Lois Lowry's Blog

I have a big gap in my childhood life when i think about fathers. My dad was a career army office and was gone for the duration of WWII...he was in the Pacific...and again duing the Korean War (he was in Tokyo, at the hospital there, tending jaw and facial injures coming in from Korea. We had been living in Tokyo but when the war began, he sent his family back to the USA)

All of that is TMI, I suppose. But this being Fathers' Day,I was thinking about the general topic. Both of my sons were/are (I have to use the double verb because one son died young) enthusiastic and wonderful fathers. Looking back at old photos of them with their children, I see very hands-on relationships. My father was less so. He was a caring and commited father, but I don't recall any wrestling or tickling or piggyback rides. Our life was a little more formal; and, of course, he was gone so much.  My book "Crow Call" is about his return from the war when I was in third or fourth grade and he seemed a stranger to me after such a long time.

I'm aware, too, that many of my books have very strong and important father figures in them. There are "real" fathers, too, but what interests me are those that have an absent or distant father, and so the child protaganist has found a substitute. Off the top of my head, I am thinking of A SUMMER TO DIE, RABBLE STARKEY (one of my favorites, all but forgtten now), THE GIVER, MESSENGER...and I know there are others.

I'm sure that a lot of fiction refects autobiography even when the writer isn't aware of it.

Here is me with my dad (from CROW CALL), and my son Ben with his boys:

My mother had calling cards. Yes, really.  Engraved calling cards. In those days women paid formal calls upon each other. There was always a small silver tray in the front hall, where the calling cards were deposited.

And there were certan hours when a woman was "at home"...which meant one could call upon her.

Now we have business cards, printed, not engraved, and they have our cell phone number and our email address and they look quite, well, businessy, not at all like my mother's.

Nonethess, I am now "at home." In my new home. Several neighbors ave come to call, to introduce themselves, and they have come wearing jeans and sneakers and apologizing for the gardening dirt under their fingernails. Times have changed.

The dog was terrified at first, of the strange yard, probably because I had had an underground fence installed, encircliing it, and he got zapped when he checked out the boundaries. Now, though, he is in full command; he lies on the front porch observing, and he seems happy with his new home.

I have a wall of shelves in my dining room, here in the house that I am about to leave, which I have always called my "Wall of Perpetual Self-adoration."  It contained all the framed certificates that announced my selection as 'most popular author in..(fill in the blank)'...some honorary degrees, some little bits of statuary engraved with my name as recipient of... ...whatever. Me me me.  It always seemed embarrassingly self-absorbed (hence the title I gave that wall) at the same time that I have always been genuinely appreciative of those honors.

In any case, as I dismantle this house, of course those things hvae come down and been packed into boxes. My new house is smaller and has less wall space. I have paintings I want to hang...many by friends...one wonderful sunflower painting by Ashley Bryan, for example...and I realized I probably would not re-create another Wall of Perpetual Self Adoration.

So I had Boxes of Self-Adoration waiting to be moved, along with boxes of dishes, linens, books, etc. etc.  They were not yet labeled because I hadn't figured out what their label should be! "Reference Books"..easy. "Yellow Crate-and-Barrel China"...easy. But: Narcissism? Awards? Hadn't decided what those boxes were to be called.

While I was in Europe last week, a company called Clean Out Your House came, by pre-arrangement, and hauled away the stuff I had piled in a section of the basement. Old soaker hoses. A broken chair. Bags and bags and bags and boxes and boxes of...stuff.

You can hear what is coming. I had not adequately separated or identified the boxes of awards and plaques and  certificates.

I am in Badem, a small town in the Eifel region of Germany, where my granddaughter lives. She is preparing to leave soon for two months in Costa Rica, where she will  work in a national park and also on her Spanish at the same time, since in the fall she will enter the University of Trier to major in languages.

