Written by: Muskan Singh - 24003, Grade X
Posted on: 09 February, 2022
I love too many books to pick a favorite, but I really enjoyed reading Lois Lowry's - Number the Stars. It is a novel of realistic historical fiction that was published in 1989. One of the reasons I like the book so much is because of its narrative – it uses a unique narrative to tell the story of the main characters, Annemarie Johansen and Ellen Rosen, and how they escaped from Nazis during World War II.
Lois Lowry wrote this book to let the people know about the struggle the Jews faced during the World War II to save themselves from the Nazis, for their survival. What was the reason behind treating those innocent Jews so badly and how they got back their country? In my opinion these were some of the main agendas to write the book. The novel is about a ten-year-old girl who lives in Copenhagen, Denmark, during the Nazi invasion. Annemarie Johansen's world is turned upside down when her neighbors vanish, food rationing begins, and Nazi soldiers emerge around every corner. When the invasion in her neighborhood progresses and becomes more serious, Annemarie realizes that the war is affecting her far more than she had ever imagined. Annemarie learns that when the world around her needs to be improved, bravery is always rewarded, whatever of age, when her best friend's family, the Rosens, is forced to separate for their own protection.
Annemarie appears to be used to and accepting of the Nazi soldiers on every corner. By the end of the story, she had realized that something needed to change, and she was willing to help in any way she could. This included putting her life in danger. The Holocaust is an inherently harrowing subject. This book, on the other hand, manages to bring a ray of light into that dark time: it's fictionalized, but it focuses on the real-life rescue of nearly the entire Jewish population of Denmark, smuggled to safety in Sweden by the Danish Resistance. It is still a story that confronts human evil head on; incidents large and small drive home to the reader the ugliness of the Nazis' treatment of both Jews and Danish Gentiles. Even if readers have already read the jacket, Lowry creates a palpable atmosphere of gripping tension and danger. But, in the end, this is a story about the triumph of the human spirit and decency.
The author's messages in this novel are about tolerance of differences, cross-cultural and inter-religious friendship, and 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 is believably called upon to face enormous danger, in the face of her own fear. The plot is superbly crafted. This is an engrossing and moving novel that fully deserves the Newbery Medal. Lowry has won the prestigious Newbery Award twice, once for this book. She's writing about events that happened in her lifetime, but because she's going back to when she was an even younger child than Annemarie here, and lived through World War II in the United States rather than Denmark, she didn't grow up knowing the background of this book, and had to research it as much as she would for a historical fiction novel. The afterword explains how she became inspired to write this book, as well as which parts of it are true.
The books, in my opinion, are fantastic, a bundle of pages with a cover on top, packed with substance that stimulates the human imagination and allows us to escape from the stresses of everyday life. They're good for your health as well. If you don't enjoy reading books, try a variety of genres until you find something that appeals to you. It doesn't have to be a book; an article or a blog post can work just as well.
