Lois Lowry: Education and Career of a Distinguished Author
Lois Lowry, born Lois Hammersberg on March 20, 1937, in Honolulu, Hawaii, is an acclaimed American author renowned for her impactful contributions to children's and young adult literature. With a career spanning over five decades, she has penned approximately 50 books, earning numerous accolades, including two Newbery Medals. Lowry's work often explores complex and challenging themes, solidifying her place as a significant voice in contemporary literature.
Early Life and Education
Lowry's childhood was marked by frequent relocation due to her father's profession as an army dentist. Although born in Honolulu, she spent a significant part of her early years in her mother's hometown in Pennsylvania. During World War II, while her father served abroad, Lois and her family resided in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where her grandparents lived. After the war, the family moved to Tokyo and later to New York.
From a young age, Lowry displayed a voracious appetite for reading and a keen interest in writing. She knew early on that she wanted to become a writer. Throughout her childhood, Lois tended to live in her imagination and in the world of books, spending hours writing poems and stories in her private notebook. When she was 13, her parents bought her a typewriter. Thanks to her voracious appetite for reading, she was able to skip the first grade.
After graduating from high school in New York City, Lois attended Brown University in Rhode Island to study writing. At 17, Author Lois Lowry headed to Brown University to study writing. She loved college, but it was the 1950s, so when her college boyfriend graduated two years before her, she dropped out and followed him to California. At the age of 19, after completing her sophomore year, she married a naval officer, Donald Grey Lowry.
Early Career and Family Life
Following her marriage, Lois Lowry found herself moving frequently as part of a military family, living in Connecticut, Florida, South Carolina, and Massachusetts. By the time she settled more permanently in Maine, she was the mother of four children under the age of five. As Lowry's children grew older, she was able to resume her studies. She received a B.A. degree in English literature from the University of Southern Maine, Portland, in 1972 and completed some postgraduate work at the same school.
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Before her career as a novelist took off, Lowry began her career as a freelance journalist. During this coursework she was introduced to photography, which became a life-long passion and profession. She also took photos to accompany the articles she submitted as a freelance journalist.
Literary Career
Lowry's literary career began in 1977 with the publication of her first children’s book, A Summer to Die. When Author Lois Lowry, acclaimed author and two-time winner of the Newbery Medal, was asked to write a book for kids, she turned to her own past. This novel, which won the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award, tells the story of a teenage girl dealing with her sister’s leukemia, it loosely mirrored the author’s own experience of having a sister die.
In 1979 Lowry finished Anastasia Krupnik, the story of a quirky 10-year-old girl who wants to become a writer. The protagonist is a precocious preteen who wants to be a writer. Based in part on Lowry’s daughters, the Anastasia Krupnik series became one of Lowry’s most enduring characters. Several sequels followed, including Anastasia Again! (1981), Anastasia’s Chosen Career (1987), and Anastasia, Absolutely (1995). Anastasia’s younger brother took centre stage in All About Sam (1988), See You Around, Sam! (1996), and others.
Newbery Medals and Recognition
Lowry won her first Newbery Medal in 1990 for Number the Stars (1989), the account of a young girl and her family helping Jewish neighbours escape Nazi-occupied Denmark in 1943.
Lowry’s second Newbery came in 1994, for The Giver (1993), a novel about a futuristic world without social ills and a 12-year-old boy who questions his seemingly perfect society. The Giver is the protector of memories that have been suppressed by the community.
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Later Works
Lowry continued to write into the 21st century. Gathering Blue (2000), Messenger (2004), and Son (2012) complete the dystopian Giver quartet. Her Gooney Bird series, which includes such titles as Gooney Bird Greene (2002), Gooney, the Fabulous (2007), Gooney Bird on the Map (2011), and Gooney Bird and All Her Charms (2013), follows the life of a very unique second grader. Other works include The Silent Boy (2003), The Willoughbys (2008), Like the Willow Tree (2011), and The Windeby Puzzle (2023).
Lowry also published Looking Back: A Book of Memories (1998), an inventive memoir that takes its cues from family photographs. It was revised and expanded in 2016. In 2020 she published On the Horizon: Memories of World War II, based on her recollections of living in Hawaii just before the Pearl Harbor attack (1941) and of residing in Tokyo a few years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945).
Lowry’s writing also includes literature textbooks and articles for magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times. In addition, she is recognized as an accomplished photographer, and her pictures appear in her own publications and those of others.
Challenged Books
Throughout her works, Lowry has explored several complex issues, including racism, terminal illness, murder, the Holocaust, and the questioning of authority, among other challenging topics.
By 2000, eight of her books had been challenged in schools and libraries in the United States. When asked by School Library Journal in 2022 about how she feels about her writing appearing on "banned book" lists, she replied, " read those lists, and my name often on them, with enormous sadness. In particular, The Giver received a diversity of reactions from schools in America after its release in 1993.
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Awards and Honors
Lowry has received numerous awards and honors for her contributions to literature. In 2007, she received the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her contributions writing for teens. She's also won a Boston Globe-Hornbook Award, an Anne V. Zarrow Award, a Golden Kite Award, and a Hope S. In 2011 she gave the May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture; her lecture was titled "UNLEAVING: The Staying Power of Gold". She has been awarded honorary degrees from several universities, including a Doctorate of Letters by Brown University in 2014.
Personal Life and Influences
Lowry's personal experiences have profoundly influenced her writing. Her first juvenile novel, A Summer to Die (1977), loosely mirrors the author’s experience of losing her sister, as it tells the story of a teenage girl dealing with her sibling’s leukemia.
In 1980 it was published, which means that I wrote it in 1979. So it is a very long time ago. I wrote a book called Autumn Street, which was autobiographical. It was fiction. I wrote it as fiction, but it really was plucked from my own life when I was a small child in Pennsylvania during World War II. And during that time I had a friend who was murdered. And that happens in the book.
Lowry married Donald Grey Lowry in 1956, and they divorced in 1977. She remarried to Martin Small, who died in 2011 after thirty years together. Lowry’s work has been widely lauded throughout her career.
At 82, Lois Lowry ’58 LITTD’14 hon. is showing no signs of slowing down. With a career spanning five decades, Lowry is renowned for her ability to thoughtfully address challenging subject matters with middle-grade and young adult readers. Knowing the profound effect literature can have on young minds, Lowry feels a strong sense of importance in writing for children. “I think that’s what any writer hopes for-that they affect individuals in a very powerful way,” says Lowry.
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