Award Winning Children's Author Lois Lowry Will Speak at University of Richmond

February 23, 2005

Newbery Award-winning children’s author Lois Lowry will speak March 15 at the University of Richmond. Her talk, “How Everything Turns Away,” will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Alice Haynes Room of Tyler Haynes Commons. It is free and open to the public.

Lowry has published more than two dozen books for children, including the Newbery Award-winning novels “The Giver,” one of the most challenged books in public and school libraries, and “Number the Stars,” which takes place in German-occupied Denmark. Her realistic fiction includes the popular Anastasia Krupnik series.

Three linked fantasy novels, “The Giver,” “Gathering Blue” and “Messenger,” ask questions about the relationship between freedom and community and the role of art and artists within a community.

Memory, artistic creation and healing are central themes in her work, which appears frequently on both elementary and middle school syllabi and banned or challenged book lists.

Lowry will sign books after the event. Her appearance is sponsored by Richmond Quest and is part of the Department of English’s Cathleen Mallaney Trees Memorial Lecture Series.