Number the Stars: Running Interrupted

Introduction

• Lois Lowry wrote Number the Stars more than 20 years ago.
• Annelise Platt is the author's friend in Copenhagen who experienced it for real
• The Newbery Medal was awarded to it in 1990.
• It is about people doing the right thing in a difficult world.
• The author wrote many parts based on the real life experiences

Running Interrupted

• Annemarie and Ellen are racing when stopped by German soldiers in Copenhagen.
• The soldier's Danish is poor.
• Annemarie is racing to prepare for the athletic meet on Friday.
• The soldier asks Annemarie what is in her backpack, and she states it is schoolbooks.
• The soldier asks their names, and notes Ellen's dark hair.
• Kirsti pushes the soldier's hand away.
• Soldiers speak German and laugh.
• The soldier tells them to go home to study.
• The girls walk towards their apartment building, and purposefully don't look at two other soldiers.
• Ellen admits she was scared.
• Kirsti tells Mrs. Johansen about the soldier, exaggerating.
• Mrs. Johansen and Mrs. Rosen discuss the Resistance and De Frie Danske, an illegal newspaper.
• Mrs. Rosen says that Danes are determined to bring harm to the Nazis in secret.
• Mrs. Rosen wants to talk to Ellen.
• Mrs. Rosen tells the girls to take different routes to school.
• Mrs. Rosen reminds them not to give the soldiers reason to remember their faces and to blend in.
• Kirsti says the soldier said she looked like his little girl.
• Mrs. Johansen wonders why the soldier doesn't return to his daughter rather than occupy Denmark.
• They eat bread with no butter.
• Kirsti wishes for a cupcake with pink frosting.
• Mrs. Johansen wishes for the end of the war when soldiers leave, glancing out the window.

Danish Pride

• Kirsti asks Annemarie to tell her a fairy tale with a King, Queen, and beautiful daughter.
• Annemarie makes up a story about Princess Kirsten.
• Annemarie thinks about the real King, Christian X.
• Annemarie remembers when she was younger and would wave to King Christian, and Lise had told her she was special forever.
• Papa told a story of a German soldier who was unaware of King Christian.
• The soldier asked who the man who rides past every morning on his horse was.
• A boy said that "all of Denmark is his bodyguard."
• Annemarie had shivered because it was a brave answer.
• Papa had stated that all Danish citizens would die for the King.
• Mama had been crocheting the lacy edging of a pillowcase 3 years prior for Lise's trousseau.
• Annemarie wondered why the King didn't fight the Nazis.
• Papa said they are a tiny country and they are a wise king who was aware Denmark had few soldiers and many would die if they fought
• Annemarie had pictured Norway, which is pink, crushed by a fist.
• There are German soldiers in Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France, but not Sweden.
• Uncle Henrik lives North of Copenhagen, and looking across the Kattegat, you can see Sweden.
• Mama and Papa never speak of Lise and never open her trunk with Lise's wedding dress.
• Peter, Lise's fiancé, stopped by less often and doesn't sing anymore.
• Papa had changed and seemed defeated.
• Annemarie completes a fairy tale for Kirsti.

Missing Shopkeepers

• Days of September passed with Annemarie and Ellen walking to school, and home again, now taking the longer way, avoiding the tall soldier and his partner.
• The mothers still had their "coffee" together.
• They began to knit mittens, because another winter was coming (with no fuel).
• The Johansens installed a little stove to use for heat when they could find coal.
• Electricity was rationed.
• Mama used the stove for cooking. Otherwise, they used candles.
• Ellen's father, a teacher, complained that he couldn't see in the dim light.
• Mama said they would have to add another blanket to their bed.
• Kirsti and she are lucky to have each other.
• She remembers when Kirsti slept between Mama and Papa, and she would wet the bed in the middle of the night.
• Mama laughed and kissed Kirsti on the cheek.
• A button on Kirsti's jacket was broken.
• Annemarie was to take Kirsti after school to Mrs. Hirsch's shop to get one with the kroner her mother provided
• They found Mrs. Hirsch's shop closed with a new padlock and a sign in German they couldn't read.
• Ellen last saw Mrs. Hirsch on Saturday with her husband and son, though the son always looks like a horror.
• Kirsti thinks the Hirsches all went on a vacation to the seashore.
• Annemarie sarcastically suggested they took a pink frosted cupcake
• No one in Copenhagen has taken a vacation to the seashore since the war began.
• There have been no pink frosted cupcakes in months.
• Mama was troubled by the news and asked if they were sure.
• Annemarie was to watch Kirsti, and start peeling the potatoes for dinner
• Kirsti had a swastika on it.
• Mrs. Johansen said she wants to talk to Mrs. Rosen.
• Annemarie puzzled as her mother leaves.
• It seems they had potatoes for dinner every night.

