The Memory Generation

Episode 1: Lois Lowry

INTRO

Rachael Cerrotti: Hey Everyone, I’m Rachael Cerrotti. Welcome to the first episode of The Memory Generation – a podcast about the memories we inherit and the stories that are passed from one generation to the next. I’ve been interested in this topic since I was young: how do the stories we inherit shape who we are in this world? This curiosity came to the surface when I was in elementary school and read the book The Giver. It’s about a young boy who is given the job of carrying memories for his community. I remember being obsessed with this book – loving the scenes where the boy receives stories from the past. So, as we start this show, I thought it would be most appropriate to ask Lois Lowry –  the beloved author of The Giver –  to join me for a conversation about memory. The Giver has sold more than 12 million copies around the world and is just one of over 50 books that Lois has authored throughout her career. She has twice won The Newbery Medal which honors the most distinguished contribution to American Literature for Children. ​​Lois and I recorded this conversation on March 4, 2022 in her home in Falmouth, Maine which is not so far from where I live in Portland. I’m very grateful to call her my friend. And, with that, here’s the first episode of The Memory Generation.

INTERVIEW

Lois Lowry: Hi, there. I'm Lois Lowry. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Lois. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. 

Lois Lowry: Nice to be with you, Rachael. My new friend.

Rachael Cerrotti: We are in your home in Maine, which is very close to where I live. And I am so grateful you have invited me here for this conversation.

Lois Lowry: Happy to have you with me and your dog.

Rachael Cerrotti: So before we dig into the stories that you have gifted us, I want to start with your story. You were born in 1937 in Honolulu, Hawaii, and you were the second daughter of your family and would soon become the middle child when your younger brother was born. And so I'm curious, what is a memory of yours or one that you have inherited from your family that has shaped who you are today? 

Lois Lowry: Gosh a single memory that shapes who you are? Ah, that's very tough. I wish you'd given me more time to prepare. I seem to be somebody who has a lot of memories. My psychiatrist husband finds it very impressive that I remember so much from my early days. I want to add that I'm not lying on a couch with him taking notes when we go through that process. But because I have so many memories, it's hard to single out one that – but I do remember, OK, I'll choose this one. I remember when my baby brother was born. I was five and was being displaced as the baby of the family. But my father was overseas. This was during World War Two. And so what I remember — I remember my mother sending a telegram to my father, who was somewhere in the Pacific. I didn't even know what that meant – in the Pacific. It was a phrase that told me, Where is daddy? In the Pacific. I had no idea what that meant, but I knew that mother was sending him – magically – sending him the news, telling him that he had a son and telling him the name of my new baby brother, whom I wasn't quite sure yet that I really liked very much. Umm And so during those months, weeks preceding the birth of the baby, my mother would take – it makes me think what a wonderful mother she was to a small child - We would walk together in the small college town where we lived to downtown about three blocks away to Bowman's department store and I would be allowed to choose one item of baby clothing. And then we would walk home carrying the little sweater or the little nightgown or whatever. And so I felt as if I was part of the preparation for this change in my family. That's a kind of a encapsulated memory of a family situation at a particular time – wartime.

Rachael Cerrotti: So in my world, the two books of yours that are most well known are The Giver and Number The Stars. And I want to start with The Giver because when I think about the work that I do and why I've been drawn to intergenerational storytelling, this book puts it all into place for me. And I know for a fact that I am just one of countless people who write to you and come to you with some exclamation about the impact of your work. And I would love it if you could share some of the reactions to your work that have been most meaningful for you and perhaps in some way have changed the way that you've thought about your own stories that you have written.

