Author in Review: Lois Lowry

I was just on Amazon taking a look at what all Lois Lowry has written. She's kind of freakin' awesome as a writer of kids' books. My more freedom-loving readers will especially enjoy her Giver:

In the "ideal" world into which Jonas was born, everybody has sensibly agreed that well-matched married couples will raise exactly two offspring, one boy and one girl. These children's adolescent sexual impulses will be stifled with specially prescribed drugs; at age 12 they will receive an appropriate career assignment, sensibly chosen by the community's Elders. This is a world in which the old live in group homes and are "released"--to great celebration--at the proper time; the few infants who do not develop according to schedule are also "released," but with no fanfare. Lowry's development of this civilization is so deft that her readers, like the community's citizens, will be easily seduced by the chimera of this ordered, pain-free society.

Yup, it's a fucked up world. Surprisingly, this book was required reading for some of the fifth grade classes for which I substituted back in Tucson. You'd not think that the system would want to point so awesome a mirror at itself, but maybe they didn't understand what they were doing.

Anyway, as I was perusing Amazon, I discovered that Lois Lowry had also written Autumn Street. I got this book for my eighth birthday, and dude -- it was just all fucked up. It was a story about a little white girl who makes friends with the family cook's black grandson and just follows them through their 1950's childhood. Their happy times come to a smashing end when the boy's throat is slit by the crazy man who lives at the end of the street and the little girl gets pneumonia and her dad comes home from the Korean War injured and, and . . .

What the hell! Do not give this book to your 8-year-old to read.

My second Lois Lowry book was a gift for my thirteenth birthday. It features some teenagers and their mom who, courtesy of some voodoun magic, are now immortal. They survive by the mom marrying wealthy men, killing them, and living off their money for a while. It ends with the oldest teenager deciding he can't live like this anymore (plus he's really bored), and he drives his car into a tree at 119 mph with his mom in the passenger seat. The End.

Okay, a bit better, but again with the depression. Apparently, Lois Lowry frowns on the happy endings.

I haven't bought anymore of her books, and I'm a little scared to do so. But you should go read her now. She's pretty good.