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Book Club Author Suggestion: Lois Lowry

"Writing is a way of making sense of the world. It’s a way of taking the chaos and putting it into some kind of order." — Lois Lowry

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Brief Bio:

Lois Lowry sitting at a wooden table wearing a turquois turtleneck sweater. She is in front of a bookcase to the right of the image.

Lois Lowry (born March 20, 1937, in Honolulu, Hawaii) is one of the most versatile and influential American authors of children’s and young adult literature. Known for her ability to tackle complex, often dark subject matter with clarity and grace, Lowry has spent her career exploring themes of human connection, the importance of memory, and the role of the individual within a society.

The daughter of an Army dentist, Lowry moved frequently throughout her childhood, living in Japan, Pennsylvania, and New York. This early exposure to different cultures and the feeling of being an observer helped shape her unique narrative voice. She attended Brown University before leaving to marry and raise a family, later returning to complete her degree at the University of Southern Maine.

Lowry began her career as a freelance journalist and photographer before publishing her first novel, A Summer to Die, in 1977. Since then, she has written over 40 books, ranging from the lighthearted and humorous Anastasia Krupnik series to the profound historical fiction of Number the Stars and the seminal dystopian world of The Giver. Her work is celebrated for its refusal to talk down to children, instead inviting them to contemplate the difficult truths of the world.

Available Works in the Colorado Book Club Resource

The Book Club Resource has 8+ copies of the titles below available for 8+ weeks at a time to reading groups across the state. The descriptions below are generated by Google Gemini.

Gathering Blue (2000) | Discussion Questions

Cover art for the Gathering Blue. Colors are light blue and white with the image of a face in the upper left corner.

In a brutal society where the disabled are discarded, Kira—a girl with a twisted leg—is spared because of her miraculous talent for weaving. Tasked by the Council of Guardians to restore the sacred “Singer’s Robe,” Kira moves into the village’s only modern building, where she begins to uncover the dark secrets behind her leaders’ power. As she searches for the rare knowledge of how to create blue dye, she realizes that her community’s “order” is built on a foundation of lies and the exploitation of artists.

The Giver (1993) | Discussion Questions

Cover art for the Giver. The colors are tan and white and there is an image of a man's face in the upper right corner, with a long flowing beard.

In a world with no poverty, no crime, and no sickness, twelve-year-old Jonas is chosen to be the Receiver of Memory. Guided by the Giver, Jonas begins to uncover the dark secrets behind his “perfect” community. As he experiences the truth about pain, color, and love, he realizes he must make a dangerous choice to change his world forever. A winner of the Newbery Medal, The Giver is a modern classic that continues to spark intense debate about the cost of a painless society.

Number the Stars (1989) | Discussion Questions

Cover art for Number the Stars. The image of a young girl with blond hair is centered in a teal background. There is a Hebrew star on a chain beside the face.

As the German troops begin their campaign to “relocate” all the Jews of Denmark, Annemarie Johansen’s family takes in her best friend, Ellen Rosen, and conceals her as part of the family. Through the eyes of a ten-year-old girl, Lois Lowry tells a memorable story of the Danish Resistance and the courage it takes to save a life. This Newbery Medal-winning historical novel remains an essential introduction to the Holocaust for young readers.

Quotations:

  • “I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of how we manipulate our own memory to make our lives more comfortable.”
  • “The horizon is always there. And it’s always changing. It’s always moving. And it’s always calling to you.”
  • “I think that literature—and all of the arts—is a way of saying, ‘You are not alone. This is what it’s like to be human.'”
  • “Submitting to censorship is to enter the seductive world of ‘The Giver’: the world where there is no bad, but also no good.”
  • “I don’t think there is a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to write. I think there is only your way.”
  • “Kids deserve to be told the truth, and they deserve to have that truth told to them in a way that doesn’t destroy their hope.”
  • “I think of a book as a journey. I want the reader to go somewhere they haven’t been and to come back changed.”
  • “It’s important to give children the tools to think for themselves, rather than telling them what to think.”
  • “We can’t always choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we remember it and how we tell the story.”

Notable Facts:

  • Dual Newbery Medalist: Lois Lowry is one of a small, elite group of authors to have won the Newbery Medal twice—first for Number the Stars in 1990 and again for The Giver in 1994.
  • Dystopian Pioneer: The Giver is widely credited with launching the modern wave of young adult dystopian fiction, predating hits like The Hunger Games by fifteen years.
  • A “Banned” Author: Despite its status as a classroom staple, The Giver has frequently appeared on the American Library Association’s list of most challenged books due to its heavy themes.
  • Photographer First: Lowry was a professional photographer before she became a novelist. In fact, the haunting cover photo for the original edition of The Giver was taken by Lowry herself.
  • Personal Loss: Her first book, A Summer to Die, was a fictionalized account of the death of her sister, Helen. She also lost her son, Grey, a fighter pilot, in 1995, a tragedy she has spoken about as influencing her later work on the value of life and memory.
  • Late-Career Memoir: In 1998, she published Looking Back, an autobiographical book that uses old photographs to trace the origins of the ideas in her many novels.

Videos/Interviews:

Sources:

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Regan Harper
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