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.”
About Lois Lowry
Lois Lowry (born 1937) is one of the most decorated American writers for young readers, having won two Newbery Medals — for Number the Stars (1990) and The Giver (1994). She spent part of her childhood in Japan and Carlisle, Pennsylvania, as a military daughter, giving her an early sense of how societies look different from the outside. The immediate inspiration for Number the Stars came from her friendship with Anneliese Platt, a Danish woman who described her own childhood memories of the October 1943 rescue — including the image of running through the dark to the harbor. Lowry's research included documentation of the actual chemical substance (the cocaine-and-blood compound) used by the Danish Resistance to defeat Nazi guard dogs, a detail verified by Danish historians. She dedicated the novel to Anneliese.
Life → Text Connections
How Lois Lowry's real experiences shaped specific elements of Number the Stars.
Lowry's friendship with Anneliese Platt, a Danish woman who described her childhood memories of the 1943 rescue
The character of Annemarie and the novel's primary events — the soldiers stopping girls in the street, the harbor crossing, the sensation of running in the dark
The novel's most visceral details come from memory rather than research alone. Anneliese's experience gave Lowry a child's-eye view that documented history could not provide.
Lowry's research into the actual Danish Resistance methods, including the cocaine-treated handkerchief that neutralized Nazi guard dogs
The packet that Annemarie carries to Henrik — its contents explained after she has already delivered it
The detail is historically documented and it grounds the story's climax in verified reality. Fiction about historical atrocity carries a particular obligation to accuracy.
Lowry grew up as a military child, moving between cultures and learning to observe social codes from the outside
Annemarie's careful observation of soldiers, of adult behavior, of the gap between what people say and what they mean
The close observer who lives at the margin of power — present but not quite belonging — is a recurring Lowry protagonist. It is also her own position.
Lowry's own childhood experience of war's aftermath — she was eight when World War II ended
The epilogue's provisional tone: the war will end, Ellen may come home, the necklace is held in trust
Lowry knows that war endings are not clean. Her war-child perspective gives the novel's conclusion its honest ambivalence.
Historical Era
German-occupied Denmark, 1943 — specifically the month of October 1943 and the Rescue of the Danish Jews
How the Era Shapes the Book
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 civil society until August 1943 — this meant Danish Jews were not required to wear yellow stars and were deeply integrated into Danish civil life. When the deportation was ordered, the Danes' reaction was not exception but the general rule: fishermen, farmers, clergy, teachers, doctors, and ordinary families simply refused, and smuggled the Jewish community to Sweden. Lowry's novel honors this with historical precision while making it emotionally comprehensible to a ten-year-old reader — and to the reader who reads alongside that ten-year-old.