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Copywork
About This Passage
This passage hides a piece of real history inside a five-year-old's birthday memory. In late August 1943 the Danish navy scuttled (sank on purpose) most of their own ships rather than let the Germans capture them. Kirsti, asleep in bed, heard the booms and saw the lighted sky and thought it was fireworks for her birthday. Mama let her believe it. The trailblazer copying this passage should notice how Lois Lowry teaches history through a child's misunderstanding — and then teaches the deeper meaning through the parents' exchange of two single-word answers: 'How sad the king must be.' 'How proud.' Both answers are true. Sometimes a parent's grief and a parent's pride sit on the same news.
Then Annemarie remembered. Kirsti's birthday was late in August. And that night, only a month before, she, too, had been awakened and frightened by the sound of explosions. The next evening's newspape...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell chapter four in your own words. Begin with Annemarie and Ellen playing paper dolls and Kirsti coming home with the fish-skin shoes she hates. Then Ellen's idea to ink them black. Then the Tivoli memory and Kirsti's 'birthday fireworks' which were really the Danish navy being sunk. Then Mrs. Rosen at the door, the worried dinner, Kirsti sent to bed with a story. Then Papa's news that the Nazis are coming for the Jews tonight, that Peter has hidden Mr. and Mrs. Rosen, that Ellen will pretend to be a sister. End with Papa's hug and 'three daughters again.'
Discussion Questions
- Kirsti hates her new fish-skin shoes because they are green and ugly. Ellen does not laugh — instead she suggests her father can use his black ink to make them shiny. What in the story tells you Ellen is the kind of friend who looks for a fix instead of joining in to tease? How does this small kindness prepare the reader for the much bigger help the Johansens are about to give the Rosens?
- Lois Lowry tucks a piece of real history — the Danes scuttling their own naval fleet in August 1943 — inside a five-year-old's memory of 'birthday fireworks.' Why might the author choose to teach the historical event this way, through a child's misunderstanding, rather than as a straightforward history lesson? What does the choice tell you about how the book wants children to learn?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
ruined or broken on purpose so that something cannot be used or repaired
Item 2
sudden bursts of noise, fire, and force, like when a bomb goes off
Item 3
ships or large boats, usually used to carry people or goods across the sea
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Critical Thinking
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