The Boy Who Dared Essay
While Number the Stars and The Boy Who Dared both successfully address the difficult issue of the Holocaust, I found Lois Lowry’s novel much more child-empowering. Annemarie’s story remains somewhat separate from the horrors of Nazi Germany comparative to Bartoletti’s work, but Lowry puts that separation to good use. For example, when Annemarie struggles to understand the occupation of Denmark and asks her father, “sometimes I wonder why the king wasn’t able to protect us” (Lowry 15). This passage is useful in two big ways. First, it allows the author to approach the issue from the standpoint of a parent speaking to their children and thus gives them a chance to explain it to the child reader. Second, it allows the audience to identify with
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First, the story of Helmuth carries a positive message because it shows the child reader that everyday people can become heroes and stand up for what is right from an insider’s perspective. Second, Helmuth and his death offer more weight to this message by being grounded in reality. Unlike Lowry’s novel’s more fictionalized narrative based vaguely on a factual event, Bartoletti writes from the perspective of someone who existed and stood up for what’s right. Unfortunately, this realism is not all positive. It shows that it is possible for anyone to stand against wrong in the world (even if that wrongdoing feels insurmountable), however, intrinsically attached to that is the fact that Helmuth did not survive doing what is right. It is a truth that perhaps child audiences would struggle to accept—the difficult part of doing what is right is that it can have dire consequences. Thirdly, The Boy Who Dared has a unique perspective with Helmuth that allows its readers to understand the process from a normal country to the height of Nazi power. I think this is important to empower child readers, as many novels such as Number the Stars chose to place the reader amidst the already-powerful German state or its occupied regions. When it comes to recognizing such machinations of a nation to prevent history from repeating itself, Bartoletti’s novel excels and could serve to
First, the story of Helmuth carries a positive message because it shows the child reader that everyday people can become heroes and stand up for what is right from an insider’s perspective. Second, Helmuth and his death offer more weight to this message by being grounded in reality. Unlike Lowry’s novel’s more fictionalized narrative based vaguely on a factual event, Bartoletti writes from the perspective of someone who existed and stood up for what’s right. Unfortunately, this realism is not all positive. It shows that it is possible for anyone to stand against wrong in the world (even if that wrongdoing feels insurmountable), however, intrinsically attached to that is the fact that Helmuth did not survive doing what is right. It is a truth that perhaps child audiences would struggle to accept—the difficult part of doing what is right is that it can have dire consequences. Thirdly, The Boy Who Dared has a unique perspective with Helmuth that allows its readers to understand the process from a normal country to the height of Nazi power. I think this is important to empower child readers, as many novels such as Number the Stars chose to place the reader amidst the already-powerful German state or its occupied regions. When it comes to recognizing such machinations of a nation to prevent history from repeating itself, Bartoletti’s novel excels and could serve to