In Number the Stars Lowry uses small details to illuminate larger events. A scene as mundane as Mrs. Johansen and Mrs. Rosen sitting and sipping from cups together is transformed when the reader realizes that the two mothers are actually drinking hot water flavored with herbs. There is no coffee, tea, or sugar in wartime Copenhagen, and this shortage is just one of many revealed matter-of-factly through Lowry's prose.

The children play with paper dolls cut from old magazines; the men who work with Mr. Johansen roll dried weeds in paper in order to smoke; Mr. Rosen corrects school papers at night by candlelight, because there is no electricity; Kirsti gets new shoes, but they are ugly ones, made out of fish skin rather than leather.

Told in the third person, Number the Stars reflects a child's view of the Nazi occupation of Denmark. To Annemarie...