And perhaps this book is best along with a history lesson, at least for kids. Perhaps the people are a little one-sided, just good without complication.

While I was reading it, I just couldn’t decide if I liked it. There’s not much to complain about in this book, though I didn’t find that much to sing from the rooftops, either. The insight is nice, especially for middle grades. (I liked the five-page afterword with the history as much as the book itself.) The main characters are lovable and even honorable.

From a grown-up perspective, hearing about the War experienced by the Scandinavians from their almost-neutral position and from a population that embraced the Jewish people… it was fascinating. The writing is clean and the story interesting. Number the Stars makes for good, school-sanctioned reading for middle grades students. (Also, I had no idea until just now that Lowry also wrote the Anastasia Krupnik books! I would never have pegged one author for these three books/series.) Since I loved The Giver, I expected more of the same, but it’s not at all the same. By Lois Lowry, the author of The Giver and the Anastasia Krupnik books, Number the Stars is a Newbery Award winner about World War II from the unique perspective of the people of Denmark. After Animal Farm and then War Horse, we landed on another super-short novel (which we’re not going to call a novella because it’s middle grades), Number the Stars. The books we’ve been reading for middle school literature lately (I teach a co-op class) have been so short that the students have actually asked for more reading suggestions.

Number the stars online book