Number the stars – By Lois Lowry

 

The whole world had changed. Only the fairy tales remained the same.”
― Lois Lowry, Number the Stars

Number the star is a Newbery award winning book  set in the year 1940 when Denmark was occupied by the Nazi, and the Jews were been captured and taken to the concentration camp.

This is a story of a little girl Annemarie who wasn’t a Jewish herself but her best friend Ellen and her family was. So Annemarie and her family and people of Denmark did their best to save Jews   from going to the camp.  How they saved few of them is the story all about.

The characters here is fictional, but the events are true and the author have collected different events   together and made it into beautiful novel Number the stars.

 

This book is dedicated to all the young readers who will take their first baby step in knowing the history of the barbaric torture of the Nazi, the concentration camp, the World War II.  This book will make them understand the time period , the shrewdness of the Nazi without making them terrified ruling out ( didn’t mention)the nasty things Nazi did to the people .It’s a fast pace book  and nowhere to get bored as the situation changes  in every other page.

A wonderful summer read for children to know about friendship, love and courage.

 Age to Read 10+

 

My favourite Lines from the book

“It is much easier to be brave if you don't know everything.”

Venkatesh Suprabhatam Bookreview

 

 

Publisher / Westland Publisher

When you hear a prayer do you connect with the word or do you connect with the sound?

Nestled in the escarpment of the Sheshachala Hill which consists of 7 hills and looks like the Serpent Adishesh Nag  on whom Vishnu rest , the richest temple of India  Tirupati  is located on the crest of one of the hill.

Venkateshwara temple or Tirupati temple   is dedicated to  Venkateshwara  a form of Lord Vishnu

Suprabhatam  in Sanskrit means Good morning,  and Venkatesh suprabhatam is the first morning prayer offered to the Lord to wake him up from his sleep at Sayana Mandapam which is  inside the Tirupati Temple.

This prayer is one of the most popular prayer  one can hear early in the morning in every house hold in South of India. So sit back grab your coffee and let me give you my thoughts about this book.

Firstly  what I loved is the brightly  eye catchy book cover with lotus and shankha embossed on it  to denote the Lord Venkatesh  .The  author Venkatesh Parthasarathy mesmerize the reader with his  simple yet in depth explanation of the verses. Layman like me who do not have much knowledge about the prayer got fully engrossed with its detail.  Every   Sanskrit  word have been broken down explained in such essay way that no one will have trouble understanding. With such beautiful explanation the author nicely mashed up the verses with Puranic story which I think made the book more interesting. It is because of the puranic story , the prayer became easy to understand when chanted.

The book also talks about the temple Tirupati , the people in charge , the geographic importance its architecture  and henceforth.Also it mention about the 2020 covid situation when the temple was closed .

Slowly the book takes you to the time period when the poem was created by the saint, Prativadi Bhayankaram  the story behind it then the spell bounding rendition  created by MS Subhalakshmi, In just 167 pages the book is packed with knowledge, highly researched  and definitely something to re read.  

 

From the book:

Do you know The gramophone recording  of the Suprabhatam was first released for sale by                          President  S.Radhakrishnan during tenth  Radio Sangeet  Sammelan of the AIR in Novemember 1963