Number the Stars — Chapter 13

About This Passage

Mama is about to send her ten-year-old daughter, alone and in dawn light, through a forest path with a packet whose contents could mean life or death for the Rosens. Yet the instruction she gives is not strategic or dramatic — it is a careful description of a costume. Annemarie's task is to be uninteresting. Copy this passage to feel how Mama compresses crisis into camouflage, and how the safety of a Resistance plan can come down to a child's ability to look bored.

Narration Prompt

Retell chapter 13 in your own words, attending to the chapter's three movements: Annemarie's discovery of her injured mother, the quiet pause on the steps where mother and daughter share a moment of relief, and the sudden urgency once the dropped packet is found. End with Annemarie running toward the path.

Discussion Questions

1. When Mama plans to tell the doctor that she "fell on the stairs," she is choosing a tactical untruth to protect an entire network of people. What does Lowry imply about the moral logic of lying when the alternative is endangering innocent lives? How do you know the text wants us to read this lie as something other than ordinary deceit?
2. Annemarie volunteers — "I will take it" — before Mama has finished forming her plan. What does the text reveal about how the war has reshaped Annemarie's understanding of her own role inside her family? How do you know this is a different Annemarie from the girl who, in chapter one, was racing on a Copenhagen street?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide