Number The Stars By Lois Lowry: Chapter Analysis

Throughout the semester we have had several prominent themes in our classes, mainly relating to the maturity of the books’ audiences and the character’s agency. Childhood innocence is a difficult thing to perceive and protect within stories, however within the novels we have read much of our discussion has related to the mature themes within them and how children may perceive it. Chapter 2, the first chapter we discussed in class, begins the discussion of adults writing for children and how they should adjust the themes and dialogue around the age of the implied readers. The children's repertoire or fundamental knowledge of the world is crucial to the authors of children's books in deciding how much information to provide and withhold in a children’s book. An example of this challenge is in “Number the Stars”, Lois Lowry deemed it necessary to include background information about World War II and the

A unique aspect of writing childrens book is that you have to write the book with the audience's intelligence and prior knowledge in mind. Personally I believe the book that was written with the reader’s agency in mind was “Number the Stars”. Repeatedly throughout the book, Lois Lowry includes facts about Denmark, Nazi germany, and the holocaust that are common knowledge. “Rolling Thunder” is more subtle about describing the KKK and other controversial but important subjects of the setting. During class we discussed the potential danger of incorrect assumptions about your audience as a reader. If you assume that your audience isn’t as smart as they are, they can end up feeling like they are being talked down to or insulted. Likewise, if the author assumes the reader knows more about the subject than they do, the reader can end up feeling lost and give up on the book. The appropriate balance between the two is crucial in keeping the reader’s entertained and