INTRODUCTION

It's hard to believe that I wrote Number the Stars more than twenty years ago. It seems like yesterday that I answered the phone on a snowy January morning and received the news that it had won the 1990 Newbery Medal（美国纽伯瑞儿童文学奖）.

I think readers of every age may match themselves with the important persons in the books they love and ask themselves: Would I have done that? What choice would I have made?

And ten-the age of Annemarie in Number the Stars-is an age when young people are beginning to develop a strong set of personal ethics（道德观；价值观）. …They are beginning to realize that the world they live in is not always good and safe.

So they follow a story about a ten-year-old girl who is caught in a dangerous situation, and she must make decisions. Young readers become cheerful when Annemarie takes a deep breath, enters the woods, faces the danger, stands up to the enemy and wins her victory.

Today, the book has been published in many countries and translated into many languages. It found its way into the hands and hearts of children who had read about but never experienced war… Books do change lives, I know; and many readers have told me that Number the Stars changed theirs when they were young, that it made them think about both. Cruelty (残酷；残忍) and courage. "It was something that shaped my idea of how people should be treated, "wrote a young woman recently, telling me about her own fourth-grade experience with the book.

The Danish friend who first told me the story of her childhood, and who became the Annemarie in my book, is an old woman now. So am I. We both love thinking of the children reading the story today, coming to it for the first time and realizing that once, for a short time and in a small place, a group of prejudice-free (不存偏见的) people created a touching story of love and kindness towards others.

Lois Lowry