Yesterday I was a visitor at the English cłass that my daughter-in-law teaches. Her students are older adults...most of them retired...and it is so impressive and humbling to see these hard-working people who are working so diligently to learn a new language, something that I would find almost impossible, I think.  And Englísh  is tough!! Picture trying to describe the difference between "must" and "have to"! That's what Margret was doing yesterday. 

.Tomorrow I will take the train to Paris where I will spend a week with a friend. In the meantime my house back home is being increasingly stripped and packed as I prepare to move.  When jet lag wakes me at 4 AMI start thinking about things like the junk drawer in the kitchen....how to pack those paper clips and batteries and unidentified keys...?

i am writing this on my brand new iPad .... Such a handy thing or travels! 

I have not posted to the blog for quite a long time. Sorry. Moving means chaos and I have had to set aside some things that I ordinarily tend to.  Blog being one.

Last Tuesday a wonderful non-profit called MORE THAN WORDS which teaches kids, often at-risk kids, how to run a business...in this case, a used-book business...came and took away 50 boxes of books from my house. In a way it was hard to see them go. But I like the idea of new people picking them up and opening up the same pages that i once enjoyed.

It was mostly fiction that set off on this adventure.  I am saving biographies, memoirs, and collected letters...they will go with me, to my new (smaller) (fewer bookcases) house. I will be living very close to a nice library and plan to become a better library user than I have been in the past.

In the midst of packing for a move, I head to NYC next Wednesday, for two days...I'll be speaking at the Schwartz Childrens Center of the Museum of New York at 5 PM Thursday, and then spending Friday at Horace Mann School.  After I return from New York, a week late,...I head to Europe for ten days. Is this wise, when I am moving May 7th? No, of course it isn't. But it was a trip I planned long ago: first to Germany to see my granddaughter, who just graduated with honors from the Gymnasium; and then by train to Paris, where I will meet a friend and spend a week in a flat we have rented together.

I have spent the past two days in Maine, overseeing the construction of closet interiors in my new house; meeting with an insurance agent about medical insurance...because, suprise surprise, my medical insurace from Massachusetts will not transfer; arranging with Invisible Fence to install said fence around my new yard, for Alfie; measuring windows and ordering "window treatments" (I hate that phrase; it is so pretentious); and on and on...stuff.  Necessary stuff. And of course back here there is much MORE necessary stuff to be done.

It has been a while since I have posted anything on this blog. Last time I wrote, I was in Maine; and now I am back in Cambridge, but frequently I have to take my dog and cat and clear out because the house is being shown. So far, I would guess that maybe 30-35 people have tromped through my house, and though I am not there when they do, I picture them saying, "Oh god, isn't that paint color hideous?" or "Well, of course we'd have to replace the horrible window shades"

In the meantime, as they do that, I am busy choosing paint colors for a new house, and measuring furniture to determine what I can take with me to a smaller place.  And I have been giving, and throwing, things away.

I will miss this house.  There have been wonderful gatherings here. I could put little plaques around the house saying things like: Katherine Paterson slept in this bedroom and Art Spiegleman stood in this garage, smokng, when I wouldn't let him do it in the house and Phyllis Reynold Naylor sat here with a yellow legal pad, working on a book and Ashley Bryan recited poetry at this dinner table...and countless others.  Those are all memories, though, and I will take them with me.  I will donate my crock pot to Goodwill but you don't leave memories behind.

I remember leaving from here for the airport probably hundreds of times, for trips of all sorts. I remember returning, always glad to be home even after the most wonderful of adventures. I remember my youngest grandson, 3 at the time, asking to see the attic; and when I took him there, he looked around and quoted "Finding Nemo"..."It's wicked dark in here!"  I  remember planting the weeping cherry tree, now huge, in the front yard. How many boring Oscars parties I have had here....and some exciting SuperBowl gatherings.

I remember how quiet the house was on the rainy spring morning almost two years ago, when Martin died.

I came up here to Maine yesterday and will be here all week, hiding out while my house in Cambridge goes on the market and realtors tromp through; putting my tax stuff together, always a dreaded task; and starting work on a new book.

