Lois Lowry
Author of The Giver
About the Author
Lois Lowry (nee Lois Ann Hammersberg) was born on March 20, 1937, in Honolulu, Hawaii. She was educated at both Brown University and the University of Southern Maine. Before becoming an author, she worked as a photographer and a freelance journalist. Her first book, A Summer to Die, was published show more in 1977. Since then she has written over 30 books for young adults including Gathering Blue, Messenger, the Anastasia Krupnik series, and Son. She has received numerous awards including: The New York Times Best Seller,the International Reading Association's Children's Literature Award, the American Library Association Notable Book Award Citation and two Newberry Medals for Number the Stars in 1990, and The Giver in 1993. She was also awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters by Brown University in 2014. The Giver is part of a Quartet of books; it is the first book, followed by Gathering Blue, messenger and Son. The Giver has been met with a diversity of reactions from schools in America, some of which have adopted it as a part of the mandatory curriculum, while others have prohibited the book's inclusion in classroom studies. It was also made into a feature film of the same name released in 2014. Lois Lowry also made the Hans Christian Andersen Awards 2016 finalists in the author category. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Author Lois Lowry at the 2016 Texas Book Festival. By Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53502477
Series
Works by Lois Lowry
The Worlds of Lois Lowry 3 Copy Boxed Set (The Giver, Gathering Blue, The Messenger) (2006) 130 copies
Gooney Bird Greene Three Books in One!: (Gooney Bird Greene, Gooney Bird and the Room Mother, Gooney the Fabulous) (2016) 33 copies
Rhinos & Raspberries: Tolerance Tales For The Early Grades (Teacher's Edition) (PreK-6th Grade) (2006) 29 copies
The Gooney Bird Collection: Gooney Bird Greene; Gooney Bird and the Room Mother; Gooney the Fabulous; Gooney Bird Is So… (2009) 20 copies
Anastasia: "Anastasia Krupnik", "Anastasia Again!", "Anastasia at Your Service" (Three-in-one) (1993) 13 copies
Anastasia. Hals über Kopf: Enthält die Einzelbände: Anastasia mit der rosa Warze / Anastasia verflixt noch mal (2001) 6 copies
Rigorous Reading: The Giver (In-Depth Guides for Great Literature), Grades 5–8 from Teacher Created Resources (2016) 3 copies
The Sam Krupnik Series: All About Sam; Attaboy, Sam!; See You Around, Sam!; Zooman Sam (2010) 3 copies
Quin cuenta las estrellas? 2 copies
Nikczemny spisek 1 copy
Herbststrasse 1 copy
Schon wieder Anastasia 1 copy
Giver Quartet, The 1 copy
Us and Uncle Fraud 1 copy
The Giver Study Guide 1 copy
Valahol messze 1 copy
Elliot's House 1 copy
Anastasia Krupnik Book Set (4) : Anstasia Again - Zooman Sam - Anastasia At This Address (An Unofficial Box Set) (2000) 1 copy
Blå tråd (The Giver, #2) 1 copy
Children's Newbery Award Winners, set of 10: Caddie Woodlawn, Holes, Ginger Pye, Sarah Plain & Tall, Summer of Swans,… (1986) 1 copy
The Giver. Il messaggero 1 copy
Spočítej hvězdy 1 copy
A Fearful Symmetry 1 copy
Associated Works
The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales (2011) — Contributor — 863 copies
Shining On: 11 Star Authors' Illuminating Stories (2006) — Contributor, some editions; Foreword, some editions — 50 copies
The Willoughbys [2020 film] — Original book — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Hammersberg, Lois Ann
- Birthdate
- 1937-03-20
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
- Places of residence
- Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, USA
Tokyo, Japan
Governor's Island, New York, USA
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (show all 7)
Portland, Maine, USA - Education
- Brown University
University of Southern Maine (B.A., English Literature, 1972) - Occupations
- children's book author
- Awards and honors
- Margaret A. Edwards Award (2007)
Regina Medal (1994) - Agent
- Emily van Beek (Folio Jr./Folio Literary Management)
- Short biography
- Lois Lowry is known for her versatility and invention as a writer. She was born in Hawaii and grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, and Japan. After studying at Brown University, she married, started a family, and turned her attention to writing. She is the author of more than forty books for young adults, including the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader's Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, NUMBER THE STARS and THE GIVER. Her first novel, A SUMMER TO DIE, was awarded the International Reading Association's Children's Book Award. Several books have been adapted to film and stage, and THE GIVER has become an opera. Her newest book, ON THE HORIZON, is a collection of memories and images from Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, and post-war Japan. A mother and grandmother, Ms. Lowry divides her time between Maine and Florida. To learn more about Lois Lowry, see her website at www.loislowry.com
Members
Discussions
Found: Middle-grade book where MC dies at end in Name that Book (April 2023)
What Are You Reading the Week of 14 March 2015? in What Are You Reading Now? (March 2015)
YA/Children's Book - Sister with Leukemia in Name that Book (May 2011)
Reviews
Gossamer by Lois Lowry
Littlest One is a tiny creature slowly learning her job of giving dreams to humans. Each night she and her teacher, Thin Elderly, visit an old woman's home where she softly touches beloved objects, gathering happy memories, and drops of old scents and sounds. Littlest One pieces these bits together and presents them to her sleeping human in the form of pleasant dreams. But the dreaded Sinisteeds, dark fearsome creatures that plague their victims with nightmares, are always at work against the dreamgivers. When the old woman takes in John, an angry foster child with a troubled past, the Sinisteeds go after him with their horrifying nightmares. Can Littlest One, and her touch light as gossamer, protect John's heart and soul from the nightmare of his dark past?… (more)
Eleven-year-old middle school student Sophia Henry Winslow is best friends with Sophie Gershowitz, her 88-year-old neighbor, and is alarmed when she hears her parents on the phone with Sophie's grown son, Aaron. What arrangements are they making for Sophie? Young Sophie borrows her friend Ralph's Merck Manual to learn about dementia and starts testing Elder Sophie, but her tests produce an unexpected result: stories. Born in Poland, Sophie was a child during WWII, and the words young Sophie asks her to remember (tree, table, book) each connect to a memory she has never shared before.
Utterly poignant yet unsentimental.
See also: Ferris by Kate DiCamillo
Quotes
The right piece of information at the right time can save your life. (23)
"I memorize the dates and the names of the battles, but....Those things aren't enough....You can't feel them. You need the stories." (146)
But having an idea makes you feel less helpless. (157)… (more)
Utterly poignant yet unsentimental.
See also: Ferris by Kate DiCamillo
Quotes
The right piece of information at the right time can save your life. (23)
"I memorize the dates and the names of the battles, but....Those things aren't enough....You can't feel them. You need the stories." (146)
But having an idea makes you feel less helpless. (157)… (more)
(Print:4/7/2020; HMH Books for Young Readers; Illustrated edition; 80 pages; ages 10-12)
Audio: 4/7/2020; Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group; 39:43 mins.; 9780593151037.
SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
I selected this book due to it’s being in Goodreads' list of top nominations for 2020. The book is primarily poetry, but with some prose, the theme of the book is anti-war sentiment. Connections are made, of place, time, circumstances, and people. I didn’t relish the descriptions of the atrocities of war, but I did find it insightful and touching.
AUTHOR:
Lois Lowry (3/20/1937) According to Wikipedia, “Lowry has won two Newbery Medals: for Number the Stars in 1990 and The Giver in 1994. Her book Gooney Bird Greene won the 2002 Rhode Island Children's Book Award.”
NARRATOR:
Lois Lowry (3/20/1937) Lois has the right tone of somberness in this narration.
GENRE:
Autobiography, Juvenile non-fiction, sociology
LOCATIONS:
Hawaii, Japan
SUBJECTS:
War, childhood, bombs, innocence.
SAMPLE QUOTATION:
"On December 7, 1941. early on a Sunday morning, Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. Most of the United States Pacific Fleet was moored there. Tremendous damage was inflicted, and the battleship Arizona sank within minutes, with a loss of 1,177 men.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor that day was the beginning, for the United States, of World War II.
I was born in in Honolulu in 1937. Years later, as I watched a home movie taken by my father in 1940, I realized that as I played on the beach at Waikiki, USS Arizona could be seen through the mist in the background, on the horizon."
RATING:
I’d like to give this more than 3 stars, but fractions aren’t possible. I don't generally read things that are libel to cause nightmares or depression so typically avoid ponderings on the dismal state of humanity, but there were a few lighter reflections intermixed.
… (more)
Audio: 4/7/2020; Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group; 39:43 mins.; 9780593151037.
SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
I selected this book due to it’s being in Goodreads' list of top nominations for 2020. The book is primarily poetry, but with some prose, the theme of the book is anti-war sentiment. Connections are made, of place, time, circumstances, and people. I didn’t relish the descriptions of the atrocities of war, but I did find it insightful and touching.
AUTHOR:
Lois Lowry (3/20/1937) According to Wikipedia, “Lowry has won two Newbery Medals: for Number the Stars in 1990 and The Giver in 1994. Her book Gooney Bird Greene won the 2002 Rhode Island Children's Book Award.”
NARRATOR:
Lois Lowry (3/20/1937) Lois has the right tone of somberness in this narration.
GENRE:
Autobiography, Juvenile non-fiction, sociology
LOCATIONS:
Hawaii, Japan
SUBJECTS:
War, childhood, bombs, innocence.
SAMPLE QUOTATION:
"On December 7, 1941. early on a Sunday morning, Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. Most of the United States Pacific Fleet was moored there. Tremendous damage was inflicted, and the battleship Arizona sank within minutes, with a loss of 1,177 men.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor that day was the beginning, for the United States, of World War II.
I was born in in Honolulu in 1937. Years later, as I watched a home movie taken by my father in 1940, I realized that as I played on the beach at Waikiki, USS Arizona could be seen through the mist in the background, on the horizon."
RATING:
I’d like to give this more than 3 stars, but fractions aren’t possible. I don't generally read things that are libel to cause nightmares or depression so typically avoid ponderings on the dismal state of humanity, but there were a few lighter reflections intermixed.
… (more)
Interesting concept-very creative. I liked this, but....well, I hate to say this since it's a kids book, and it's very popular for school assignments...so apparently it makes sense to people of all ages, but I didn't get the ending. I guess I couldn't distinguish Jonas' character from his community role. There seems to suddenly be magical properties at work beyond just the community role he took on, not just with him, but with his destination. I'm being vague because I don't want to entirely spoil it for future readers.… (more)
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Statistics
- Works
- 114
- Also by
- 18
- Members
- 100,809
- Popularity
- #90
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 3,684
- ISBNs
- 1,140
- Languages
- 25
- Favorited
- 149
