Lois Lowry: Author – United States

Each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere. It gives him choices. It gives him freedom. Those are magnificent, wonderfully unsafe things.

L. Lowry

there is perhaps no other author in the past few decades who has changed children’s literature in the United States more profoundly than Lois Lowry. Like the wise character in her ground-breaking novel, The Giver, Lowry has passed along “knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth” in award-winning books in a variety of genres. Her work brings her readers to tears and to laughter and—always—to a more vivid understanding of life and memory.

In writing her books, Lowry deals, essentially, with the same general theme: the importance of human connections. Her first novel, A Summer to Die (1977), was inspired by her memories and childhood—particularly the death of her older sister. True to the general theme of her writing, Lowry presents the story of young Meg’s acceptance to the unthinkable, inevitable death of her older sister. Perhaps influenced by her divorce, Lowry also expressed her view on marriage in this novel. Moving on to lighter and humorous tones, Lowry wrote Anastasia Krupnik in 1979. In this book, she portrays the world as seen through the glasses of Anastasia, an individualistic and spunky fourth grader. As opposed to the heavy and grim theme in her first novel, Lowry brought the readers into Anastasia’s mind and how she grapples with events in her life. Despite the lighthearted tone of the book, this novel manages to tackle several complex concepts such as death, memory, identity, and religion.

Lowry’s first Newbery Medal came along with the publication of her historical fiction novel, Number the Stars. Living in occupied Denmark during World War II, ten-year-old Annemarie and her family help their Jewish friends escape from the Nazis. Lowry’s narrative introduces young readers to this dramatic and horrifying time through the identifiable perspective of a child character.

Lowry’s attempt to broaden the covering in her writing—dealing more with community construction—has earned her a second Newbery Medal for The Giver (1993). This book is considered as the harbinger for the new age in literature for young people, as the pioneer of dystopian genre and remains one of the most challenged books in the United States. The recent movie adaptation of The Giver (2014) further testifies the book’s universal appeal and timelessness.