Encourage students to spend some time in the lives of two innocent young boys, who befriend each other during Germany's dark period of WWII. A charming, yet heart-wrenching story, students will learn to analyze the boys' friendship, their innocence, and the dangers they unknowingly face. Appealing and challenging cross-curricular lessons and activities incorporate research-based literacy skills to help students become thorough readers. These lessons and activities in this instructional guide for literature work in conjunction with the text to teach students how to analyze and comprehend story elements in multiple ways, practice close reading and text-based vocabulary, determine meaning through text-dependent questions, and more.