Number the Stars in Easley Library Bookworms

Oct 24, 2017 Werner rated it it was amazing

Shelves: general-fiction, childrens

C. S. Lewis famously wrote something to the effect that a children's book so bland and simplistic that it could appeal only to children probably has nothing of much real worth to offer to a child reader, either. He was right; the best and truest (in the sense of Mary E. Wilkins' Freeman's comment that "All fiction should be true") stories written for children speak just as profoundly to adults. This book is a powerful illustration of that reality. At 137 pages (counting the Afterword) of fairly C. S. Lewis famously wrote something to the effect that a children's book so bland and simplistic that it could appeal only to children probably has nothing of much real worth to offer to a child reader, either. He was right; the best and truest (in the sense of Mary E. Wilkins' Freeman's comment that "All fiction should be true") stories written for children speak just as profoundly to adults. This book is a powerful illustration of that reality. At 137 pages (counting the Afterword) of fairly large print, it's a quick read, which I blazed though in three days; and the language and diction, while not dumbed down in any sense, is simple enough for readers as young as the 10-year-old protagonist to understand. But the depth of meaning in a story isn't determined by the length of time and verbiage it takes to tell, and the very simplicity of the tale heightens its impact immensely. (It's the perfect length for the effect Lowry wanted to create.) Like all great fiction, it's set in a particular time and place (here, Nazi-occupied Denmark in 1943), and happens to a viewpoint character with particular demographic characteristics --a little girl-- but it leads all of us, of whatever age, gender, and nationality, to identify with her in the universal human issues and experiences that lie behind the particulars.

The Holocaust is a subject that's inherently harrowing. Until now, I've avoided Holocaust fiction (and read very little nonfiction devoted to it, except for The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom), simply because I already know what happened and don't want to drown myself in stark tragedy. This book, however, manages to bring a ray of light into that dark time: it's fictionalized, but it focuses on the real-life rescue of virtually the entire Jewish population of Denmark, smuggled by the Danish Resistance to safety in Sweden. (This isn't a spoiler, since the jacket copy provides that information.) It remains a story that looks human evil full in the face; incidents large and small drive home to the reader the ugliness of the Nazi's treatment of both Jews and Danish Gentiles. And even for readers who've read the jacket, Lowry conjures a palpable atmosphere of gripping tension and danger, especially in Chapters 8-15. But ultimately this is a story of the triumph of the human spirit and of human decency.

Lowry's messages are about toleration of differences between people, about cross-cultural and inter-religious friendship, and about the obligation of "ordinary" people to find the stuff to be heroes and heroines when circumstances call for it --lived out here in the object lesson, especially, of a small girl who's believably called upon to face enormous danger, in the face of her own fear. (The plot is excellently crafted.).

Lowry (1937- ) has twice won the coveted Newbery Award, once for this book. (IMO, that award was well deserved.) She's writing here of events in her own lifetime; but because she's going back to the time when she was an even smaller child than Annemarie here, and lived through World War II in the U.S. rather than in Denmark, she didn't grow up knowing the background of this book, and had to research it much as she would have a historical fiction novel. (The Afterword tells how she came to be inspired with this project, and what aspects of the book are factual --and a LOT of it is.) She did her homework well. I'd recommend this book to readers, young and old, who like World War II historical fiction, as well as general fiction; but really, to every reader. And this late-in-life first introduction to Lowry has definitely whetted my interest in reading more of her work! ...more

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