Lois Lowry: Well, gosh, I've forgotten what year The Giver was published, but almost immediately the letters started to come. What surprised me was that these letters came of course from kids, but more often in the beginning from adults. And I don't know how the book made that transition into the hands of adults. Some of the ones that come to my mind are a letter from a Qantas pilot in Australia, a letter from a – and this guy, I did go to see — he was a Trappist monk in a monastery. And he said, he described to me in his letter that Trappist – I'm not Catholic. I don't know anything about orders – The Trappist order is a silent order. And so the monks are silent all day long except for specified periods when they can speak. But they are read aloud to at dinner and the books they are read aloud from are divided into two types. And one, I've forgotten what they call the one, but the other is sacred reading. And he said they had decided to designate The Giver as sacred and it had been read aloud to his order at meal time. And then he had contacted me. I went to his monastery at his invitation and spent a couple of nights at a guesthouse just off the grounds and I got up in the middle of the night because every night at I don't know, like 2:00 a.m. they have a service. So I had to get up and put my clothes on and walk across the road to the chapel and they came in in their robes singing. It was quite moving and majestic, but I sure wouldn't want to do it every night. Anyrate, when I was there I was allowed to eat my meals with one monk at a time for a designated period and for that period the monk could speak to me and I was told I could ask them any questions I wanted and so I did. And so that was just one example. I also got letters from people who hated me. There was one person who said Jesus would be ashamed of you for writing this book. So it evoked a lot of very strong opinions from all sorts of people and that has continued to be true. During the pandemic, I have zoomed with classrooms around the world And that has given me a glimpse into the amazing way a book can affect kids from many different cultures. Just recently, I did one with Doha in Qatar. I know I mispronounced that country, but I've done it with Katmandu. I have an invitation that I just replied to this morning from Turkey. Did one in Romania. One amazingly in Tehran. Who would have guessed that kids in a school in Iran would be reading this book? So there was no way that I could have planned for that to happen. 

Rachael Cerrotti: I wasn't actually going to ask you this, but you know as you're listing all of these countries and these places that have taken to your work, your work is also known for being banned. The Giver — so just a bit of background here – So The Giver tells the story of a boy named Jonas, who is on the cusp of teenagehood, who lives in a quote-unquote perfect world which could also be described as a dystopian community where everyone in their community is assigned a role so they don't choose their jobs or their own life path, but rather are assigned a life path, so-to-speak. And Jonas is given a once in a generation role as the receiver of memory which means that he is given the privileged responsibility of holding all of the memories of the community. And so he's the only one who can see color, and he's the only one who knows the feeling of snow. And he's the one to hold the memories of war or falling in love or feeling of attachment and loss. So he really carries the duality of life and what it means to be human for everybody else. What is it about the content of The Giver that makes people feel like it is inappropriate for children?

Lois Lowry: Let me say at the outset that The Giver has never to my knowledge been challenged or banned in another country. It's only here. And those who challenge it – what happens often is a parent will come to a school and say, I don't want my child reading this book that you've assigned. Fortunately, the rules tend to be that before an official complaint is brought, the person bringing the complaint has to sign a thing saying they have read the book because often in the early days, what happened is that a passage would be taken out of context and maybe murmured about from one person to another and then they would all rise up and ask to have the book removed. Often the passage was, well, there were two. One is where the boy is assigned a task. In the book, the 12 year old boy is at his current volunteer job which is working in a nursing home. It's called the “House of the Old” and in the scene he is bathing an old woman. She's in a tub, the steam is rising. I think it describes him with the sponge washing her back and they have a conversation and I found it a very tender scene. There's no sexual context to it at all, but just the idea of a 12-year-old boy being with a naked woman was enough to make some parents rise up in horror. It’s interesting that kids don't react that way at all. Another scene that they have objected to is the scene in which it is revealed to the boy that part of his father's job is to euthanize infants. And of course, that's horrific for him to come to that realization and to see on videotape his father doing that with no apparent distress or remorse. It's a glimpse into what his society has become which is dispassionate and without emotion or human feelings. But people have taken that to mean or have objected to the book with the objection that it promotes euthanasia which if you read it in context, of course it does not. So I think – I've tried to figure this out over many years and the only thing I come to in my mind is the thing they're really uncomfortable with, but they don't realize it and so they choose these out of context moments is the fact that a boy comes to realize in the book the hypocrisy of his parents' generation and he sets out to disobey the rules that have made the society what it is. People are made uncomfortable by a child failing to submit to the rules of the parents’ generation.

