Number the Stars Homeschool Literature Study Guide

Strong answers will identify specific details from the opening chapters rather than speaking in generalities. Good neighborhood/street examples include the German soldiers stationed on street corners who stop children and ask questions, the absence of the king riding freely through the city as he once did, or Annemarie and Kirsti needing to choose a different route home to avoid soldiers. Good home/food examples include references to rationing (no butter, limited food), or the general atmosphere of careful, quiet behavior indoors. Students should connect each detail to a loss: the soldiers on the corner represent lost freedom of movement; the food shortages represent lost comfort and normalcy. Accept any well-supported pairing. The goal is for students to read details as evidence of a larger condition, not just as background description.

Students should engage with point of view as a craft choice. A child narrator experiences the soldiers as large, frightening, and unpredictable in a way an adult narrator might contextualize differently. Annemarie notices physical details (their helmets, their guns, their dogs) that make them feel imposing and threatening without fully understanding the political reasons they are there. This limited perspective can make the danger feel more immediate and visceral for readers. Students may also note that Kirsti's fearlessness (she doesn't fully understand the threat) contrasts with Annemarie's growing awareness, which is itself a product of the child's-eye view. There is no single correct answer; reward responses that connect the narrator's age to the reader's emotional experience.

Students should recognize two levels of reasoning. First, practical safety: if Annemarie does not know, she cannot reveal information to soldiers — either by accident or under pressure — and this protects everyone. The novel signals this logic clearly. Second, it reflects the trust the family places in each other: Annemarie is asked to be brave without being given all the tools adults have. Her willingness to act without full knowledge — to lie to soldiers, to comfort Ellen, to hold her fear inside — shows courage, loyalty, and a growing maturity. Students may also observe that this mirrors the situation of many real resistance participants, who operated in 'cells' where no one knew the whole plan. Both practical and character-based answers should be rewarded if supported with evidence from chapters 5–8.

Annemarie must behave calmly and play along with her father's explanation that Ellen is her sister, even as she is frightened. She must suppress her fear and perform normalcy under enormous pressure. Students should note that this kind of courage is internal and invisible — there is no dramatic action, only the hard work of keeping still and quiet. The emotional cost includes fear, the weight of knowing the lie could be discovered, and concern for Ellen. Good answers will distinguish between what Annemarie does outwardly and what she feels inwardly, demonstrating inference skill.

Students should identify a specific instance of adult misdirection or coded language from these chapters. Strong examples include the way the adults frame the gathering at Uncle Henrik's as a traditional gathering or funeral without fully explaining its true purpose (helping Jewish families escape to Sweden), or the way Henrik and Annemarie's mother speak around the danger rather than naming it directly. Students should articulate the gap between surface meaning (what is said) and intended meaning (the real situation), which is a core inference and point-of-view skill. Accept any well-chosen example. Push students to explain *why* the adults speak this way — both to protect children and to maintain deniability if soldiers are listening.

Students may point to moments when Annemarie manages her fear quietly, when she comforts a younger child (Kirsti), or when she begins to ask harder questions and sit with uncertainty rather than falling apart. The goal is for students to track character development — Annemarie at the start of the novel and Annemarie in these chapters are the same person, but she is being tested and growing. Reward specific textual references over general statements like 'she was brave.'

Students should identify concrete dangers: it is dark, she is alone, she knows soldiers with dogs patrol the area, and she understands (at least partially) that the packet matters to the escape. She draws on a mix of sources: memories of her sister Lise, her love for Ellen and the Rosens, the image of the young king's courage she has heard about, and her own determination. Students may mention that she recites a psalm or prayer to herself — this is a genuine detail from the novel. The point is that courage here is not the absence of fear but action despite fear, and students should articulate that distinction. Do not accept vague answers; require at least one specific danger and one specific internal resource.

The packet contains a handkerchief treated with a substance that destroys the dogs' ability to smell — a piece of scientific resistance ingenuity. Students should grapple with the idea that the most powerful tools in this story are not weapons or armies but small, hidden, clever things: a handkerchief, a story told to soldiers, a child running through the woods. This connects to the novel's larger theme that ordinary-looking courage and ordinary-looking objects can be extraordinary in the right context. Reward answers that move from the specific object to the broader thematic point.

This is the synthesis question and should draw on the whole arc of Annemarie's development. By the end, Annemarie understands that bravery can mean: doing one small necessary thing even when you are terrified; keeping a secret to protect another person; taking an errand through the dark woods; and even surviving grief (as Lise's story reveals the full weight of what the family has already endured). The Afterword, written by Lowry as herself rather than through Annemarie, confirms the historical basis of the rescue and honors the real people who acted as the characters in the novel do. Students should draw a clear line from early Annemarie (who imagined bravery as something public and large) to end Annemarie (who has lived a private, small, essential kind of courage). Require two specific textual references.

The Afterword shifts the book from pure fiction to documented history, confirming that the rescue of Danish Jews in October 1943 really happened and that ordinary people really did these things. Students may note that it makes the novel feel more serious or more hopeful — or both. It also invites readers to consider how historical fiction works: Lowry invented Annemarie and her family, but placed them inside real events. The Afterword asks readers to honor the real people behind the fictional frame. Accept a range of honest reader responses, but push students to go beyond 'it was interesting' and explain specifically what shifts for them as readers.