Number the Stars: Title, Copyright & Dedication

• Lois Lowry wrote Number the Stars, Newbery Medal winner, more than twenty years before the book's introduction
• The Danish friend of Lowry's, who in 1943 was living in Copenhagen, became the basis for the character Annemarie
• The novel is dedicated to Annelise Platt, a friend of Lowry

Title Page

Table of Contents

• Provides an overview of the chapters and sections in the book

Copyright

• Establishes Lois Lowry as the copyright holder for Number the Stars
• The book was originally published in hardcover in 1989 by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children
• Sandpiper and it's logo are registered trademarks of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
• In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be brave and courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis.

Dedication

• The book is dedicated to Annelise Platt, with the phrase "Tusind tak" meaning "thousand thanks" in Danish.

Introduction

• It took Lois Lowry more than twenty years to actually write Number the Stars
• Books can change lives and make people think about courage and cruelty
• Ten is the age when kids develop ethics and want to do good
• Readers match themselves against protagonists of books that they love
• Lowry was shaped by being told the childhood story of her Danish friend in Copenhagen, with similarities to Annemarie
• Children are still reading about the integrity that a small Scandinavian showed almost seventy years ago
• For a brief time in a small place, a group of prejudice-free people honored the humanity of others

1. Why Are You Running?

• Annemarie and Ellen are racing in Copenhagen for the athletic meet on Friday
• Ellen cannot beat Annemarie because her legs are not as long
• Little Kirsti is left behind because the older girls are running too fast
• Annemarie outdistances Ellen running down Østerbrogade
• Annemarie and Ellen are stopped by two German soldiers near their home in Copenhagen
• The soldiers' Danish is poor, even after three years in the country
• Annemarie says she was racing to do well in school races
• Annemarie calls one of the soldiers "the Giraffe" due to his height and long neck
• The soldier prods Annemarie's backpack with his rifle
• Annemarie truthfully replies that her backpack contains schoolbooks
• The shopkeeper in the area quickly retreats from view
• When asked, Annemarie confirms Ellen is a good student
• Kirsti puts her hands on her hips defiantly
• Kirsti pushes the soldier's hand away when he touches her hair
• The soldiers speak rapidly to themselves in German, which Annemarie cannot understand
• The soldiers tell the girls to go home and study and not run, because it makes them look like hoodlums
• Annemarie grabs Kirsti's hand and hurries around the corner with Ellen
• When entering the apartment building, the girls avoid making eye contact with other soldiers stationed at the corner
• Kirsti chatters happily, seeing the soldiers as unimportant, like lampposts
• Annemarie doesn't plan to tell her mother about the encounter to avoid upsetting her
• Mrs. Rosen looks frightened when she learns about what happened
• Mrs. Johansen recognizes that the soldiers are edgy due to Resistance incidents mentioned in De Frie Danske
• De Frie Danske, The Free Danes, is an illegal newspaper that reports on Resistance activities such as sabotage and bombings
• Papa explained that The Resistance fighters are brave Danish people who risk their lives to harm Nazis
• Mrs. Rosen tells the girls walk a different way to school tomorrow.
• Mrs. Rosen emphasizes the importance of not being remembered for your face
• Kirsti said if the soldier likes little girls why don't they go home
• There is no butter for bread, and Kirsti wishes she could have a pink frosted cupcake.
• Mrs. Johansen says cupcakes will come back once the war ends and the soldiers leave

2. Who Is the Man Who Rides Past?

• Kirsti asks Annemarie to tell her a fairy tale with a king and a queen and beautiful daughter
• Annemarie makes up a story about Princess Kirsten and formal balls until Kirsti falls asleep
• Annemarie remembers the real King Christian and Amalienborg palace in Copenhagen
• Danish children all grew up with Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales
• The people of Denmark loved King Christian, who is very human and kind
• Each morning, he rides his horse Jubilee through Copenhagen to greet his people
• Annemarie remembers waving to King Christian with Lise as a child
• Papa told Annemarie that a German soldier asked about the man riding by on his horse
• A young boy boldly explains to the soldier "All of Denmark is his bodyguard."
• Papa says the boy is truthful and any Danish citizen would die for King Christian
• Annemarie shivers, wondering why the king can't protect them from the Nazis
• Papa sighs, explaining that Denmark is a tiny country and their king was wise to surrender
• Norway fought fiercely but was crushed anyways
• Mama adds that German soldiers are also in Holland, Belgium and France but not Sweden
• Uncle Henrik showed Annemarie Sweden across the Kattegat and said that it is still free
• Three years later, King Christian survives a bad fall from Jubilee and Lise is dead
• In a blue trunk are folded Lise's pillowcases, wedding dress, and yellow dance dress
• Mama and Papa never speak about Lise
• Peter, her fiancé, has changed greatly and becomes hurried when visiting the Johansens
• The fairy tales are the only thing that remained the same
• At the end of the story, Annemarie completes the story in her head as Kirsti slept beside her

