Lois Lowry

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.


Many of her books have been challenged or even banned in some schools and libraries. The Giver, which is common in the curricula in some schools, has been prohibited in others.

Life[edit]

Lowry was born on March 20, 1937, in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, to Katherine Gordon Landis and Robert E. Hammersberg.^[3][4]: xi Her maternal grandfather, Merkel Landis, a banker, created the Christmas Club savings program in 1910.^[5]: 24 Initially, Lowry's parents named her "Cena" for her Norwegian grandmother, but upon hearing the news, her grandmother telegraphed and instructed Lowry's parents that the child should have an American name.^[5]: 12


Lowry was the middle child. She had an older sister named Helen, and a younger brother called Jon.^[6] Helen died of cancer in 1962,^[3] but Lowry and her brother still share a close relationship.^[6]


Lowry's father was an army dentist, whose work moved the family all over the United States and to many parts of the world.^[3] Lowry and her family moved from Hawaii to Brooklyn, New York, in 1940, when Lowry was three years old.^[3] They relocated in 1942 to her mother's hometown in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, when Lowry's father was deployed to the Pacific during World War II.^[3] Lowry began reading at three years old, and after first grade, she skipped second at the Franklin School in Carlisle.^[3]


After World War II ended, Lowry moved with her family to Tokyo, Japan, where her father was stationed from 1948 to 1952.^[3] Lowry attended seventh and eighth grades at the American School in Japan, a school for dependents of those involved in the military. She returned to the United States when the Korean War began in 1950.^[3] Lowry and her family lived in Carlisle again in 1950, where she attended her freshman year in high school before moving to Governors Island, New York, when her father was assigned to First Army Headquarters there. Lowry briefly attended Curtis High School, on Staten Island,^[3] then graduated from high school at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights, New York, attending from 1952 to 1954. She then attended Pembroke College, which became fully merged with Brown University in 1971.^[3][4]: xi There she met her future husband, Donald Grey Lowry.


Lowry left the university in 1956 after her marriage to Donald Grey Lowry, a U.S. Navy officer.^[3] The couple moved several times from San Diego to New London, Connecticut, to Key West, Florida, to Charleston, South Carolina, to Cambridge, Massachusetts and finally to Portland, Maine.^[4] They had two daughters, Alix and Kristin, and two sons, Grey and Benjamin.^[3], While raising her children, Lowry completed her degree in English literature at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine, in 1972.^[3] After earning her bachelor of arts, she continued at the university to pursue graduate studies.^[3]


In 1977, at 40 years old, Lowry's first book, A Summer to Die, was published.^[3] During that same year, Donald Lowry and she divorced.^[3] Two years later she met Martin Small in Boston and was in a relationship with him for over 30 years, until his death in 2011.^[7][8][9] From 2014 she has been in a relationship with Howard Corwin, a retired physician.^[3]


Lowry's son Grey, a USAF major and flight instructor, was killed in the crash of his fighter plane in 1995.^[10] Lowry acknowledged that it was the most difficult day of her life, and she 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."^[11]


As of 2023, Lowry divides her time between Maine and Naples, Florida, and she still remains an active writer and speaker.^[3]

Awards[edit]

Lowry won the Newbery Medal in 1990 for her novel Number the Stars, and again in 1994 for The Giver.^[12] For Number the Stars, Lowry has also received the National Jewish Book Award in 1990, in the Children's Literature category,^[21] and the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award in 1991.^[22]


In 1994, Lowry was awarded the Regina Medal.^[3][23]


In 2002, her book Gooney Bird Greene won the Rhode Island Children's Book Award.^[24]


Lowry has been nominated three times for the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books.^[25][26] She was a finalist in 2000, a U.S. nominee in 2004, and a finalist in 2016.^[27]


In 2007, she received the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her contributions writing for teens.^[28] The ALA Margaret Edwards Award recognizes one writer and a particular body of work for "significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature".^[29] Lowry won the annual award in 2007 for The Giver (published 1993). The citation observed that "The Giver was one of the most frequently challenged books from 1990 to 2000" — that is, the object of "a formal, written attempt to remove a book from a library or classroom." According to the panel chair, "The book has held a unique position in teen literature. Lowry's exceptional use of metaphors and subtle complexity make it a book that will be discussed, debated and challenged for years to come...a perfect teen read."^[28]


She's also won a Boston Globe-Hornbook Award, an Anne V. Zarrow Award, a Golden Kite Award, and a Hope S. Dean Memorial Award.^[3]


In 2011 she gave the May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture; her lecture was titled "UNLEAVING: The Staying Power of Gold".^[30] She has been awarded honorary degrees from six universities,^[31] including a Doctorate of Letters by Brown University in 2014,^[32][33]St. Mary's College,^[34] University of Southern Maine, Elmhurst College, Wilson College, and Lesley University.^[35]