Just posted! A webcast with multiple award-winning author, Lois Lowry.

In 1977, Lois Lowry published A Summer to Die, a story about family, loss, life, and hope. It was Lowry’s first children’s book, written in her characteristically frank, feeling, and beautiful prose. It won the International Reading Association’s award for fiction in 1979. That same year, Lowry published the first in her now famous series of Anastasia Krupnick books. And the world of children’s literature was never the same again.

In her long and distinguished career, Lowry has written 45 books and been awarded two Newbery medals for Number the Stars in 1990, and The Giver in 1994. Her unabashed exploration of difficult subject matter has also made her a frequently challenged children’s book author. In 2015, she was awarded the Free Speech Defender Award by the National Coalition Against Censorship.

While it is difficult to summarize the decades-long career of a luminary who has produced not one, but several seminal books in the history of children’s literature, two things that stand out are Lowry’s versatility, and her respect for her readers’ level of understanding. Versatility in that she can write hysterically funny books as well as deeply poignant ones. And respect for readers in that she doesn’t shy away from difficult, embarrassing, uncomfortable, or socially charged topics. Instead, she speaks to the reader as an equal. It is the ultimate form of literary empathy, one that has the power to change a reader for life.

Follow this link to the BiblioFiles interview