A Visitor and a Revelation

• Annemarie was almost asleep when there was a knock on the door.
• Peter was there.
• Copenhagen had an 8:00 PM curfew, making it dangerous.
• Peter is like a son to them.
• Peter brought two seashells, one for each girl.
• For Mama and Papa he brought two bottles of beer.
• Peter relates that the Germans have issued orders closing many stores run by Jews.
• Annemarie asks if that is why Mrs. Hirsch is closed
• Peter states it's their way of tormenting and that they were going to start to target the Jews.
• Annemarie asked if they can't sell their buttons, how are they going to earn a living?
• Mama said friends will take care of friends.
• Mama had talked to Mrs. Rosen and she knows what is happening, but doesn't think it will affect them.
• Mr. Rosen is a teacher and they can't close a whole school.
• Peter says the Rosens will be alright, but to keep an eye on Ellen and stay away from the soldiers
• Annemarie thinks that all of Denmark must be bodyguard for the Jews, too.
• Peter leaves and hugs her again.
• Annemarie recalls times had announced proudly that she would also die to protect the King.
• As a ten year old, she has no silly dreams of pink frosted cupcakes
• She wasn't sure if she would die to protect them
• She feels frightened.
• She was glad to be an ordinary person who would not be called upon for courage.

An Evening Interrupted

• While Mama was out shopping with Kirsti, Annemarie and Ellen were spread out in the apartment playing with paper dolls.
• The paper dolls were cut out of Mama's magazines from past years, old fashioned styles and clothes
• The girls gave the dolls names from Mama's very favorite book, Gone with the Wind
• Mama had told Annemarie and Ellen the entire story of Gone With the Wind, and the girls thought it much more interesting and romantic than the king-and-queen tales that Kirsti loved.
• Kirsti stomped in crying with Mama setting a package down
• Annemarie and Ellen asked what was wrong, and Mama told them that she bought Kirsti shoes but Kirsti didn't like them
• Kirsti said the shoes are ugly fish shoes with black ink
• There's no leather anymore, only fish skin Ellen said that it was only the color that was ugly
• Ellen said her father has a jar of black ink and Ellen would see about making them black
• Ellen said she would take them home to get her father to make them black
• Mama thinks a black pair of shoes would be an improvement.
• Kirsti pondered if they could by shiny and only if no one would know they are fish
• Kirsti asked if she could play, and Annemarie didn't mind.
• They were playing "Gone with the Wind" with Melanie and Scarlett.
• Kirsti was Bonnie who is going to the ball.
• Ellen mentioned the girls should go somewhere else then the ball, they should got of Tivoli
• Annemarie said the story is "Gone with the Wind is in America."
• Kirsti is singing to their doll with Tivoli.
• Ellen said it was ok because the girls to go to Tivoli.
• Annemarie smiled and walked her Scarlett toward the chair that Ellen had designated as Tivoli
• Annemarie loved Tivoli
• She said the park had taken her there a while ago
• She remembers bright colors, the carousel and ice cream
• Kirsti said the Fireworks were best, and she remembers them
• Annemarie said she never saw the fireworks
• Kirstie said that it was a birthday waking up the fireworks was part of the present.
• Annemarie didn't want to play, and Ellen said she needed to go home and clean.
• Ellen reminded them that Thursday is going to be the Jewish New Year
• Annemarie agreed she would got watch Kirsti's mom light then the two girls can too.
• Annemarie and Kirsti had often been invited to watch Mrs. Rosen light the Sabbath candles on Friday evenings, She covered her head with a cloth and said a special prayer in Hebrew as she did so.
• Annemarie always stood very quietly, awed, to watch; even Kirsti, usually such a chatterbox, was always still at that time. They didn't understand the words or the meaning, but they could feel what a special time it was for the Rosens
• Kirsti mentions the her black shoes again.
• Annemarie waves to Ellen, who happily waves back.
• Annemarie comments to Kirsti that Ellen doesn't have to go to school, to which Kristie says is no fun.
• Later that afternoon Mrs. Rosen asked if Ellen to going to stay over for the week, she and the parents are visiting some relative. Kirsti was about to pout, but Mama said how she would tell a special story tonight.
• And one involving Kings and Queens, which Kristie requests
• Though Mrs. Rosen had sent her chicken to the Johansens, and Anna made a dinner though it was cheerless laughter
• Ellen and Annemarie with Papa were questioned about it afterwords, and it to know them was to watch them.
• Mama states she has long story the tell, she vanished with Kirsti to the bedroom, to tell those stories.
• Papa face was troublous
• Later Papa went to brush Annemarie hair, and they told each other stories from then to the end.

Darkness Falls

• Ellen asked nervoursly, turning to Annemarie in the bedroom if they would really come.
• To Anna, her father doesn't so, but they are always threatening.
• Ellen pretended to be as Lies when she was the Dark Queen to have the chance to practice with what you know what is out their.
• If you told this the dark queen is who has been to go their will be a chance to practice action and how tall.
• She and Kristen were out to the hopsital
• With Ellen it makes it less frightening and so they wispered.
• Annemarie and her friends got ready for sleep in the bedroom
• They were no, that whispered
• Annermarie is out of the town and the funeral
• Now she doesn't no but has moved away from the town and is still with Ellen and the boys.
• She said as if a while back since the way everything was so little with the girls and that the new years
• The night is long, no one come to the house. Ellen put hair back together.

Secrets Revealed

• Hours later they will woken by the sound of what had
• The bed was close to the bed
• Elen was by sitting and was back together
• Annemarie was close to the bed.
• The girls will close to have their things with the clothes
• They went to the front of the room as the other will to follow
• Annearie and the men in the roon
• Her is where the to see Ellen and the
• She is going to do the best she can.
• It is important that you say you love them.
• They will all die after they are put back.