But last night my dog drove me crazy. He went to sleep on his LL Bean doggie bed which is at the foot of mine. But sometime during the night he jumped up on the long windowseat in my bedroom, nudged the shade up with his nose, looked out and saw stuff. And woofed. Not a bark, but a muted woof, meaning, I think: Lookit that!

The windows there look down on a long expanse of meadow, which this time of year is covered with snow. I can only guess what he was seeing because I kept burrowing under the covers trying to ignore his woofs...which went on...and on...and on.  In the summer I see all sorts of wildlife in that meadow: many, many deer; foxes; once a coyote; plus of course the small country life that one hopes to avoid:porcupines and skunks.

I'm guessing they were out there last night and that he could see them against the white snow.

And tonight I think I am going to sleep in a downstairs guest room at the back of the house. Eat your heart out, Alfie.

Last night I went to a dinner party at which some of the guests (Gregory Maguire, Neil Gaiman) were writers of fantasy, one was a writer about fantasy (Maria Tatar) and others were artists of various sorts: a filmmaker, a rock musician, et al)...and during dinner the question came up: which character from a children's book...a fantasy...would you like to be?

A lot of people chose critters from Wind in the Willows. Neil said Badger. I think it was filmmaker Chris who chose Rat and Mole, for the messing around in boats. And Gregory went for the Darling boys in Peter Pan: not Wendy, but the her two brothers; he liked being on the periphery, he said.

The rock performer Amanda Palmer said The Cat in the Hat....she pointed out that the cat in the hat goes into people's houses, creates chaos, then leaves. I guess that's what a rock star does, as well, so it was the right choice for her.

When faced with such questions...which usually happens around a dinner table...I always feel rushed and wish I had more time to consider it deeply. But I said Stuart Little, I guess because his smallness, his yearning quality, and his optimism appeal to me; and in the light of day, 24 hours later, I still like my choice okay.

I am going to be sorry to move away from Cambridge, which has always been the type of place where such dinner parties happen.

I am told that the home of Alan Dershowitz...which is in my neighborhood...is also for sale.

Here are the two living rooms.  Do you think people will be wringing their hands in indecision...or perhaps we will attract different buyers?

...but only lightly, and they (the radio people on WBUR) say it will not amount to much. My guests for the Super Bowl will get here okay and we will eat my casserole and Peggy's salad and Carol's dessert even though none of us really care about the SB now that the Patrots are not in it. I wonder if Tom and Giselle will even watch. Maybe they'll just play with their kids and watch a Netflix movie tonight. You think?

It is a quiet time here while I prepare the house for showing...tucking away all the family photos so that people tromping through, (half of them will just be bored on a weekend, and the wife will say to the husband: Let's go look at Open Houses and the husband couldn't care less but agrees so they won't have a fight and she won't complain when he wants to watch basketball later)..yes, THOSE people...won't be staring at my grandchildren. And I am neatening my desk so that it will look pristine, as if I never ever do any work.

I will not hang around. There would be nothing worse than lurking and listening to people murmur to each other:  Don't you hate that bedspread  or  Look in this closet. God, does any one wear shoes like that stilll?   I am fleeing. I am taking my animals to Maine, and while I am in Maine, staying in the farmhouse where I spend summers, I am also going to look at my NEW house, the one to which I will move, and will decide where bookcases should be built, and what colors I will have the walls painted. Also I will choke back sobs in the new kitchen, because I designed my current to-die-for kitchen and will never have one like it again. The new one is a perfectly good kitchen but never again will I have the amazing bulit-in spice shelf, or the endless endless storage space, or the....

....I must stop agonizing over it.

Last ngiht I was reading Richard Burton's Diaries. Don't ask why. Sometimes one must do something odd, and for me that often takes the form of reading something out of the ordinary, something none of my friends will ever read, like a badly-wrtten true-crime account of a murder in Indiana, perhaps; or a translated-from-Japanese confusing novel in which people seem to move very slowly and think only in metaphors, or...yes, you got it: Richard Burton's Diaries.

