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Lois Lowry
Loislowry
Author
Age 86
Born March 20, 1937
Gender Female


Lois Lowry is an American writer credited with more than thirty children's books and an autobiography. She has won two Newbery Medals, for Number the Stars in 1989 and The Giver in 1993. For her contribution as a children's writer, she was a finalist in 2000 (and U.S. nominee again in 2004) for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available to authors of children's books. In 2007 she received the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her contribution in writing for teens.

Literary Works[]

As an author, Lowry is known for writing about difficult subject matters within her works for children. She has explored such complex issues as racism, terminal illness, murder, and the Holocaust as well as other challenging topics. She has also explored very controversial issues of questioning authority such as in The Giver quartet. Her writing on such matters has brought her both praise and criticism. In particular, her work The Giver has been met with a diversity of reactions from schools in America, some of which have adopted her book as a part of the mandatory curriculum, while others have prohibited the book's inclusion in classroom studies.

This is a list of books she has published with the year in order.

  • A Summer to Die (1977)
  • Here in Kennebunkport (1978, co-written with Frederick H. Lewis)
  • Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye (1978)
  • The Anastasia Krupnik series (started 1979)
  1. Anastasia Again (1981)
  2. Anastasia at Your Service (1982)
  3. Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst (1984)
  4. Anastasia on Her Own(1985)
  5. Anastasia has the Answer (1986)
  • Autumn Street and its sequel, The Woods at the End of Autumn Street (1980)
  • Taking Care of Terrific (1983)
  • The Tates Series(1983)
  1. The One Hundreth Thing about Caroline(1983)
  2. Swithcharound (1985)
  3. Your Mive, J.P.! (1990)
  • Us and Uncle Fraud (1984)
  • Rabble Starkey (1987)
  • The Sam Series (started in 1988)
  1. All About Sam (1988)
  2. Attaboy, Sam (1992)
  3. See You Around, Sam (1996)
  4. Zooman, Sam (1998)
  • Number the Stars (1989)
  • Stay! Keeper's Story (1997)
  • Looking Back (1998)
  • The Gooney Bird Series (started the Gooney Bird series in 2002)
  1. Gooney Bird Greene (2002)
  2. Gooney Bird and the Room Mother (2006)
  3. Gooney the Fabulous (2007)
  4. Gooney Bird Is So Absurd (2009)
  5. Gooney Bird on the Map (2011)
  6. Gooney Bird And all Her Charms (2014)
  • The Silent Boy (2003)
  • Gossamer (2006)
  • Crow Call (2009)
  • The Birthday Ball (2010)
  • Bless This Mouse (2011)
  • Like the Willow Tree (2011)
  • The Willoughbys Return (2020)

Quotes[]

  • (About the upcoming film) “The film rights have been out there for 15 years now. And every now and then, some big studio gets involved, and some major player gets involved. And then time passes, and it all collapses again,” she says with a laugh. “So it’s out there, and I should be feeling excited, as if now is the time it’s actually going to be made. But this has happened so often before that I’ve become kind of sanguine about it.”
  • (About the casting of Jeff Bridges to play the Giver) “When I think about a potential movie, he’s the one I see in it because he’s the one who legally has the right to play that role now. There are other actors that I could see there, but I purposefully put them out of my mind because that overcomplicates it.”
  • (About what was in The Giver that became an issue in Son) "One thing I remember — having created Claire, I had to describe the young women who are the birthmothers. I hadn’t thought about what it would be like when you enter that building where women are sitting around, waiting to have babies. And I realized that it’s an excruciatingly boring place because they have all this time to spend while they’re pregnant, and there are no books. And there’s no music, and there’s no television — none of the ways in which we spend leisure time exist in that world. And so I didn’t dwell on it because it would have been so boring. I got out of there as quickly as I could."
  • "People are starting to refer to 'The Giver' as a classic, but I don't know how that is defined. But if it means that 10, 20, 50 years from now kids will still be reading it, that is kind of awe-inspiring."
  • "Gathering Blue' was a separate book. I wanted to explore what a society might become after a catastrophic world event. Only at the end did I realize I could make it connect to 'The Giver."
  • "I think I've written 40 books, and none of them have been heavy on action. I'm an introspective person."
  • "I think 'The Giver' is such a moral book, so filled with important truths, that I couldn't believe anyone would want to suppress it, to keep it from kids."
  • "Early on I came to realize something, and it came from the mail I received from kids. That is, kids at that pivotal age, 12, 13 or 14, they're still deeply affected by what they read, some are changed by what they read, books can change the way they feel about the world in general. I don't think that's true of adults as much."


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