Lois Lowry
| Lois Anne Lowry | |
|---|---|
| Born | Lois Ann Hammersberg March 20, 1937 Honolulu, Hawaii, USA |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1977–present |
| Genres | Children's literature |
| Notable work(s) | |
| Notable award(s) | Newbery Medal 1989, 1993 Margaret Edwards Award 2007 |
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Influenced
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www.loislowry.com |
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Lois Lowry (born Lois Ann Hammersberg[1] on March 20, 1937) is an American writer credited with more than thirty children's books and an autobiography. She won the American Library Association annual Newbery Medal for both Number the Stars in 1989 and The Giver in 1993.[2] In 2007 she received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the ALA recognizing her "significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature".[3]
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 among 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.
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Biography [edit]
Lois Lowry was born on March 20, 1937, in Honolulu, Hawaii,[4] to parents Robert and Katharine (Landis) Hammersberg. Initially, Lowry's parents named her "Cena" for her Norwegian grandmother but upon hearing this, her grandmother telegraphed and instructed Lowry's parents that the child should have an American name.[5] Her parents chose the names Lois and Ann, which were the names of her father's sisters.
Lowry was born the middle of three children. She had an older sister, Helen, and a younger brother Jon. Helen, three years her senior, died in 1962 at the age of 28. This experience influenced Lowry's first book A Summer to Die which is about a young girl who tragically loses her older sister (which is also a subplot of Number the Stars). Lowry's brother Jon is six years younger than she and grew up to be a doctor. They continue to enjoy a close relationship.[6]
Lowry's father was a career military officer – an Army dentist, – whose work moved the family all over the United States and to many parts of the world. Lowry and her family moved from Hawaii to Brooklyn, New York, in 1939 when Lowry was two years old and later relocated to her mother's hometown, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1942 when Lowry's father was deployed to the Pacific during World War II. Lowry's father served on a hospital ship called the USS Hope and on the island of Tinian during the war.
Following World War II, Lowry and her family moved to Tokyo, Japan, where her father was stationed from 1948–1950. Lowry went through junior high school at the Tokyo American School at Meguro, a special school for the children of military families, and then returned to the United States to attend high school. Lowry and her family briefly lived in Carlisle again in 1950 before moving to Fort Jay at Governors Island, New York, where Lowry attended Curtis High School on Staten Island. In 1952, she entered Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights, New York, where she finished high school. Lowry entered Brown University in 1954. She attended for two years until her marriage at age 19 to Donald Lowry, a U.S. Navy officer, in 1956. Together they had four children: daughters Alix and Kristin, and sons Grey and Benjamin.[7]
The Lowrys moved quite frequently in their early years of marriage due to Donald's military career. They lived in California, Connecticut (where Alix was born), Florida (where Grey was born), South Carolina, and finally Cambridge, Massachusetts (where Kristin and Benjamin were born). The family settled in Cambridge after Donald left military service to attend Harvard Law School. After Donald Lowry finished law school, the family moved to Portland, Maine.[7]
As her children grew up Lowry found time to complete her degree in English literature from the University of Southern Maine[8] in Portland in 1972. After earning her B.A., she pursued graduate studies at her alma mater. It was during this coursework that she was introduced to photography, which became a lifelong passion as well as a profession. Her specialty was child photography, but she also took pictures to accompany the articles she submitted as a freelance journalist. Her freelance work for Redbook magazine generated her first book opportunity. Her story for the magazine was meant for adults but written from a child's perspective. A Houghton Mifflin editor recognized her talent and suggested that she write a children's book. Lowry agreed and wrote A Summer to Die which Houghton Mifflin published in 1977 when she was 40 years old. She and Donald Lowry divorced that same year; as Lowry nurtured her budding careers, they found they were no longer compatible. Lowry said about those transitional years of her life, "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."[6]
Writing about both funny things and serious issues has sustained Lois Lowry through her own hard times. Her son Grey was killed in the crash of his fighter plane in 1995. Lowry has acknowledged that this was the most difficult day of her life, but through her steady work as an author, she has persevered. Lowry said, "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." Later, Ben and his wife have a baby named Grey Lowry to remember "Zane" Grey for his service to the airforce.[6]
Today, Lois Lowry remains active by not only continuing to write and speaking at appearances, but also enjoying time at her homes in Massachusetts and Maine. She takes pleasure in reading, knitting, gardening, and entertaining her four grandchildren.[7]
Lowry wrote of her hope for the future recently on her blog, "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."[8]
Lowry has suggested that she is religious, but not so religious as "to have a favorite psalm."[9]
Awards [edit]
Lowry has won the Newbery Medal for Number the Stars (awarded 1990) and The Giver (awarded 1994).[2] Her Gooney Bird Greene won the 2002 Rhode Island Children's Book Award.
Works [edit]
Children's book series [edit]
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Autobiography [edit]
Other [edit]
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See also [edit]
Notes [edit]
- ^ With the release of Son (2012), the Giver series has been redefined as a finished "quartet" of fantasy novels. While Gathering Blue (2000) and Messenger (2004) were only loosely related companions to The Giver (1993), Son ties all three storylines together, with "heroes and fates colliding in a final, epic struggle."
• Wasserman, Robin (14 October 2012). "The Searcher". The New York Times Book Review (The New York Times Co.): 1. Retrieved 2012-11-02.
References [edit]
- ^ Biography. library.thinkquest.org.
- ^ a b "Newbery Medal and Honor Books, 1922–Present". Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). ALA. Retrieved 2012-11-02.
- ^ "Margaret A. Edwards Winners" (to 2008). Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). ALA. Retrieved 2013-03-14.
As of March 2013 the Award homepage at YALSA, "Edwards Award", incorporates a list of recipient names to 2012, each linked to its Edwards Award citation. - ^ Pennsylvania State University Center for the Book biography
- ^ Lois Lowry[dead link]
- ^ a b c Lois Lowry – Biography[dead link]
- ^ a b c Lowry,Lois[dead link]
- ^ a b Lois Lowry[dead link]
- ^ [1][dead link]
External links [edit]
| Library resources |
|---|
| About Lois Lowry |
| By Lois Lowry |
- Official website
- Interview with Writer Unboxed, April 20, 2007.
- Audio Interview with Childrensbookradio, November 14, 2007.
- Reading Rockets video interview with Lowry. Transcript provided.
- Linda Castellitto interviews Lowry
- Internet Public Librarians correspond with Lowry, 1996.
- Oregonian reporter Marty Hugly interviews Lowry about the play she wrote based on her book, Gossamer, in 2008.
- National Public Radio Weekend Edition interviews Lowry about her new book, The Willoughbys, July 6, 2008.
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- 1937 births
- 20th-century American novelists
- 21st-century American novelists
- American children's writers
- American women novelists
- Newbery Medal winners
- People from Cambridge, Massachusetts
- People from Carlisle, Pennsylvania
- People from Honolulu, Hawaii
- People from Portland, Maine
- Writers from Hawaii
- Writers from Maine
- Writers from Massachusetts
- Writers from Pennsylvania
- American School in Japan alumni
- Brown University alumni
- University of Southern Maine alumni
- 20th-century women writers
- 21st-century women writers
- Living people
- TCK