Here are three quick snapshots taken with my phone this morning: bookcases in my living room, my dining room, and my office; I didn't bother photographng the wall full in one of the guest rooms. But take my word for it...there is a fourth wall of books not shown.

And now I am getting ready to move. To a smaller house. One with fewer bookcases. Oh dear, oh dear.

You can see, in the office snapshot, that there are storage boxes already filled with "office stuff"...papers, etc.  But I have not yet begun on the books. I don't quite know where to start.

FInding recipients is not the problem. I have plenty of destinations for these books. The problem is selecting what goes, what stays.

Seventeen years ago I was asked by a local bookstore, the wonderful WORDSWORTH'S, now sadly gone, to write an article for their newsletter. I had just moved at the time, and that move was to a LARGER house, not a smaller one. In fact it was to this very house. I wrote about arranging my books, something I did that year in an orderly fashion, as if I were a librarian.  For the first time in what had been a rather scattered and disorderly life, I had put all the biographies, memoirs, collected letters into the same shelves...and more than that: alphabetically. They are still there; those are the dining room bookcases. Fiction and non-fiction...also alphabetical...went into the living room.  Poetry is in the office, along with my own books, and reference books, plus a lot of quirky volumes that are hard to categorize.

Tonight I went out to dinner to celebrate the 70th birthday of a dear friend and at 75 (almost 76) was able to...well, not to impart wisdom, that's for sure!...but to look back and remember age 70, which was just yesterday. Or maybe last Thursday.

Things that have changed for me in the past five years—apart from the obvious—are that I have quit both skiing and horseback riding. There were subtle...okay, not so subtle...hints that my sense of balance was not as good as it once was. In short, that I was suddenly in danger of falling off the same horse I once felt very much at home upon...or of ending up in a snowbank with my skis cross-crossed above my head.

Here I am at Aspen maybe 15 years ago. And here I am, on horseback in Montana 5 years ago.

 It is good, I've discovered, if you are able to laugh at yourself. Like the time not long ago when I was alone, on snowshoes, outside my Maine farmhouse, and fell in the deep snow, and couldn't get up. That's right: could not get up. I sprawled there, laughing, and then found myself thinking two opposing thoughts at the same time. A friend was inside the house, and I found myself thinking: I hope she looks out the window, and comes out to give me a hand; and at the same time: I hope she doesn't look out the window and see what a complete idiot I look like.

It takes you by surprise when things begin to diminish. But other things become, oddly, enhanced. The enjoyment of a wonderful book, or a concert, or a dinner with an old friend. My amusement at a cat's antics (mine just jumped on a table, overturned a saltshaker, and scared herself). Life's pleasures are still enormous...just somewhat different. The balance of things has changed.

It is always good to be back home, even after a trip that has been wonderful.  There is somethig about one's own bed, about the dog and cat welcoming you, and of course there was the start of Season 3 of Downton Abbey!

But it was a long trip coming home, and I'm afraid I was somewhat rude to a woman in an airport.  It was 6 AM, and I had just emerged from a 10-hour flight (Buenos Aires-New York) during which I had not slept. Groggily I had gone through customs and immigration, and now was waiting at a baggage claim carousel for my suitcase, in order to make my way to my next flight, NY-Boston. A woman standing nearby apparently read my name on my carry-on luggage tag, and asked if I had written ThE GIVER.

It occurs to me now that I could have said no.  There may be other people with my name. I could have been one of them, just for that sleep-deprived morning. But of course I nodded. acknowledging that I had, indeed, written that book.

So she said nice things about the book and I smiled sleepily and thanked her. But then she said she was a would-be writer and she would like my advice. I just stared at her. My brain was thoroughly dead. I tried half-heartedly to explain that. But she said she wanted me to tell her just one bit of important advice. Just one.

Oh, dear. I mumbled something intended as wisdom but I'm afraid I did it tersely and ungraciously. It was just that the timing was so bad.

