Number the Stars
Lois Lowry (1989)
“A ten-year-old girl helps hide her best friend from the Nazis — and discovers that ordinary people can choose to be brave.”
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Number the Stars
Lois Lowry (1989) · 137pages · Contemporary / Historical Fiction
Summary
In German-occupied Copenhagen in 1943, ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen helps her Jewish best friend Ellen Rosen escape to Sweden. When the Nazis order the 'relocation' of Danish Jews, Annemarie's family shelters Ellen and then guides the Rosen family to her Uncle Henrik's boat on the coast. Annemarie delivers a crucial packet to her uncle — not knowing it contains a special powder that disables Nazi guard dogs — and the Jews escape safely across the sea. The novel is based on the true story of how the Danish Resistance smuggled nearly the entire Danish Jewish population to neutral Sweden in October 1943.
Why It Matters
Number the Stars won the Newbery Medal in 1990 and has been continuously in print since. It is one of the most-assigned novels in American middle school education and has introduced more young readers to the history of the Holocaust and the Danish rescue than any other work of fiction. Unlike mos...
Themes & Motifs
Diction & Style
Register: Conversational and clear — accessible to middle-grade readers, with moments of deliberate gravity and controlled tension
Narrator: Third-person close — the narrative stays tightly bound to Annemarie's perception and understanding. We know what she ...
Figurative Language: Low to moderate
Historical Context
German-occupied Denmark, 1943 — specifically the month of October 1943 and the Rescue of the Danish Jews: The novel is set during one of history's most documented and unusual acts of civilian resistance. Unlike most countries under German occupation, Denmark maintained its government and a degree of ci...
Key Characters
Talking Points
- Uncle Henrik tells Annemarie it is easier to be brave when you don't know everything. Do you agree? Can you think of a time when knowing too much made it harder to act?
- Lowry writes from Annemarie's point of view rather than Ellen's. Why might she have made this choice? What would the story lose if it were told from inside the Jewish family's experience?
- Papa's hands are described as 'not trembling' when he faces the soldiers. Why does Lowry focus on the hands specifically? What does steadiness in the body tell us about steadiness in the spirit?
- Annemarie imagines herself as Little Red Riding Hood while walking through the forest at night — then decides this is not a fairy tale. Why does she need to break the fairy-tale frame to be brave?
- The novel's title comes from Psalm 147: 'He calleth them all by their names.' Why might Lowry use this specific verse? What does naming have to do with the Holocaust?
Notable Quotes
“I think that I could be brave, Annemarie thought. If I tried.”
“Don't attract their attention, her mother had said. But Kirsti, never a child who could resist center stage, had gone up to the soldier and yanked ...”
“If the King could say, 'All of Denmark is his bodyguard,' then... all of Denmark must work to protect the Jews.”
Why Read This
Because courage is not a quality you either have or don't have — it's something you find out about yourself by doing the next necessary thing. Annemarie doesn't know she's brave until she's already been brave. The novel is also a precise and accur...