3. Where Is Mrs. Hirsch?

• Annemarie and Ellen always take the long way to school to avoid the soldiers
• The two mothers still have coffee in the afternoon
• They knit mittens in response to the coming winter and fuel shortages
• The Johansens had opened the old chimney for a stove, and they used candles for lights
• Ellen's father complains about the terrible lighting conditions with which he grades
• They will need another blanket for the bed
• Mama laughed thinking about Kirsti wetting the bed when she slept between Mama and Papa
• Annemarie needs to buy one button for Kirsti after school in Mrs Hirsch's shop for some kroner
• After school, they learn that the shop is closed and has a sign in German and a padlock
• There is a swastika on the sign
• Annemarie wonders if Mrs. Hirsch is sick, though Ellen says that she looked fine on Saturday
• Samuel Hirsch is tall teenager with thick glasses who rides a bicycle to school
• Kirsti thinks the Hirsches went on vacation for pink frosted cupcakes
• Annemarie says sarcastically that no one in Copenhagen is taking vacations for pink frosted cupcakes
• Mama is troubled when she heard the news and learns that the sign was in German, possibly with a swastika
• Mrs. Johansen will talk to Mrs. Rosen in their apartment
• Annemarie has begun to peel the potatoes for dinner
• It is not possible, there are potatoes for dinner
• Annemarie was almost asleep when there light knock from her Mama asking her to get up where she was and that Peter wanted to talk to her
• Peter hadn't seen her in a long time
• Peter's here is against the curfew, and no citizens were allowed
• She gave Peter a hug, and he said that she grew "taller"
• Annemarie gave Peter the seashell as a gift
• Peter gifted Mama and Papa the beer as a practical item
• Peter said the Jewish stores were being closed down by the Germans
• Annemarie realizes that the Rosens were also Jewish She relaxed after she realized the Mr. Rosen didn't have a shop. She says, 'They can't close the school!"-
• Peter says The Rosens will be all right and said the keep their eye out, but he had to go
• Annemarie says we must all be bodyguard for the Jews, as well Peter hugged Annemarie, with the knowledge that she would die for the King
• Annemarie remembers how her father had said three years and and they would all protect the king and would snuggling her
• Annemarie announced prowdlud thta they would that she would to would the Jews
• The would be a bodyguard
• But that wasn't the real way The real was there is all the land was in fairy tales. That all will be be

4. It Will Be a Long Night

• Annemarie and Ellen are playing with paper dolls, but Mama is shopping with Kirsti
• The paper dolls are cut from old magazines and the girls gave them names from 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 stomps in, upset about her new shoes and the fact that it is not a fish store
• There is no leather anymore, but they have made out of fish skin
• Ellen says that it is only the color that's ugly and says that her father could make them black
• Kirsti doesn't want anyone to know that they are fish
• Annemarie hands her sister the doll, and she can play and asks her sister to give the new paper doll to her sister. She's Scarlett's daughter
• The ladies are to go to the TIVOLI in America that is in America
• I dont' want Ellen says. And so, as the paper doll now in circle, there. "Tivoli can be over there that the char

That is, said:

• After the other was, Annemarie knows that the other is all

• And so it She said, "Now know me, I said and

Ann was the other. To have and. Did you know that is in my" asks Krist

• A are were at my" says, , "What is it our?

5. Who Is the Dark-Haired One?

• Ellen asks if anyone will come, and Annemarie responds her father doesn't think so
• They just threaten them with their stuff
• He wants and we will to be a change to their
• Ellen wants more. To said
• She stood said that to be was like. Like. "The have had that and with and said the
• Now for the bed been I in a at the more?" what was of "I was, so,
• Annemarie was what