When Annie's friends accept her invitation to come as they are to her party, everyone has a good time.

A Jewish girl and the daughter of a Nazi have been best friends since they started school, but in 1938 the thirteen-year-olds find their close relationship difficult to maintain.

Two crows, one big and one small, count things they see from one to ten and then back down again.

In attempting to follow his mother's instructions, a good-hearted boy always does the right thing at the wrong time.

In 1933, best friends Daniel and Armin admire Hitler, but as anti-Semitism buoys Hitler to power, Daniel learns he is half Jewish, threatening the friendship even as life in their beloved Hamburg, Germany, is becoming nightmarish. Also details Daniel and Armin's reunion in 1945 in interspersed chapters.