Rachael Cerrotti: I'm going to ask you to read a piece of the book for me. And currently, Lois, you're holding my childhood copy of this book which you can tell has had a couple of decades of use. So I'm going to ask for you to start on Page 77, starting with “the man sighed.”

Lois Lowry: “The man sighed, seeming to put his thoughts in order. Then he spoke again, “Simply stated,” he said, “although it's not really simple at all, my job is to transmit to you all the memories I have within me. Memories of the past.” “Sir,” Jonas said tentatively, “I would be very interested to hear the story of your life, and to listen to your memories. “I apologize for interrupting,” he added quickly. The man waved his hand impatiently. “No apologies in this room. We haven't time.”“Well,” Jonas went on, uncomfortably aware that he might be interrupting again. “I'm really interested, I don't mean that I'm not. But I don't exactly understand why it's so important. I could do some adult job in the community, and in my recreation time I could come and listen to the stories from your childhood. I'd like that. Actually,” he added, “I've done that already, in the House of the Old. The old like to tell about their childhoods, and it's always fun to listen.” The man shook his head. “No, no,” he said. “I'm not being clear. It's not my past, not my childhood that I must transmit to you.” He leaned back, resting his head against the back of the upholstered chair. “It’s the memories of the whole world,” he said with a sigh. “Before you, before me, before the previous Receiver, and generations before him.” Jonas frowned. “The whole world?” he asked. “I don't understand. Do you mean not just us? Not just the community? Do you mean Elsewhere, too?” He tried in his mind, to grasp the concept. “I'm sorry, sir. I don't understand exactly. Maybe I'm not smart enough. I don't know what you mean when you say ‘the whole world’ or ‘generations before him.’ I thought there was only us. I thought there was only now.” “There's much more. There's all that goes beyond – all that is Elsewhere – and all that goes back, and back, and back. I received all of those, when I was selected. And here in this room, all alone, I re-experience them again and again. It's how wisdom comes. And how we shape our future.”

Rachael Cerrotti: I want to pull out one of those sentences. The quote “I thought there was only us. I thought there was only now,” I find this statement a bit haunting. I also find it very calming and I'm wondering if there is a piece of you that feels like life would be easier this way without the visceral and so often like the physical anxiety that comes with holding the past inside oneself? 

Lois Lowry: When I read that passage right now and it won't surprise you to know that I haven't read it in a very long time, but I do – I had remembered they sounded familiar those lines when I read them. “I thought there was only us. I thought there was only now.” I mean, that's what we have fallen victim to in this world today. And it's why we are not dealing with environmental issues because we think it's only now and it's why we have trouble with immigration issues because we think it's only us. I went on to deal with these same issues, same problems in the books that follow The Giver. And it's interesting to realize more and more. And often people remind me that some of the problems I wrote about 10 years ago, 20 years ago are now at the forefront. And the one third book and the giver quartet called Messenger deals with the community that is divided because half of the people in the community want to build a wall around so nobody else can come in. I mean, how contemporary is that? 

Rachael Cerrotti: As I was re-reading this book for you know the umpteenth time prior to seeing you today, I was trying to imagine like, what would it feel like to be rid of memories? And part of this transmission of memory that Jonas and The Giver go through means that every time Jonas receives a memory, The Giver no longer has it for himself. And I think that there is some parcel of reality in that. Particularly I do a lot of work with communities who have gone through trauma and I've learned that while recounting difficult memories does have the possibility to retraumatize ourselves. It also does have the possibility of releasing us from some of what haunts us. And I'm wondering what was in your mind as you were making that decision that The Giver would no longer have the memories once Jonas held them.

