This January Lois Lowry won the Newbery award for The Giver (Houghton Mifflin, $13.95; ages 11 and up). In my memory, never has there been such a delighted consensus from the children's book community, including of course, children. Many of these children became Lowry fans as they laughed their way through the ten novels she's written about Anastasia Krupnick (Houghton Mifflin, $13.45; Bantam, $3.25; ages 9 and up), one the best-loved middle grade heroines in children's books.

I, myself, became a fan long ago when I cried over her first novel, Summer to Die (Houghton Mifflin, $13.45; Bantam, $3.50; ages 11 and up) written twenty years ago. I cheered her 1989 Newbery award for Number the Stars, (Houghton Mifflin, $12.70; Dell, $1.99; ages 10 and up) a novel about AnneMarie, a brave Dane who defends friendship by defying the Nazis during World War II. Whether through laughter or tears, historical or contemporary struggles, Lowry writes books that touch kids deeply.

The Giver is a Newbery that will be read and loved. It's a book that will touch young adults in deep places and inspire meaningful discussion. The Giver is the story of Jonas, an adolescent living in a world that has a decidedly futuristic feel. It is a harmonious world, governed by rules that seem different, but not uncaring. From the very beginning there is a strangeness that will make even the most reluctant reader question and keep reading. At the novel's outset, Jonas apprehensively approaches the ceremony of twelve where he is to receive his life assignment. He sees no special aptitude in himself and is shocked when he is given the honored assignment, the Receiver of Memory. He is to receive from the Giver all the memories of the society. Jonas is given great privileges, new privacy, and information that allows him (and readers) to see through the society's apparent Eden. He learns pains and pleasures that let him see the sterility of the culture and the euphemisms that cloak its inner workings. Suffering under the weight of bearing memories for all, Jonas and the Giver come up with a courageous plan for change. Lois Lowry's already had positive response from teachers recounting the success of The Giver with their students. "Teachers are telling me, "she says, "that the kids are having the reactions that I'd wanted. They begin by liking the book and then react like the fifth grade girl, who said, 'I feel like there's something wrong with that book. I'm not sure, but I don't think the people have any feelings.' One of the most gratifying things I hear from teachers is that it provokes kids to think and talk about what they think. Teachers have written that they've never had a book that provokes as much discussion." Perhaps the book provokes deep thinking because it comes from such a deep place in its author.

"The Giver came from a number of different subconscious sources that I can only go back and identify in retrospect," reports Lowry, "My mother was very ill and dying in a nursing home. She was bed-ridden and blind, but her mind was intact and when I went to see her she wanted to tell me the stories of her past. She was always a great storyteller, but this was clearly from a greater need than to entertain a child. She knew she was dying, all of her contemporaries were dead, and these were not stories that were important, but it was her life and she wanted to pass it along." A polar view of memory came to Lowry from experiences with her father, almost eighty, and living in the same nursing home. "He's in much better physical health, but his mind is not as intact, so he's losing his memories and every time I go to visit him something else is gone from the past. He was looking at pictures and forgot what had happened to Helen, my older sister, the heroine of my first book, Summer to Die, who'd died young of cancer . He'd let it go. I was struck with how comfortable and how easy it is to repress and forget."

And yet a third family member influenced the creation of The Giver. Lowry's German-born daughter-in-law viewing the situation of the Native Americans in New Mexico told her, "It's clear to me how we have to tell these terribly painful stories. No one knows that better than the Germans." Lowry's work comes from depth she's found in her own life, but she also dives deep by connecting with the many children with whom she communicates. Whether she's reading letters filled with "anguish and concern for the world and themselves" or feeling the "vitality and humor of six hundred middle school students sitting in their big sneakers, sweaty t-shirts, and hormones", or helping a main character like Jonas, "undertake some kind of painful, frightening journey in order to come out the other side." "Maybe," Lowry wonders, the writer has to take these journeys too. Every time I write a book, I feel all the same feelings I felt when I was nine. I was a terribly painfully introverted child, I would have loved to be a wise-cracking blabbermouth like Anastasia. Jonas is introspective, like I was. I was the observant, perceptive one who did not share what my perceptions were."

Though she still has need for introverted time, Lowry's sharing her perceptions now. "In each book, I sit there by myself and work my way through this thing with great happiness. When I'm working in isolation, I feel I have a great bond with a world of people, of children, and adults who care about things who feel the same way about things. That's what Jonas didn't have." Lowry, connected with her unconscious, her characters, her child self, and today's children has given young readers The Giver. Her vehicle of futuristic fantasy will help children create connections with each other and their deeper feelings in the present.

©Susie Wilde 1998