She and her family help hide Ellen from the Nazis when they begin to round up Jewish citizens. The narrator, Annemarie Johansen, is friends with a Jewish girl named Ellen. The book explores the Nazi takeover of Denmark during World War II. Lowry's career reached new heights with the 1989 historical novel Number the Stars. She and her family later rejoined Lowry's father and lived in Japan for a time after the war. Lowry's pregnant mother took her and her older sister to live with her grandparents during the war as well while her father was stationed overseas. Lowry's main character Elizabeth and her family go to live with her grandfather during World War II while her father is off serving in the military.

In 1979, Lowry also published Autumn Street, a novel that drew further inspiration from her own life. She later developed another series featuring Anastasia's younger brother Sam. Two years later, Lowry launched her popular humorous series of novels featuring Anastasia Krupnik. She was also going through some personal changes around this time, as she and her husband got divorced. In 1977, Lowry published her first novel, A Summer to Die, which was based on her own experience of losing her older sister Helen at a young age. Lowry was living in Maine with her family when she decided to finish college and eventually earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Southern Maine in the early 1970s.

Along the way, they had four children: daughters Alix and Kristin and sons Grey and Ben. The couple moved around a lot because of Donald's military career. Career BeginningsĪt the age of 19, she married naval officer Donald Lowry. She then spent two years at Brown University before dropping out to get married. Lowry spent some of her school years in Japan, but she ended up graduating from a New York City high school. Her father was a dentist and Army officer, which led to her to live in several different places growing up. She was around 8 or 9 years old when she decided she wanted to be a writer. She has written in a variety of fictional forms, from the WWII tale Number the Stars to the lighthearted adventures of Anastasia Krupnik to the fantastical The Giver.Ī shy and introverted child, Lowry loved to read. Early Lifeīorn Lois Ann Hammersberg on March 20, 1937, in Honolulu, Hawaii, Lowry is one of America's most popular and versatile children's book authors. More recent works include Son (2012) and Gooney Bird and All Her Charms (2013). In 1993, Lowry received the honor a second time for The Giver, which would eventually become a 2014 film. She won her first Newbery Award for the 1989 novel Number the Stars. After this serious drama, Lowry showed her lighter side with 1979's Anastasia Krupnik, which became the first in a series of humorous books. Author Lois Lowry published her first novel, A Summer to Die, in 1977.

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