Number the Stars
Recommended. Age: 9+. A Catholic review of this book for parents.
Our review
Annemarie is ten and lives in Denmark during World War II. Her best friend Ellen is Jewish, and the Nazi soldiers want to take Ellen's family away. Annemarie and her family hide Ellen and help her escape by boat. It is tense and a little scary, and it is good for kids about nine and up. This is one of the best first books on the war for a Catholic child. A Christian family risks everything for Jewish friends, and a ten-year-old learns that courage means doing right while afraid. The violence is kept at the edges. Be ready to talk about the fear and about the family's deceiving of the soldiers.
For parents
Read aloud from about eight. Independent reading from nine or ten. The fear is real: soldiers search a home at night, a soldier slaps an adult and another grabs a child's hair, deaths in the Resistance are reported, and a baby is given a drug so she stays quiet. Nothing is graphic. Ask: why do the Johansens risk their lives for Ellen? Tie it to the love of neighbor Jesus commands, and tell your child that the Jewish people are our elder brothers in faith. The family deceives the soldiers to protect innocent lives. Talk it through. The Church teaches that lying is wrong, and also that no one must hand the truth to someone who has no right to it and means to do evil with it. Ask what Annemarie learns about being brave while still afraid. Read Psalm 147 together.