Number+the+Stars

Summary:
//Number the Stars // is told from the point of view of ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen. The story is set in the city of Copenhagen, Denmark in September 1943, the third year of the Nazi occupation of Denmark. Annemarie and her best friend Ellen, who is Jewish, are stopped by soldiers on their way home from school. The two girls, who go to the same school and live in the same building, are unsettled by their first direct encounter with the Germans. Mrs. Johansen and Mrs. Rosen are concerned and ask the girls to take a new route to school. The encounter makes Annemarie reflect on what her father has taught her about Denmark and also about her older sister Lise's death a few years before the start of the novel.

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Lexile: 670

Book Talk from Booktalks Quick and Simple:
Annemarie and Ellen are friends growing up in Copenhagen during World War II. On the eve of Jewish New Year, most of the Jewish people, including Ellen's parents, flee the city. Ellen hides with Annemarie's family in the city and later goes with them to Uncle Henrik's farm near the sea. Here they become part of an elaborate plan to smuggle the Jews to Sweden, where they will be safe. The children are told little of what is going on in order to protect them, but Annemarie perceives some of the lies that are being told. She knows there is no Great-Aunt Birte, whose death the family is mourning, and she wonders why they keep talking about the weather for fishing. Annemarie's mother and uncle bravely escort several people to Henrik's boat, where they are hidden below, but in the commotion an important package is left behind. Annemarie must run to deliver it to her uncle before the boat leaves. On the way, she runs into German soldiers and must talk her way out of the situation, a task that is much easier because she knows so little of what is going on. When the war is over, Annemarie's mother and father explain that the package she was carrying was a drugged handkerchief that numbed the smell of the soldiers' dogs and that her sister was killed because she was part of the Danish Resistance to the war. It is only after the war is over and many lives have been saved that the secrets can be told. (Linda Wolfgram, Middle/High School Media Specialist, Benton Community Schools, Van Horne, IA)

More info:
Student Book Trailer: media type="custom" key="5755111"