Lois Lowry: I don't think I go through a conscious decision making process because I tend to write very intuitively. And so I can only look back and speculate why I wrote a particular thing. As you were talking and putting the question together something came to my mind, which was after a child of mine died in an accident some years ago. And of course, everybody I knew wrote me compassionate and moving letters of sympathy, the one that has stuck in my mind and that I think about still often came from a friend who was an actor and who had often performed Shakespeare, and he sent me a quotation from Macbeth. And I can't remember the name of the character who says this, but I know that he says it to Mcduff after Mcduff has been told that his wife and children have been killed and he's incoherent with grief. And this other character says to him, “Give Sorrow Words.” And that three word phrase has stuck with me. I think it's so important to give words to grief and as you describe and in the case of The Giver, whether putting it out there takes it away from him, that would be somehow diminishing the sorrow, I suppose. But putting it out there also – I can't think of the right words – it spreads it somehow. I don't want to say it diminishes it because one can't diminish one's grief, but it alleviates it by diluting – that's the word I wanted. It dilutes it somehow to give sorrow words.

Rachael Cerrotti: When I first wrote to you, you were gracious enough to not only respond to me, you spent some time with my work and quickly, you found my portrait series about young widowhood. And so I was widowed when I was 27-years-old. My husband was 28 at the time and died from a heart attack during our first year of marriage. And you told me that you lost your son and he was in the military and died in a plane crash and he too had left a widow behind as well as a child and perhaps even more unusual that both spouses, mine and your son's spouse were European. You've said in the past that while you were deeply saddened by his loss, your life has been enhanced by the memories of his childhood. 

Lois Lowry: Yes

Rachael Cerrotti: So I'd love to hear some of the memories of his childhood. 

Lois Lowry: It's funny that you mention that that you're here today because what's the date today? Is it March 4th? 

Rachael Cerrotti: Yes

Lois Lowry: Yesterday was March 3rd and that was my son's birthday. And I got an email this morning from a friend who was vacationing in Key West. And I wrote back and I said yesterday, but in 1959, my son was born in Key West because his father was a naval officer who was stationed there. So my son grew up in many different places and he was a neat kid. I'm just remembering so many different times. I have a photograph hanging out here in the hall of him with his horse when he was 13-years-old. He announced when he was 12 and we lived here in Falmouth, Maine in an old farmhouse with 20 acres of land. He announced that he wanted a horse. And so we kind of put him off by saying we would get him a horse if he would fence a pasture. We figured that would be a task that would mean we would never have to get him a horse, but he was a very determined kid. And he went out at the beginning of the summer and did that. He took our riding lawn mower out in the woods and he chopped down trees and he dragged them back by the mower and he cut them into fence posts and that meant he had to dig a hole deep enough to plant a fence post. And Maine has very rocky soil and we would watch him out there and he would get half a hole dug and then he would hit a rock. It was the first time I ever heard him swear. He would say shit. So the fence ended up kind of zigzagged as he found places where he could put holes. So eventually, by the end of the summer, he had fenced an area large enough to pasture a horse. And so we got him a horse. And guess what? He was allergic to horses. his eyes puffed up and his nose ran and he sneezed and he willed himself to get over that. He spent time – suffering time – with that horse until he got over that allergy. That was my son, very determined and he was that way all his life. And he decided he wanted to fly. And so he applied for the Air Force pilot training program. He had a very happy and successful career as a pilot and he was killed because of a maintenance error on the plane which caused his plane to crash. He and his wife, Margaret, had been married five years before they had a child. And my granddaughter – my only granddaughter – was just under two years old when he was killed. He died [at] the end of May. It was Memorial Day weekend. And I don't remember what day Mother's Day was that year, but he was in Germany and he called me on Mother's Day and he told me that that morning, his little girl, 20 months old, was learning to speak English and German simultaneously because her mother was German. Her father was American. And he told me that that morning he’d gone into his child's bedroom to get her out of her crib, and she stood up and grinned at him and she sang, “I love you. You love me. We're a happy family.” And he said his heart just melted and he just wanted to tell me that on Mother's Day, because he said, you must have felt that way about me once. And I said, I still do. And that was, you know, a couple of weeks before he died. I remember that I went over there – well I went over there immediately at his death and for his funeral, but I went back a couple of months later so his child was now close to two years old. Someone had sent Margaret, my daughter-in-law, my German daughter-in-law, a video. Grey, my son, had been in the states on some Air Force business. He had stopped in to see these friends and they had taken a video of him playing with their children and their dog and they had sent it to Margaret after his death. And she said she had not been able to work up the courage, if that's the right word, to watch it until I was there and I could watch it with her. So we watched and this little girl was playing on the floor, not yet two years old, and she looked up and she watched with us and she became very angry. We could see her – just her little shoulders stiffening, and I think maybe she even stamped her foot and she began to speak in German angrily to her mother. She was saying, “Where's my papa? Why doesn't he come home?” And, now see I'm going to get choked up telling you this. Her mother, my daughter-in-law, instead of turning off the video and distracting the child with other toys, she took her on her lap and said, That's you know, that's your papa. And she explained to her why he couldn't come back and the child was too young to understand death, but she did understand – I could tell the finality of it and the sorrow of it. I give credit to my daughter-in-law for that honesty that she showed and has always shown. Now my granddaughter does not remember her father. She was too little, but like all of us, including myself. You think you remember things because they've been told to you so often. So she has often said to me, No, I don't really remember him, but you've told me so often the stories that I see them in my head as if I remember them. And I think that's true of my own memories as well. When I describe playing on the beach or whatever I describe from my early childhood years, I think I'm starting to remember the memory of them. I don't know if that's the right way to say it, so I no longer know what's a real memory and what is a memory of a story of a memory. And I don't think it matters much really in the long run. It's hard for me to imagine having too much memory. I so love having memories. 

Rachael Cerrotti: What was particularly remarkable to me when we started speaking about this, this space that we share with young widowhood, with loss is that you're still so close with, with his wife and I have a very close relationship with my mother-in-law. And – oh my gosh, look, a fox. 

Lois Lowry: Oh yeah. He goes by here every afternoon and it’s a big, healthy fox. Could you see how good he looked? 

Rachael Cerrotti: It's so interesting, actually, when you start talking about death and the loss of loved ones, so many of the widows that I've spoken to have said like sometimes seeing an animal is completely reminds them so – 

Lois Lowry: I'll tell you, you know, I hesitate to tell the story. It almost sounds hokey, but I did not see this myself. But at my son's funeral in Germany, I later was told, Did you notice that moment during the funeral when everybody sort of murmured? And I hadn't really. I don't know. I was sitting up front with my daughter in law, and I didn't see that. But whoever told me about this said it was because a yellow butterfly had flown into the church and was flying around the people and they began to murmur. And I'm sorry I didn't see it, but of course now every time I see a yellow butterfly I think of it. And in fact, that Christmas after his death, I found a person who sells – I kind of cringe to say this – mounted butterflies, but I bought yellow butterflies and gave them to my children.

Rachael Cerrotti: Well, that brings up a lot for me – after my husband passed, umm, my parents live just outside the Boston area in the woods and we saw a wolf which were very unusual to see. You see a lot of like coywolves or coyotes, but this was like a beautiful Disney-like wolf. And still, to this day, I mean, it's been almost six years. You know, wolves are this symbol of my husband. I have a tattoo of a wolf. But my in-laws, who live in Poland, when they went back to Poland, there was a butterfly in their apartment, which you know they hadn't been home in like two weeks because they'd been in Boston with me. And so my mother-in-law

Lois Lowry: At the time of his death?

Rachael Cerrotti: Yeah. When they came back, so we've just put a lot of emphasis on butterflies and wolves. 

Lois Lowry: I’m gonna give you one more animal. I had forgotten about this or, you know, I had forgotten it was tucked away there someplace. I have a younger son. And he told me this is now some days after his brother's death. But he said he had had a nightmare. And in the nightmare, he was observing his brother's crash and death. And he said he woke up. It was very early morning just shaking and distraught and just to calm down. He said – this was in Falmouth, Maine, where we are now – he got in his car and drove and he drove across the bridge that goes across the Presumpscot River. I'm pointing over that way because there are several bridges and it’s that bridge up there. And he said as he was driving across the river, he suddenly saw an eagle low down in the sky and the eagle came toward the car, he said. Came up to the windshield of the car and swooped across and flew away again. Now my son flew a particular plane in the Air Force. I don't know if it was the plane or the squadron which was called the Eagle. So my other son, Ben, took that as meaning. I mean, we'd look for it wherever we can find it. And we're just, you know, lucky to find it now and then. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Absolutely, I love symbolism. And, you know, before my husband passed, I think I would have had a hard time wrapping my head around it But once somebody you love dies and you have that experience where, all the things that you think you understand, you realize you don't understand anything so the idea that like that person you loved is now, you know, in front of you in some beautiful shape and form is just so, it's comforting.

Lois Lowry: Do you ever dream of him? Because my daughter-in-law has described dream. I had one dream about my son. I don't remember how long after his death – not terribly long. But in the dream he was standing there. He was wearing a leather jacket that he had. He had bought it in Denmark. I remember the softness of the leather. And people were waiting in line to talk to him. It was like a reception line. And I was waiting my turn and when I got up to him, I hugged him and I could feel and smell that leather jacket. Oh, people were saying goodbye to him, that was it. I said to him, Remember that the original meaning of goodbye was God be with you. And he started to laugh and he said, Mom, I know that. So I don't know what that was about. Margaret, my daughter-in-law, said she has dreamed of him standing in a meadow. And she said it's hard to describe, but the meadow, the grass in the meadow is so green that it's greener than any green you can imagine. She's never seen anything like it, and there he is standing and laughing. So, you know, I'd like to think that somewhere there's a meadow. I don't really think that. I'm a bit of an an agnostic. I don't believe in heaven persay. I do believe in some greater than us universe. And he's out there somewhere, but I think probably more in molecules than in a meadow, but anyrate, I like that we have those memories come that way in dreams.

Rachael Cerrotti: I like it too, and I dream of Sergio and not as often as I would like to these days. But I always text his mom right away and it's like because she's in Europe, she's ahead of me. So if it's my middle of the night and she's already awake. And you know, it's like, you get this bonus time with them. It's like a new memory, even though it didn't quite happen. 

Lois Lowry: Yeah, yeah. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Well, shifting gears, which is always awkward when you're talking about people you've loved who’ve you lost. But I want to keep us in Europe. Your son was living in Europe. My husband was from Europe, so let's take your work to Europe and back to the time of your childhood which is World War Two. So as you know, I've spent well over a decade entrenched in my grandmother's wartime history and part of her story is that she was a Holocaust survivor and saved during the rescue of the Danish Jews during World War Two. So for context, for listeners who don't know about this history, just a very quick overview which is that in 1943 while World War Two and the Holocaust were raging, Denmark would come to save 95% of their Jewish population. And in not much more than three weeks, a spontaneous grassroots rescue mission illegally ferried roughly around 7,500 people from Nazi-occupied Denmark to neutral Sweden. And it's an exceptional story of upstanding during one of humanity's darkest periods. So, Lois, your book Number The Stars, another classic, tells this story through the plight of a young girl named Ellen. Ellen is Danish. She is Jewish. And she’s sheltered by a friend named Annemarie and then goes on to be rescued by boat across the Baltic Sea. So I have to tell you that I teach my grandmother's story in the classroom a lot, and this book is the greatest gift to me as an educator because it doesn't matter if I'm talking to elementary school kids or middle school or high school or college or their teachers or their parents. If I say, do you know the book Number The Stars, immediately hands go up. Everyone gets enthusiastic. They're like, Yes, I love that book, and I go, OK, great. So now you have some context for what the story of my grandmother is and what I'm about to tell you. So, jumping right in – where did your interest in this rescue come from?

