I castigated my pal Gayle for revealing a crucial plot point in Number the Stars (a book that was on my list of the 10 greatest middle-grade novels of all time — Gayle liked it a lot but it didn’t quite make her list). I remember that when I wrote about the novel for the Forward, in a column about teaching kids about the Holocaust, I got email from some scholar person saying that Lowry’s Big Reveal wasn’t historically accurate; he’d studied that era in Danish and Swedish history and there were no references to That Thing Lowry Talked About, so she must have made it up. (Am I being cryptic? Yes. Because unlike Gayle, I am an awesome keeper of secrets. And if you haven’t read Number the Stars, YOU MUST, and without my spoiling anything for you.) Anyway, on her blog, Lowry just posted a source for what she wrote about. Too bad I can’t find that guy’s email.