Standalone Books

Newbery Medalist and New York Times bestselling author Lois Lowry transports readers to an Iron Age world through the suspenseful dual narrative of a boy and girl both battling to survive. In an utterly one-of-a-kind blend of fiction and history, a master storyteller explores the mystery and life of the 2,000-year-old Windeby bog body.

Estrild is not like the other girls in her village; she wants to be a warrior. Varick, the orphan boy who helps her train in spite of his twisted back, also stands apart. In a world where differences are poorly tolerated, just how much danger are they in?

Inspired by the true discovery of the 2,000-year-old Windeby bog body in Northern Germany, Newbery Medalist and master storyteller Lois Lowry transports readers to an Iron age world as she breathes life back into the Windeby child, left in the bog to drown with a woolen blindfold over its eyes.

This suspenseful exploration of lives that might have been by a gifted, intellectually curious author is utterly one of a kind. Includes several arresting photos of archeological finds, including of the Windeby child.

Mouse Mistress Hildegarde must supervise, organize, and protect the entire colony of 220 mice who live within the walls of Saint Bartholemew’s….not an easy task, especially when her arch-enemy Lucretia tries to undermine her every move.

“An impeccably constructed, good-humored adventure filled with master plans, near disasters, and brave rescues, all gently frightening for readers even younger than the target audience. Lowry creates a cozy church environment of lenient sextons, disheveled organists, and skittish Altar Guild ladies, from a mouse’s point-of-view. Fun and lighthearted.” -Publishers Weekly

The flu epidemic of 1918 destroys the only life that eleven-year-old Lydia Pierce has ever known. Frightened and lonely, she enters the unfamiliar world called a Shaker community and finds a new family she could never have imagined.

Latest in the popular “Dear America” series, Like the Willow Tree is the diary of eleven-year-old Lydia Amelia Pierce of Portland, Maine. Orphaned by the devastating 1918 epidemic of Spanish Influenza, Lydia and her older brother Daniel are taken to be raised by the Shakers in their small community at Sabbathday Lake, Maine. Mourning the loss of her parents and sister, and desperately worried by her brother’s sullen anger, Lydia struggles to make sense of her changed life. As the seasons change, she gradually learns to know and love the devout Shaker sisters who become her new family.

Oh, it is so boring to be royalty! And unnerving, too, because in just a few days Princess Patircia Priscilla will turn sixteen, the age at which she must choose her husband-to-be! And all of the contenders are soooo disgusting!

Princess Patricia Priscilla is bored with her royal life and the excitement surrounding her sixteenth birthday ball. Doomed to endure courtship by three grotesquely unappealing noblemen, she escapes her fateÑfor a week. Disguised as a peasant, she attends the village school as the smart new girl, “Pat,” and attracts friends and the attention of the handsome school master. Disgusting suitors, loveable peasants, and the clueless King and Queen collide at the ball, where Princess Patricia Pricilla calls the shots. What began as a cure for boredom, becomes a chance for Princess Patricia Priscilla to break the rules and marry the man she loves.

This is my first-ever picture book, a true story about a day I spent with my father after he returned from World War II. The illustrations were beautifully done by artist Bagram Ibatoulline. He had a photograph of me at age 9, wearing the too-large plaid shirt that is described in the story. Looking at his pictures is like looking into a magic telescope and seeing myself as a child.

Tim, Jane, and the twins, Barnaby A and Barnaby B, are four rather ordinary children. They just happen to have extraordinarily horrible parents. And that requires some extraordinary scheming.

“I have a plan,” Mr. Willoughby said, putting his paper down. He stroked one eyebrow in a satisfied way. “It’s thoroughly despicable.”

“Lovely,” said his wife. “A plan for what?”

“To rid us of the children.”

Little do Mr. And Mrs. Willoughby know that while they are trying to rid themselves of their children, the children—four of them—are trying to rid themselves of their terrible parents.

This is a humorous book, of course, and no one is recommending that real children do away with their parents. (Unless, of course—heh heh—their parents are as outrageously awful as Mr. And Mrs. Willoughby!)

In a story that tiptoes between reality and imagination, two people—a lonely woman and an angry boy—discover what they can be to each other, renewed by strength that comes from a tiny, caring creature they will never see.

Where do dreams come from? What stealthy nighttime messengers are the guardians of our most deeply hidden hopes and our half-forgotten fears? Drawing on her rich imagination, two-time Newbery winner Lois Lowry confronts these questions and explores the conflicts between the gentle bits and pieces of the past that come to life in dream, and the darker horrors that find their form in nightmare. In this haunting novel that tiptoes between reality and imagination, two people—a lonely, sensitive woman and a damaged, angry boy—face their own histories and discover what they can be to one another. Their strength comes from a tiny, caring creature they will never see.

A sensitive and moving story of a wide-eyed young girl growing up at the beginning of the twentieth century and the influence of the farm community around her.

From the prologue of THE SILENT BOY:

…. By thirteen I already knew that I wanted to be a doctor, too. I read accounts in the news of the war that was raging in Europe, and I could not wrap my mind around the reasons for it or the terrible logistics of battles far away. I listened to my parents talking to their friends, our next door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Bishop, as they fretted over their oldest boy, Paul, who was just finishing Princeton then and should have been looking ahead to law school and to joining his father’s firm one day. But Paul was already talking of his yearning to enlist in a war that had not yet, in 1915, begun to take American boys.

But at thirteen, when I read the war news, I thought only of the wounded and how if I were a doctor I could set their bones and heal their burns. I had watched my father do so many times.

I was not yet four when San Francisco toppled in an earthquake and burned. Even so young, I heard talk of it.

At eight, I had heard of the terrible fire in New York, of the factory girls, scores of them, leaping from the windows, their clothes aflame, and dying, burned and mangled, on the sidewalk while people watched in horror. My mother had said, “Shhh” to Father when she saw me listening, but he, seeing that my interest was real and not just a child’s curiosity, spoke to me of it later. Though I was still a child, we talked of the ways in which death comes, and how perhaps, not always, but sometimes, a doctor could push death away, could hold it back, or at the very least make it come easily.

By thirteen, by the time I had the sailor dress of which I was so proud, many of those moments were past. San Francisco had been rebuilt. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire had brought about new laws to protect factory workers.

And on the edge of town, when I was thirteen, stood the stone building called the Asylum. It still stands there today, though newspaper editorials call it the Eyesore in an attempt at wit, and there is talk of tearing it down to make room for a housing development. Its windows are boarded over now, and the grounds are littered with debris. Sometimes, in my growing-up years, when Austin was my beau, we would walk out that way, holding hands. Sometimes I found myself glancing at the ground, wondering if I would spot the gleam and flicker of a cat’s-eye marble dropped by a boy. I wondered, then, as I still do, about the boy who had once given me a kitten and changed my life forever. His name was Jacob Stoltz.

His is the story I mean to write down now.

Thirteen-year-old Meg envies her sister Molly’s beauty and popularity, and these feelings make it difficult for her to cope with Molly’s illness and death.

It was hard for Meg not to be envious of Molly. Blond, pretty and popular, Molly was the one who always knew what to say, who was giggly and fun, full of smiles and silly enthusiasms. It was Molly who had long eyelashes, while thirteen-year-old Meg had glasses. Molly who developed a figure and boyfriends the same year that Meg got Molly’s outgrown winter coat. Molly who was sure about the future, had sorted out her own goals, while Meg, determined and unsure at the same time, was sometimes angry over nothing, often miserable about everything.

Things grew even worse when they had to share a room. That’s when Molly drew the chalk line. Right down the rug and up the wall, across the wallpaper with its blue flowers. Separating them.

Then Molly got sick. At first it was just a nuisance. Grouchy, constantly worrying about her looks, never without a box of kleenex because of those dumb nosebleeds. Everyone waited on her hand and foot when she was home and was totally preoccupied with test results when she was in the hospital. Meg didn’t know what to make of the changes taking place in Molly and their parents. Until the day she realized that Molly was never going to come home from the hospital. That Molly was going to die.

Lois Lowry has written a poignant and perceptive first novel exploring the complex emotions a young girl faces in dealing with the death of a sister just at the very time when she had begun to ease her sense of jealousy and impatience into love.

“Not simply another story on a subject currently in vogue, this book is memorable as a well-crafted reaffirmation of universal values.” — Horn Book ALA Notable Book, Horn Book Fanfare Selection, IRA/CBC Children’s Choice

Natalie Armstrong had everything. Beauty and intelligence, an early acceptance at college, a great boyfriend, and a wonderful, loving family. But the summer when she turned seventeen, Natalie decided to ask that one unanswered question, “Who is my real mother ?” That question sends her on a journey deep into northern Maine and into the mystery of her own past. From phone books, yellowed newspapers, and a picture in a high school yearbook, Natalie begins to piece together the identity of her biological mother and to come to grips with the strangely frightening possibility that she may meet her face to face at last.

Her search for the truth of her birth creates a confusing welter of emotions, from which she emerges with a new sense of the connection between parent and child, the old and the young and with a clearer sense of herself. This is a provocative and multilayered novel, rich in detail and with an extraordinary sensitivity to the feelings and motives of the characters.

“A sad and funny book about [a] . . . teenager who learns the meaning of loneliness and enters adulthood with the knowledge that one can indeed inherit the best of two worlds.” — Booklist, starred review