I am writing this from the Admirals Lounge at Logan Airport, waiting for the flight which will take me to Miami....4 hours; where I will change to a flight to Santiago....eight and a half hours;, and from Santiago another fight to Punta Arenas, four and a half hours; and then a 6-hour drive to the hotel in this photograph.  A loooong trip but as you can see from the picture, a worthy destination!  It was a little iffy, this departure, because of the storm that hit New England last night; but everything seems to be moving now, flights on time, and even now and then a bit of sun appears from behind the clouds.

This was a trip Martin always wanted to make so I am doing it in his memory and in hopes that he is looking down and smiling.

Alfie and Lulu are (I hope happily) ensconced at the kennel. I couldn't have a house-sitter because the donstairs interior is being painted and no matter how well-behaved the animals are (ha) being near an open paint can or a freshly-painted wall...not a good idea.

Another photo, almost an advertisement, of the clam chowder at Legal Seafoods at the airport. A good start to a trip!

 This has been a tough and sad week for the country and it almost feels inappropriate to post anything that brings a smile or laugh. But life moves forward for us all. And it does seem as if the recent tragic events are going to bring about some real change, if only..if only...if only lawmakers don't put this behind them, ignore and forget, the way they have before. If only they can see beyond self-interest and the next election. If only they will pay attention this time.

In the spring, a dramatic production of GATHERING BLUE will be on stage at the Oregon Childrens Theater in Portland. Here is a wonderful piece of art they have created for their promotion:

 Stan Foote, the director of OCT, and his fine crew have done two other adaptations of my books: THE GIVER, adapted as GATHERING BLUE has been, by Eric Coble; and GOSSAMER, which I adapted. And Stan and I have some plans for future dramatic mischief together, too.

Here is a problem I have, and it probably has no solution. So maybe I am looking more for sympathy than advice.

People email me through my website. It is easy to do, by clicking on "Email me" on the right hand side of the homepage. 

Those emails come every day. And I answer them, not always the day they arrive, but as soon as I can.

Every now and then, though, my reply bounces back to me as "undeliverable."  I think this is because there is a spam blocker of some sort, a filter that I can't get through, perhaps because the email is coming from a school. I always feel terrible when a reply can't be delivered, because of course the person who sent the original email thinks that I didn't respond.

Right now I am wringing my hands over a woman named Christie, who teaches two very special young girls and who asked me to send them a message.  i have tried and tried to do so. A second email came from her because she thought I hadn't answered the first.  But I have tried and tried, without success.

When I am working on a manuscript, I usually stop now and then and read sections aloud to myself. I try to do it when no one else is around because it likely sounds strange (and I have memories of my sister, under other cicumstances, saying, "Mom, Lois is doing that weird thing again..")

I do it (and recommend to young writers that they also do it) because it gives a feeling for pacing and flow, and it certainly makes the writer aware of the verisimilitude (or lack thereof) of the dialogue.

But!  Big BUT....!   I don't ever read the entire manuscript aloud, after it is done.

And now I am regretting that.

Recently I received a copy of the audio book of SON. Usually I listen to the first few minutes of each audio book, just to hear the sound of the reader's voice (one of my favorites: Arte Johnson reading THE WILLOUGHBYS. He's great).  I don't need to listen to the entire book because, of course, I alteady know the book well.

I am trying to be jolly despite a plumbing crisis.

The plumber is due here by 11 AM. leaving me time to keep my dental apointment at 1 PM.  Plumber and dentist?  Same day? Is that fair?

My car is loaded with packages to go to the post office.  Yes, Christmas gifts.  Yes, it is all done. People hate me when I tell them that. But it is because I have to mail things to Germany that I get my Christmas shopping done very early, usually right after Thanksgiving. I thereby manage to avoid the long Xmas lines at the PO, though I make up for it at tax time, when I am always last-minute for some reason.

