Lois Lowry

Author profile

born

March 20, 1937 in Oahu, Hawaii, The United States

gender

female

website

http://www.loislowry.com/

genre

Children's Books, Literature & Fiction, Young Adult

About this author

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Taken from Lowry's website:
"I’ve always felt that I was fortunate to have been born the middle child of three. My older sister, Helen, was very much like our mother: gentle, family-oriented, eager to please. Little brother Jon was the only boy and had interests that he shared with Dad; together they were always working on electric trains and erector sets; and later, when Jon was older, they always seemed to have their heads under the raised hood of a car. That left me in-between, and exactly where I wanted most to be: on my own. I was a solitary child who lived in the world of books and my own vivid imagination.

Because my father was a career military officer - an Army dentist - I lived all over the world. I was born in Hawaii, moved from th...more Taken from Lowry's website:
"I’ve always felt that I was fortunate to have been born the middle child of three. My older sister, Helen, was very much like our mother: gentle, family-oriented, eager to please. Little brother Jon was the only boy and had interests that he shared with Dad; together they were always working on electric trains and erector sets; and later, when Jon was older, they always seemed to have their heads under the raised hood of a car. That left me in-between, and exactly where I wanted most to be: on my own. I was a solitary child who lived in the world of books and my own vivid imagination.

Because my father was a career military officer - an Army dentist - I lived all over the world. I was born in Hawaii, moved from there to New York, spent the years of World War II in my mother’s hometown: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and from there went to Tokyo when I was eleven. High school was back in New York City, but by the time I went to college (Brown University in Rhode Island), my family was living in Washington, D.C.

I married young. I had just turned nineteen - just finished my sophomore year in college - when I married a Naval officer and continued the odyssey that military life requires. California. Connecticut (a daughter born there). Florida (a son). South Carolina. Finally Cambridge, Massachusetts, when my husband left the service and entered Harvard Law School (another daughter; another son) and then to Maine - by now with four children under the age of five in tow. My children grew up in Maine. So did I. I returned to college at the University of Southern Maine, got my degree, went to graduate school, and finally began to write professionally, the thing I had dreamed of doing since those childhood years when I had endlessly scribbled stories and poems in notebooks.

After my marriage ended in 1977, when I was forty, I settled into the life I have lived ever since. Today I am back in Cambridge, Massachusetts, living and writing in a house dominated by a very shaggy Tibetan Terrier named Bandit. For a change of scenery Martin and I spend time in Maine, where we have an old (it was built in 1768!) farmhouse on top of a hill. In Maine I garden, feed birds, entertain friends, and read...

My books have varied in content and style. Yet it seems that all of them deal, essentially, with the same general theme: the importance of human connections. A Summer to Die, my first book, was a highly fictionalized retelling of the early death of my sister, and of the effect of such a loss on a family. Number the Stars, set in a different culture and era, tells the same story: that of the role that we humans play in the lives of our fellow beings.

The Giver - and Gathering Blue, and the newest in the trilogy: Messenger - take place against the background of very different cultures and times. Though all three are broader in scope than my earlier books, they nonetheless speak to the same concern: the vital need of people to be aware of their interdependence, not only with each other, but with the world and its environment.

My older son was a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force. His death in the cockpit of a warplane tore away a piece of my world. But it left me, too, with a wish to honor him by joining the many others trying to find a way to end conflict on this very fragile earth.
I am a grandmother now. For my own grandchildren - and for all those of their generation - I try, through writing, to convey my passionate awareness that we live intertwined on this planet and that our future depends upon our caring more, and doing more, for one another."(less)

302 posts
Lois Lowry's Blog

Lois Lowry isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but she does have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from her feed.

in Maine

I drove up here Saturday with the car loaded (and still, forgot some stuff but nothing vital). Both dog and cat are good travelers and Alfie is clearly thrilled to be back here in his country life ... though since he was here last I have had my guy cover the underside openings to the barn with wire mesh...no more critters, I hope! But Alfie is frustrated; he used to love going under there to s...

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Published on May 27, 2012 17:00 • 8 views

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Books by Lois Lowry

Average rating: 4.05 · 500797 ratings · 31848 reviews · 77 distinct works

	The Giver (The Giver, #1) 411 avg rating — 321768 ratings — published 1993 — 81 editions	My rating:
	Number the Stars 406 avg rating — 103124 ratings — published 1989 — 46 editions	My rating:
	Gathering Blue (The Giver, #2) 377 avg rating — 27632 ratings — published 2000	My rating:
	Messenger (The Giver, #3) 381 avg rating — 16214 ratings — published 2004 — 24 editions	My rating:
	Gossamer 382 avg rating — 5203 ratings — published 2006 — 14 editions	My rating:
	Anastasia Krupnik (Anastasia Krupnik, #1) 391 avg rating — 3996 ratings — published 1978 — 28 editions	My rating:
	The Willoughbys 373 avg rating — 3899 ratings — published 2008 — 16 editions	My rating:
	A Summer to Die 385 avg rating — 2107 ratings — published 1977 — 25 editions	My rating:
	The Silent Boy 362 avg rating — 1691 ratings — published 2003 — 15 editions	My rating:
	Gooney Bird Greene 387 avg rating — 1011 ratings — published 2002 — 9 editions	My rating:

More books by Lois Lowry…

Series by Lois Lowry

The Giver Quartet (4 books)
by Lois Lowry

407 avg rating — 365840 ratings

Anastasia Krupnik (13 books)
by Lois Lowry

381 avg rating — 10065 ratings

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Quotes by Lois Lowry

“It is very risky. But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere.”
― Lois Lowry

1797 people liked it

“Take pride in your pain; you are stronger than those who have none”
― Lois Lowry, Gathering Blue

678 people liked it

“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.”
― Lois Lowry, The Giver

tags: loneliness , memories , pain , share

663 people liked it

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