review: Number the Stars

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. Houghton Mifflin, 1989 (0-395-51060-0) $13.45; Laurel-Leaf, 1998 (0-440-22753-3) $6.99 pb

One of the best uses of children's literature is to make complex subjects and concepts more immediate and personal, "sizing them down," as it were, to their most basic level. For a subject as complex and staggering as the Holocaust, good children's books are vitally necessary--books that don't try to tell the whole story, but make the situation come alive through one situation, one character. In Number the Stars, Lois Lowry found a story to tell that reveals a lesser known aspect of that evil period: the courage and humanity of ordinary, good people who fought against it. The result is a poignant, life-affirming novel that richly deserved its 1990 Newbery Medal.

It is 1943 in Denmark, but for ten-year-old Annemarie and her best friend Ellen Rosen, life is fairly ordinary, despite the privations of war and the often frightening presence of German soldiers. Then suddenly the danger becomes acute for the Danish Jews and Ellen's family must go into hiding, leaving her behind as Annemarie's "sister." That night the Nazis come and Annemarie just barely manages to break Ellen's Star of David off of her neck in time.

The next day, Annemarie's family goes to visit Uncle Henrik, a fisherman who lives right on the water. "You can stand on the edge of the meadow and look across to Sweden," she tells Ellen, not realizing then the significance of her own words. But when the time has come to say goodbye to her friend, Annemarie understands without being told where she is going--and when it's discovered that a vitally important package has been left behind by the refugees, Annemarie knows that somehow she must get it to the boat. Then she is stopped by German soldiers. She is only a timid little girl: can she possibly find the wits and courage to deceive them?

As told in the afterword of Number the Stars, "almost the entire Jewish population of Denmark--nearly seven thousand people--was smuggled across the sea to Sweden," right before their "relocation" was to begin. This is the kind of story epics can be made of, but Lowry's simply-written book focuses on the small, personal aspects of the drama--just good, caring people doing what they can, sometimes at the cost of their lives--and thereby gives even more meaning to the history. Annemarie doesn't go looking to be a hero--at the beginning of the book she is "glad to be an ordinary person who would never be called upon for courage." But she is called upon, and discovers that even the most frightened person can be brave when she needs to be. Reading her fictional story gives a new understanding to the facts that are told in the afterword: for every Jewish family that made it to Sweden, there is an untold story of goodness and sacrifice. * (8 & up)

FYI

Prinz Honor book and Cybils Poetry finalist Your Own, Sylvia is now out in trade paperback, published by Knopf. ISBN 978-0-440-23968-0 $7.99.

review: Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr

Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr. HarperTeen, 2008 (978-06-121468-4) $116.99

The sequel to Wicked Lovely (my review) takes place after the events of that book, amidst the aftermath of the change in Faery regime. It could be read independently, but will be harder to follow.

Leslie, who has no idea that her good friend Aislinn is now the Faery Summer Queen, is searching for just the right tattoo, the symbolic marking that will reclaim her body as her own, after her rights to it were brutally taken from her. But her desire is linked to someone else's agenda and her ultimate choice of tattoo will be bitterly ironic, an "ink exchange" that will tie her to Irial, the king of the Dark Court of the fey, making her a human conduit for the dark emotions he needs to feed on. As the tattoo is slowly applied, over a period of days, Leslie finds herself seeing things that can't be there and feeling emotions that don't seem to be really hers. And she is torn between her feelings for two men who have appeared in her life, Niall and Irial, both of whom have secrets.

As Leslie is stalked by Irial and protected by the emotionally tortured Niall, both of whom are increasingly obsessed by her, the book feels a little too much like a conventional damsel-in-distress story, as well as an overly conventional romance. But Marr turns it around--as with Wicked Lovely the story ends on a striking note of female empowerment and choice. Also like Wicked Lovely, it stretches the usual boundaries of romance--here perhaps to the breaking point; some readers will inevitably be disappointed in the ending, despite how elegantly it is foreshadowed. My primary disappointment was that the climax of the book feels rushed; there is such a long build-up to the ink exchange but when it's finally complete, everything happens very quickly. The story could've stood to be longer.

Ultimately I enjoyed Wicked Lovely more, but this is a welcome revisit to the complex, often morally ambiguous world of the fey--which has the additional virtue of not doing anything to sabotage the original story for its fans. (14 & up)

Other Blog Reviews:

Becky's Book Reviews
Book Envy
Eva's Book Addiction