I have two favorite post office stories. The first did not happen to me but to someone else, a woman who was having a horrible day in every way but finally found herself, after a long wait, at the post office counter. The PO guy said, "How's it going?" She almost burst into tears at the unexpected bit of human commiseration, and she said, "Well, horrible, if you want to know the truth. It took me forever to find a parking place, and then I stepped out of the car into a huge puddle so my feet are soaking wet, and I didn't have change for the meter so I'll probably get a ticket, and now I've been standing in this line for twenty minutes and I'm going to be late for an appointment, and..."  The PO guy looked down at the package she had placed on the counter and said, "I meant: how's it going? Priority? Media?"

And this one DID happen to me, many years ago. I lived in a tiny seaside village with a very small post office. I had completely forgotten to mail my estimated tax payment, which a self-employed person must pay quarterly, and so I took it to the post office a day late. I explained that to the postmistress, threw myself on her mercy, and asked if she could postmark it with the date of the previous day. She said a firm no. It would be illegal, she pointed out. She was required to abide by the law and she had been postmistress for a zillion years and she had never once misrepresented the date in that way. Then she picked up my enevelope, and picked up her postmarking stamp gizmo, and said, "I can blur it, though."

When I was clicking varous things to get to this place where I can add a post to my blog, I saw briefly a little headline that said "Study Shows Fetuses Yawn in the Womb"   Was this from the Science page of the New York Times?  Or was it an ad from a Right-to-Life group? I don't know. Maybe I will look for it again when I am finished here.  Who is yawning, and where, is always valuable information to have.

I am thinking about Thanskgivings Past.

When my kids were young and growing up in Maine, we always came down to Massachusetts for Thanksgiving at the home of relatives. Then, returning to Maine at the end of the weeknd, we saw car after car coming from the opposite direction with a dead deer strapped on its roof.  It was always the end of hunting season in Maine. "Bambi's mother!" the kids would say again and again as those stiff, staring corpses whizzed past us heading south.

In later years there were the many Thanksgiving dinners with huge numbers of people as Martin and I combined families, and grown kids acquired inlaws and eventually children.

I remeber a Thanksgiving in Germany...it would have been 1994...when my granddaughter Nadine was just one year old. It woud be six months later that her father, my son Grey, was killed. Of course we didnn't know then that tragedy lay in the future.  What I remember was Grey, who was a great cook, complaining about the smallness of German kitchens..and oven...though he produced a wonderful dinner nonetheless, and among the guests was an unmarried fighter pilot who had just returned from Kosovo, where NATO was carrying out the first airstrikes against the Bosnian Serbs. I remember his describing the complicated situation there...the "ethnic cleansing" (I think it was the first time I had heard the term) and realizing as he talked that sometimes violence can (has to) be a humanitarian response.

I think that was the name of a long-ago movie. Leaving Las Vegas. A depressing one, with Nicholas Cage drinking himself into oblivion...maybe to death; I don't remember.

I myself have just left Las Vegas, though not stumbling drunk. I was there very briefly...flew there Monday, flew home Tuesday!...for a meeting of ALAN:

(Founded in November 1973, ALAN is made up of teachers, authors, librarians, publishers, teacher-educators and their students, and others who are particularly interested in the area of young adult literature. )

Much as I thoroughly like and enjoy the members of ALAN, and was pleased to have dinner Monday night with a small but stellar group of them...I do find Las Vegas pretty depressing. Because of the time difference, I was up at 5 AM on Tuesday morning, and went down to the hotel lobby, in search of coffee,  to find it unchanged from what I had walked thorough the previous night at 10:30: bright lights, loud throbbing music, no place to sit except in front of slot machines. No windows. People everwhere endlessly sliding money into the machines. A couple...she in a wedding dress!...side by side at the slots.

Earlier, I had actually been awakened by noise from the next room: thumping and banging, and shouts. A man's voice: "My money! My money!"  Was he being robbed? Or just lamenting that he had lost it all gambling the night before? I briefy considered calling security but before I decided to do so, the noise subsided and I did nothing. If I had? Picture the people in the hotel security office: