LOIS LOWRY

Any institution needing works for those writing about authors will find this first installment of the Meet the Author series a serviceable title. Without the graceful writing of Lowry's own work (listed in a bibliography), it provides basic information in a straightforward manner that will aid researchers. To show how the novelist-to-be turned events from her own life into dramatic stories, Markham begins with an incident from Lowry's childhood (she broke an antique doll and imagined it as a murdered infant). The rest of the book is an accessible chronological account, with brief excerpts from Lowry's books, and description of some of the influences found in these. As an army brat, Lowry moved many times, spending most of WW II in Pennsylvania with her mother's family, and two years in occupied Japan. She was a shy child, often escaping loneliness in reading and writing. After an early marriage and four children, she began to write again. She stuck with it, and the rest is historyand two Newbery medals. (b&w photographs, notes, chronology) (Biography. 10-14)