Lowis Lowery - Author

 I just watched the Lois Lowery webcast that was sponsored by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and School Library Journal. Wow!!  Amazing!!  I love to read, and I love books, and I love hearing authors talk about their books. So this was just fascinating to me. I love her book Number The Stars, and that is actually the only book by her that I have read. After hearing her discuss her books, I now have 6 books by her that are on my reading list. And a book she just recently read that made her cry in the last chapter - The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Frye - and books by her favorite author Ian McEwan are also on my list. I figure if an accomplished author like Lois Lowery likes them, they ought to be good!  She talked about what it was like to win the Newbery Medal twice - for Number the Stars and The Giver. She talked about how she writes books and develops characters - she writes the title last. Her very first book - A Summer to Die - has two sisters in it that are based on her and her sister (who died at a young age). Her favorite book of her 43 is Autumn Street. It is her favorite because she based it on the town where she grew up and the characters are based on real people that she loved and who are all gone now. I could go on and on. She has really inspired me to read her books!  I hope that I can figure out a way to use webcasts and book trailers to inspire my own students to want to read. I'm literally going to the library as soon as I leave school today to check out The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and The Giver!  Have you read any of her books? Did you watch the webcast? I wish I could link to it, but you had to register in order to be able to view it. Follow @sljournal on twitter, that is how I found out about it in the first place.