Son by Lois Lowry

Dear Mr. W,

I just finished reading Son by Lois Lowry and wanted to tell you about the setting. There are three main places where Son takes place.

The first setting is the community where Jonas and Gabe live in The Giver. Claire is a birthmother in the community. (The title refers to her son.) She received her assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve about two years before Jonas receives his selection. I thought a lot about The Giver as I read. Everything in the community is the same. People live in plain houses. They all ride bikes. Meals are delivered to every house. To me it would be a very boring existence. A lot of time is spent in a laboratory where fish are raised to be food.

The second setting is a new place, a village on the sea. There is a huge cliff by the village which prevents anyone from leaving the village by land. Most everyone makes a living from the sea. The village is very old and old fashioned. Houses are not much more than huts, there are dirt roads, a harbor with fishing boats, and some fields with sheep and animals. The events that happen here occur after the events of The Giver.

Finally, the last setting is the same village as was in Messenger, but the events happen after the events of Messenger. This village is not advanced like Jonas’ first community, but it is civilized and the people are kind. Much of the time is spent in Jonas’ house. (You learn a lot about him in Son, like he’s married and has kids.) His house is warm and welcoming and happy. Whenever I imagine it I see a fire in the fireplace and smell a pot of something delicious cooking. It feels like a place I’d like to sit and visit for a while.

After reading the book and knowing that events happen in Jonas' community from The Giver and in the village from Messenger, I was surprised that there were no events in the village from Gathering Blue. Looking back it almost seems like it should. There are still many important connections to Gathering Blue, just not the setting.

The book was great, but Lois Lowry has a way of ending books without really ending them, like there’s still much more story to be told. I guess I’ll just have to imagine my own rest of the story.

Sincerely,

Brian 6th Grader

Gooney Bird Is So Absurd by Lois Lowry

If a girl’s gotta think – and this girl, Gooney Bird Greene, certainly does some thinking – then she’s gotta keep her brain warm. And if that girl wears two pony tails, then that girl needs a two-ponytail hat. Of course. Perfectly logical.

So what has a circular elastic band, two holes perfect for ponytails, and sometimes comes in pale green with ruffles?

Underpants. (And my apologies to Gooney Bird who reminded her classmates and me that while the word underpants, like armpit and bellybutton, will get a laugh, it’s a cheap laugh.)

Soon enough, the talented Mrs. Pidgeon leads the discussion away from Gooney Bird’s brain warming hat and on to poetry, using a possible snow day as its subject.

SNOW DAY!
NO WAY!

When students realize that short poems are perfectly acceptable, they soon write:

SNOW DAY!
LET’S PLAY!

and

SNOW DAY!
HOORAY!

At the end of the first chapter, Gooney Bird admits that yes, her two-ponytail hat was once underpants, but just like poetry, “it can be whatever you want it to be.” When she removes it, claiming the elastic hurts her forehead, Mrs. Pidgeon is moved to verse herself:

GOONEY BIRD,
YOU’RE SO ABSURD!

The anticipated snow day does not come, but more lessons in poetry do. (As do a variety of brain warming hats throughout the class.) Students learn about haiku, couplets, and limericks. The once-mysterious Mrs. X also returns, but not in person. Mrs. Pidgeon shares her mother’s poetry. She also shares stories of her mother’s failing health with Gooney Bird and her classmates. In the end it’s Mrs. X’s health and the class’s love for their teacher that inspires Gooney Bird and the rest of the second graders to create their biggest masterpiece: A poem for many voices written, performed, and videotaped by the class.

Lois Lowry's fourth book featuring Gooney Bird is another winner. Sometimes these second graders appear to have wisdom and education well beyond average students their age, but these well-crafted characters are enjoyable nevertheless. Gooney Bird is So Absurd joins Gooney Bird Green, Gooney Bird and the Room Mother, and Gooney The Fabulous as another excellent book to put in the hands of second, third, and fourth graders.

Taking Care of Terrific by Lois Lowry

Every bookstore in Boston has at least one copy of every book featuring Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, the Boston Tea Party, and about a gazillion copies of Make Way for Ducklings. But try finding a copy of Taking Care of Terrific and you're out of luck. (But here's a big shout out to the Boston Public Library which had a copy on the shelves where I was able to quickly review it on our last morning there.)

Founding Fathers: Good.
Ducklings: Good.
Stealing the Famed Swan Boats: Uh, apparently not so good.

