Reviews with content warning for War - Number the Stars

This is a book that most middle grade students read in their study of WWII. As a school library media specialist I had never read it. The book was an amazing, child-friendly way to discuss WWII and the how it affected Jewish families. This story takes place in Denmark, when the Germans were occupying Denmark. Families had to deal with the war going on. Families that were not of Jewish descent had to help their Jewish friends escape to Sweden. This is a story of a little girl named Annemarie and how Annemarie's family helped their family friends, the Rosens (a Jewish family) during this time. My advanced language arts 4th and 5th graders LOVED this book and begged me to keep reading it whenever we had to stop! 5 stars all the way!

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sam_rm94's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I learned a lot about life in Denmark during Nazi occupation in WWII, and about their Resistance efforts in collaboration with Sweden. A very inspiring story, and I appreciated that the author identified and elaborated about the true facts from her research.

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aritacb's review against another edition

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emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I really liked this book back in elementary school. Even though it’s way different than I remember, (I think mainly liked it because I romanticized Lise and Peter to the point where I thought they were more present in the book lol) I still enjoyed it.

I wish this had been longer and more detailed but it didn’t feel like anything was rushed or left out. I would have loved more insight to the adult characters but since this is children’s literature it was obviously about ten year old Annemarie’s experience of what was going on in Denmark during the WWII. Lowry was brilliant in the way she depicted Annemarie’s thoughts and behavior. This is a great read for younger kids to help them gain some background and understanding on what happened during the Holocaust. Lowry did an amazing job of conveying what happened in Denmark in 1943 in an accessible and engaging way for kids. This book can serve as a transition into books like the Book Thief or The Boy in Striped Pajamas, that delve more into the Holocaust.
Overall this is a beautiful and important work of children’s literature.

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al3xa's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

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gondorgirl's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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stevia333k's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

1.0

The way this book is/was used in schools is Holocaust denial. Historical fiction about the Holocaust is Holocaust denial. I had that opinion in 2004-2005. I have it in 2023.

Also it bleeds into "messianic judaism" rhetoric especially with the way the book ends, and possibly the traditional cover art for the book. Messianic judaism is less 2 sisters hand-in-hand, and more like a husband (christians) killing his wife (jewish people).

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As a 28 year old these days I've been doing dhikr with the names al-batin & al-latif because another death in the family, studying genocide, and burnout.

When I was 9-10 years old this was a book my classmates were reading... Somehow I didn't quite process the info around me at the time? Maybe I just wasn't in their classes? (I was in the school to prison pipeline during a tgnciq2s+ genocide, yet my family was carceral instead of abolitionist.) Anyways, one of the things that made the book boring for me as a kid was that it had a lot of gaslighting, it was a subtle/gentle puzzle put together gradually, ... I'm sorry trying to make the Holocaust gentle is creepy.

It was literally teenagers who led & organized the resistance movements. This book erases that as much as possible focusing more on active parents & ignorant kids in order for schools to prevent student organizing as in prevent "disruptions to education". This book is the anti-union PSAs your manager would pick if they were assigned the task of "teaching" how about how a successful strike was organized. Hitler on the basis of age has more in common with the teachers than the resistance leaders. Strike sabatogers include cops, managers, teachers, and HR. Cops & capitalists have more in common with nazis than students & the leaders of the Danish resistance do!

[Chapter 5 triggered the hell out of me as a kid. I'm not going to elaborate on what I was going thru as a kid, but shit sucked. I read the giver trilogy when I got to middle school, but by that point I had taken living isolated as a given that I didn't get the contrast of living in a community.]

My main problem is that the book focuses on a kid on the periphery of the resistance and it implies that being relatable to a kid is to be ignorant. It's a white feminist lens. I would've preferred Ellen instead of Annemarie speak (in fact that would've been the best of both this book & the giver) -- ignorance might give bravery, but it really god damn under cuts the point about how the community needs to be consciousַ on a need to know basis because otherwise one's ignorance will lead to complicity & assimilation instead of liberation. -- bravery is separate from power, bravery is separate from victory.

Other than that tho, it's a good book about gaslighting. (I only stopped asking Santa for gifts because he stopped coming to my house.) The children book "the spider and the fly" (2002 October) kept coming to mind as I read this book, as well as the idea of lambs to the slaughter.

Anyways here's some accurate links about the righteous among nations

https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/about-the-program/honoring-the-righteous.html

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/righteous-among-the-nations

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