Like my earlier “Sparky Schulz and the least of us”, this was not my intention for a posting today, but you work with what you get, and what was delivered to me this morning was a paperback copy of Lois Lowry’s Looking Back: A Book of Memories (the 2017 revised and expanded edition; the first edition came out in 1998). The looking in the title alludes to the organization of the brief sections of the book around snapshots of LL, her family, and related subjects. In addition, apposite quotations from LL’s works head many of the sections.
The cover and the publisher’s blurb:
The cover of the book: a snapshot of LL and her sister Helen as girls, looking awkward in monstrously unflattering bathing suitsIn this moving autobiography, Lois Lowry explores her rich history through personal photographs, memories, and recollections of childhood friends. Lowry’s writing often transports readers into other worlds. Now, we have the opportunity to travel into the real world that is her life. This edition features a refreshed design, an introduction by bestselling author Alice Hoffman, and material from Lois from the past twenty years, including the making of The Giver movie.
The Looking Back book is being sold at remarkable discounts, in hardback, paperback, and Kindle editions — suggesting. ominously, that it’s about to go out of print and is being remaindered.
To remind you who LL is, these brief notes from Wikipedia:
Lois Ann Lowry (née Hammersberg; born March 20, 1937) is an American writer. She is the author of several books for children and young adults, including The Giver Quartet, Number the Stars, and Rabble Starkey [AZ: and the Anastasia Krupnik series]. She is known for writing about difficult subject matters, dystopias, and complex themes in works for young audiences.
Lowry has won two Newbery Medals: for Number the Stars in 1990 and The Giver in 1994.
… 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.
The Looking Back book is a little gem, keenly observant, and written in the sparest of styles. Here’s an entry from 2004 (minus the snapshot):
My two youngest grandsons — one of them with his feet not even touching the ground — were probably racing to see who would reach the blueberry patch first. Now teenagers, they have grown up in Maine. Life will no doubt take them far away eventually. But their roots will always be here, where Barbara Cooney’s Miss Rumphius planted lupine and Robert McCloskey’s Sal picked blueberries.
The personal connection. LL and I are of an age, and we are acquaintances; she has even visited me here in Palo Alto, thanks to my friendship with her two daughters, Max (originally named Alix) and Kristin — Max (now Max Vasilatos Rasmussen) for almost 40 years now, Kristin (Kristin Landis Lowry) for less (as for the names: life is complicated, don’t make me explain things). LL also has two sons, Grey and Ben(jamin); Grey was killed in the crash of his USAF fighter plane in 1995. LL divides her time between Maine and Naples FL; she continues to pursue an astonishingly demanding professional life (I am totally in awe).
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