Enid hates her name, and face it, you don't blame her. Especially if you were fourteen. Enid. Putrid, sordid, horrid, acrid, viscid, squalid, and worst of all, fetid. Enid. She lives two blocks west of the Public Garden on Marlborough Street with her parents and Mrs. Kolodny, the housekeeper who gives her more attention than both parents combined. One summer morning, out of the blue, Enid gets a phone call asking her to babysit afternoons for a 4-year-old.

Joshua Warwick Cameron IV. With a name like that it only fits he'd get babysitter named Enid.

Joshua lives on West Cedar Street, a couple blocks north of the Public Garden. Each afternoon, while Joshua's mother has her harpsichord lesson or tea with friends or plays tennis, Enid and Joshua go to the Public Garden. Except they don't really go. Cynthia and Tom Terrific go. That's who Enid and Joshua become when they cross Chestnut Street.

Afternoons are spent breaking the rules Ms. Cameron has put into place. They pet dogs, eat popsicles, pick up worms and caterpillars, and talk to strangers. Without that last one, they'd have never met Hawk the saxophone player or a bag lady who knows a great place to pee at the Ritz-Carlton. Of course they'd have never organized a bag lady protest of the popsicle cart guy or the great Swan Boat heist of '83 either.

If you babysat a boy who has never eaten pizza or popsicles, what would you do? What if he never got candy or had never taken a bubble bath? What if he'd never ridden the Swan Boats?

Her plan doesn't go as planned. No matter how cute a 4-year-old is, when he's heir to the Cameron Fortune, "borrowing" him to ride the Swan Boats in the middle of the night suddenly sounds a lot like kidnapping. And kidnapping brings police and TV cameras and bright lights and lawyers and negotiating and being in your bedroom for a week. Or more.

There are a number of dated references (Donahue, Bo Derek in "10," Jane Pauley on the Today Show, and Saturday nights watching The Love Boat and Fantasy Island) but readers should be able to think, "Donahue. Hmm. Sounds like Dr. Phil." (And I rather enjoyed the brief flashbacks.)

After all is said and done, Joshua survives the ordeal unscathed (actually, he's better off for it), and Enid successfully helps numerous people flourish and bloom like newly trimmed flowers once neglected. All with popsicles and Swan Boats.

Stealing the Famed Swan Boats: Still, probably, not so good, but in this story, it's just what these friends need.

Below you can see pictures of houses on Marlborough Street (Enid lives on the fifth floor), a house on West Cedar Street as viewed from Acorn Street (two views), and the statue of George Washington in the Boston Public Garden. (No, I don't know who that is with the blue umbrella.)

The Giver Trilogy by Lois Lowry

The Giver – Certainly the most well known of the three titles, this Newbery Medal winner tells the story of Jonas and his community. Jonas has been selected, not assigned like his classmates, for his new occupation. He is the new Receiver of Memory. Jonas’ futuristic community has eliminated all problems. There is no hunger, sickness, conflict, or inequality. Families stay together. Elders are respected. But Jonas, working with the old Receiver of Memory, now called the Giver as Jonas is the Receiver, learns about the past as he receives memories. He learns the price that has been paid for the community’s perfection. Jonas and the Giver devise a plan that, if successful, will save lives and possibly give back to the community some of what it has missed for many years. Truly a classic upon its release, The Giver is an unforgettable novel not to be missed.

Gathering Blue – The second novel of the trilogy takes place at roughly the same time as The Giver but in another community. Kira is orphaned at the beginning of the story. She has a bad leg, one that prevents her from walking comfortably or quickly, and that brings scorn on her from a community that values strength. Fortunately she has incredible talent with thread – dying, stitching, embroidering – which saves her, and even exalts her to a position of great honor in the community. Two others children, a carver named Thomas and a young singer named Jo, have received the same honor. As Kira learns about the secrets behind her community and her past, and as young Matt helps her search for the elusive color blue, she and her friends devise a plan, similar to Jonas, that will help their community.

Messenger – Six years after the events of The Giver and Gathering Blue, Kira’s young friend Matt, has grown nearly to adulthood. He lives in Village, a third community that welcomes all strangers, regardless of perceived strength or weakness, and lives a peaceful existence. But changes are coming to Village. Worthy, positive characteristics now receive lesser value and differences never before seen as weaknesses are now dividing the community. Matty, longing to learn his true name and his blind guardian, whose true name is Seer, try to understand what is happening and find a way to save Village. Characters from both previous novels play prominent roles in Messenger, and the story started in The Giver comes to a gratifying conclusion.

