“Kids deserve the right to think that they can change the world.” They can do so much, but not if they don’t learn to believe in themselves. One day these children are going to inherit the world, and without the decision-making skills, they’ll never be able to reach their own dreams or help others. Learning to make right choices is the only way they will survive in an increasingly frightening world.” “I believe without a single shadow of a doubt that it is necessary for young people to learn to make choices. She believes in the encouragement of their curiosity and letting them make choices and mistakes. I’ll give them information, but I won’t do their homework for them.” During a school year, I’ll get e-mails asking about the books. You do develop a sense of intimacy with readers, and they tell you things about themselves. As a children’s author, she hears from kids all the time, brimming with curiosity. Lowry has raised four children, and now even her grandchildren are grown. On the intelligence and curiosity of children: But me, if you ask me to think about when I’m 4, I can feel myself being 4, and I am there, looking out through my 4-year-old eyes.” “Most people remember being 4 objectively, as if they’re seeing a movie of a 4-year-old. Look at the day through the eyes of someone else, or yourself at a different age. For fiction, you have to expand upon it, take the ideas from it. You can’t just use your memories as inspiration-unless, of course, you’re writing a memoir.

There is an orderly quality to life on an army base, and even the children of the military are brought up with that sense of order and sameness.” “Oddly, the military world is one of great sameness.

From life on a military base, she had a deep understanding of order and sameness, which she was able to push to an extreme, becoming the world in which became that of The Giver. She learned observational skills-essential for a writer-from constantly changing schools. Lowry was a military brat, and travelled around the world with her family. Happy birthday, Lois Lowry! As one of the most well-known award-winning children’s authors of the last few decades, she has taught us a lot over the years.

About the author lois lowry