, the Johansen family with other families goes on a dangerous mission to help Jewish families including Ellen’s family escape to Sweden, which was one of the very few countries that were free of the Nazis control.

I personally feel that through the treacherous mission of getting Ellen and her family to Sweden, the veil of a child’s innocents is stripped away from Annemarie and she learns the real danger that the Jewish people who live in Denmark are really in. Annemarie learns through this story, that loyalty and sacrificing her own life to get her best friend and family to a safe country is the greatest gift she can offer to her best friend Ellen.

In my opinion, Number The Stars by Lois Lowry is a book I highly recommend for anyone who likes stories that have a strong friendship bond through a real dangerous period of world history. However, this book being fiction there is enough historical facts woven through the story that people who like historical fiction would enjoy this book too. I believe children, who are in middle school, and being first introduced to World War II and the Nazis regime will connect to this story.

The book Number The Stars would be an excellent introduction for children to grasp the real danger that people living in the 1940s under the Nazis control. This book also gives young readers the understanding that there were people, who were against what the Nazis were doing to the Jewish people and did everything in their power to help get the Jewish people to safe countries.