Number the Stars
by Lois Lowry
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1989 Newbery Medal
Last year I had a fifth grader who was a ferocious reader. She liked books that were realistic and gritty, but still was a Harry Potter fangirl. I suggested Number the Stars, which is my favorite Lois Lowry novel. This is not Anne Frank or The Book Thief: this is the story of a young girl growing up as she realizes that life is not a fairy tale. Set against the Danish Resistance's drive to save the Jews from Hitler's machine, two 10-year old best friends see the world as a child where the Danish King lives well in his castle with his white horse and the Nazi soldiers are the big, bad wolves chasing small girls in red riding hoods. As Annemarie's Danish family struggles to smuggle Ellen's Jewish family out of the country, the girls come to see the gritty underlying truth of war. An excellent read for teens and adults.
Level: 4th and up
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