My Bottom Line

As a kid I used to read books like Number The Stars and wonder how the Holocaust could have happened.

Today I realize it happens because there is an important component of bravery we don’t teach our kids...the risk. We don’t talk about being at peace with what we may lose when we say “no” to bosses, authority figures, influential friends or colleagues.

Bravery requires not waiting to act until you have something on the line. Bravery requires us to not wait until there is no one else to speak for you.

Reading books like Number The Stars to our kids gives us the opportunity to discuss what’s important to us and what our values are. It helps us lay the foundation for them to figure out their values for themselves.

With intentionality, those conversations can happen at any age. Literature is a fantastic way to prompt these hypothetical conversations, so you don’t have to talk about the peaceful protestors on the news that are being pepper sprayed. Beckett is too young for Number The Stars, but there are plenty of picture books on the theme of bravery that we do read.

He’s also my captive audience right now and I get that. So, if your kids don’t want to snuggle up with you anymore for a picture book, try reading their required school reading while they are and asking a question or two at the dinner table or in the carpool line. If your kids are really too cool, I don’t know, copy important quotes on sticky notes and put them on their bathroom mirrors or steering wheels. Maybe text them quotes you found powerful or significant. You’re uncool no matter what, just lean into it.

It’s our job to keep them safe and prepare them to be grown-ups, so while they’re young, the bad things can just be like those “ghost stories” Lowry mentioned. But one day it will be their jobs, and they have to know when their bottom line has been crossed.

“And they are beginning to realize that the world they live in is a place where the right thing is often hard, sometimes dangerous, and frequently unpopular.”

― Lois Lowry, Number The Stars