Open Serendipity

Number the Stars is a wonderful little book by Lois Lowry, one of the few authors to win the Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children twice. I read it aloud to my kids years ago as part of my quest to read all of the Newbery Medal winners.

It is a quick read but a beautifully crafted book, full of desperate adventure fiction based on amazing facts about the 1943 rescue of the Danish Jews and told from the point of view of a child.

I was reminded of it recently when I read another short children’s book, The Island on Bird Street, by Uri Orlev. Instead of Denmark, this one is about walled-off ghetto in a Polish city and the people who tried to hide there and survive during the occupation. It reminded me of Lowry’s book because it is also told from the point of view of a child, and likewise full of desperate adventures. Only 162 pages long, it would also make a good read aloud book for children who are old enough to handle the grim realities of life and death in a war zone. Perhaps not right before bedtime though!

Reading it as an adult just makes you appreciate your own problems as trivial by comparison to what others experienced in different times or do experience right now but in different places.

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Books by marla