While these titles certainly aren't light-hearted, readers can't help but escape inside. New communities and villages and cultures and belief systems are created so carefully that readers understand everything that the main characters struggle against. There's death and injustice. Characters - society's leaders - make incomprehensible decisions, but yet readers understand why they were made in the context of the story. That doesn't mean readers agree with the decisions, however, and they will fight along with the Jonas, Kira, and Matty in their efforts to bring change where change is so desperately needed. Most importantly, readers will think.

The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

If someone had asked, "Okay, multiple choice. Who wrote this book: Lemony Snicket, Polly Horvath, or Lois Lowry?" I would have been wrong twice, accused the questioner of forgetting a choice, then stated, "Nyuh uhhh!!" Lois Lowry is the answer to many questions, including the previous, and now the following: "Who is the author talented enough to put every painstaking detail of traditional orphan stories into one novel and never once make you want to poke needles in your eye?"

Let's see if I can summarize the book using only the references she makes to such novels.

One day, just like in The Bobbsey Twins, a baby appears on the Willoughby's doorstep, however, not wanting a baby, the Willoughby children - Tim, Barnaby A, Barnaby B, and Jane - deposit her on the doorstep of a Scrooge-like gentleman, depressed at the loss of his wife and son (but not really). The children request any rewards be sent to them. After their father's odious retelling of Hansel and Gretel, the children decide they need to be like Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden and Pollyanna and Anne of Green Gables. Orphans. (Oh yes, and James. The Giant Peach fellow.)

When the Willoughby parents leave on vacation (or perilous adventure in which their demise is imminent, whichever you prefer), a nanny is hired, but not like Mary Poppins, Nanny insists. "It almost gives me diabetes just to think of her: all those disgusting spoonfuls of sugar!" Nanny was forced into domestic work when her father died in debt and left her penniless, a la Jane Eyre. One day when Nanny and the four children are out for a walk, something horrible happens, just like Little Red Riding Hood when she went walking, which, of course, requires them to make a plan.

The first plan involves Jane developing a lingering disease and pulling a Beth in Little Women. Nanny must enter a cloistered convent or go on mission work to darkest Africa to convert heathens. A and B are to run away to the circus like Toby Tyler or do a Huck Finn down the Mississippi, their choice. Tim will pull himself up by his bootstraps and gain the attention of a wealthy benefactor just like Ragged Dick.

Instead, the Willoughbys and Nanny finally discover their own mysterious benefactor, made more mysterious when Peter the goat-herd from Heidi arrives on the doorstep.

And happy endings abound.

Thank you, Lois Lowry, for poking fun at that which needed poking.

UPDATE: Changed "Recommended Books" tag to "Highly Recommended Books." I wasn't sure how the book would work with students, but now that I've read it aloud to my class, I know. It works. They laughed at the funny parts, gasped at surprising parts, rolled their eyes at the ridiculous parts. They get it. Totally. My only remaining hesitation would be that independent readers may miss some of the humor in the advanced vocabulary. (After all, according to the cover, The Willoughbys is "Nefariously Written & Ignominiously Illustrated by the Author.")

UPDATE 2: How could I have forgotten about The Willoughbys when considering possible 2009 Newbery books? I added the 2009 Newbery tag on 1/6/09.

Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry

It's October. The school year is no longer new and exciting. It's spelling class. Spelling. Not the most thrilling part of the school day. What second grade needs is a breath of fresh air, a little zap of excitement.

The door opens. There stands a new classmate. She's wearing pajamas and cowboy boots. She's holding a dictionary and a lunch box. "My name is Gooney Bird Green," she says, "and I just moved here from China. I want a desk right smack in the middle of the room, because I like to be right smack in the middle of everything."

Feel the fresh air? Feel that zap of excitement?

As the class gets to know Gooney Bird and her unusual ways (on Thursday, her second day, she wears a pink ballet tutu over green stretch pants and eats three small red grapes, an avocado, and an oatmeal cookie for lunch), Gooney Bird tells them stories about herself.

Gooney Bird only tells absolutely true stories such as How Gooney Bird Came from China on a Flying Carpet and Why Gooney Bird Was Late for School Because She Was Directing a Symphony Orchestra and Beloved Catman is Consumed By a Cow. Yes, all absolutely true. As she does she also helps Mrs. Pidgeon teach the main parts of stories.

Teachers will find great joy in reading about students they'll swear they've taught. There's Malcolm who quite often is under his desk, possibly doing something with scissors. There's Felicia Ann who never speaks. There's Barry who likes to give very important speeches, so important they require him to stand. And there's Gooney Bird, a student teachers will wish they've taught.

Other Gooney Bird books: Gooney Bird and the Room Mother and Gooney the Fabulous.