Lois Lowry's A Summer To Die

Lois Lowry was born on March 20, 1937, in Honolulu, Hawaii. He father was a dentist and army officer, which gave her the chance to also grow up in New York, Pennsylvania and Japan. She is now 79 years old, and has written at least 48 books. She published her first novel, A Summer to Die in 1977. This story was a fictional account of her sister's passing. After the serious novel, Lowry showed her funny side with the book about a suburban preteen and her family in Anastasia Krupnik. This was written in 1979 and became the first in a series of humorous books. She won her first Newbery Award for the 1989 historical novel about the Holocaust called Number the Stars. In 1993, Lowry received the honor a second time for The Giver. The Giver was awarded …show more content…
In the story, when members of the community show signs of weakness or frailties, they are released from the community. Being released was a way of saying being killed or euthanized. At one point in the story, a baby is to be released because he wasn’t showing signs of being smart enough. The society used the words “released” so it didn’t seem so curl and inhumane. The story also addressed suicide when a minor character determines she can no longer endure her life, she asks to be “released”. According to an article in USA Today, opponents of the book argue that Lowry fails to explain that suicide is not a solution to life’s problems. This story should have shown the character making a better choice than suicide. Because of these themes in the book, it was on the most frequently challenged and banned books list for the years 1990-1999 and 2000-2009. There are many supporters of the book. The supporters argue that children are being exposed to social issues that will make them think about how governments are run, personal choice they may have to make in life, and future relationships. When Lois Lowry was asked what she thought about the banning of her book she said, "I think banning books is a very, very dangerous thing. It takes away an important freedom. Any time there is an attempt to ban a book; you should fight it as hard as you can. It's okay for a parent to say, 'I don't want my child to …show more content…
Lois Lowry completed The Giver story with a three more books to complete the series. The last of The Giver book series was written in 2012, almost 20 years after the first book was released. Today Lois Lowry spends her time between her home in Massachusetts and her 18th-century farmhouse in Maine working on her latest writings, a six book series called Gooney Bird. When she is not writing, she enjoys reading, gardening, knitting, and spending time her