Lois Lowry: Well, I had a very dear friend named Annelise who was Danish. She had come to this country with an American husband. And our kids grew up together. She had a son the same age as my son, Grey. They were great friends and a daughter, Kiersten, the same age as my daughter, Kristen. And they were great friends. Sometime later, after our kids were grown, Annelise and I took a trip together and we went to Bermuda together for a week And so we had a lot of time to talk and we talked about our families. And I don't think we had known this about each other before, but I mentioned to her that I had had an older sister who had died young. And she said she had as well. Now my sister had died of cancer. Annelise said her sister had been newly married, expecting a baby and had died in childbirth. And I was so astonished by that. And I said, But Denmark has wonderful medical care. How could your sister die in childbirth? And she said it was during the Nazi occupation and then she began to tell me about that period of time and so she described to me the rescue of the Danish Jews. And it struck me immediately that that was an important story to tell to kids. For one thing, it has all the elements that make a story appealing to kids. It has suspense and danger and it is a true story. Of course, I had to get the details correct. So I did a lot of the research at a library in Boston and then I went to Denmark with names of people who had been alive at that time. They no longer would be now. And I spent an evening, for example, with a woman who had been part of the Danish underground. So as far as I know, I got the details correct. But I often hear from kids who have read Number The Stars in school, usually fifth grade. They're abouts – 10 years old – the age of the main character. The young girl on the cover, the main character, Annemarie, is a Christian Danish girl, and her best friend, Ellen, is a Jewish Danish girl. Kids ask me why the blond girl is on the cover as opposed to the other girl and I explain to them that the main character of a book is the one who makes choices. And in this circumstance set in Denmark during 1943, the Jews weren't the ones who were able to make choices. It was the Christians who made the choices to save the Jews that the story's about.

Rachael Cerrotti: How does it feel to have created one of the primary pieces of literature that give context to this very complicated period? 

Lois Lowry: Well, I'm not sure how to answer that. It's such a wonderful story — such a wonderful, true story that I'm only the purveyor of it, the person who put it out there. The story is on its own. It didn't need me. I just happened to be the one to be the conduit for it. But I did hear from a teacher. This is years ago in Tennessee. She taught fourth grade. And she said in the teaching of this book, a child had said, my grandmother called and she asked what I'm reading, and I told her about this book and she wants to come and speak to our class about World War Two. She said, Oh of course, David, your grandmother could come. On the appointed day, the grandmother came with her daughter, David's mother and David, bringing the grandmother very proudly and the grandmother was introduced and she goes to the front of the class and she says with a slight accent, I was a Jewish child. I was born in Germany. And she said the kids just were riveted as she told about her escaping Germany during World War Two, escaping the Holocaust. And as she was talking, they heard a sound. The kids all turned around, and David's mother in the back of the room was crying. And she said, My mother never told me this before. I'd never heard my mother's story before. 

Rachael Cerrotti: Lois, I'll say it again. Your books have changed my life, and I thank you for that and I thank you for The Giver, which has taught me the power of listening and having a reverence and respect for the memories of those who came before me. And for Number The Stars, which really is the only book as a child that I remember reading in school that my family history was reflected in. And I'll say before, and I'll keep saying it, you're amazing. And I love the strange way that life is full of unexpected relationships and friendships, and I'm just so grateful that we have built one of those.

Lois Lowry: Thank you. Me too.

OUTRO

Rachael Cerrotti: Thank you to Lois for joining me today. Lois and I met when I literally fangirled her through her website. She was generous to not only respond but really took time to get to know me. I share that to encourage any of you who are listening to reach out to those you admire. Maybe they’ll write you back and become a friend. 

And thank you to everyone who listened to this first episode. We have 18 episodes for you this season.

This show was created in partnership with USC Shoah Foundation which is home to more than 55,000 testimonies of survivors and witnesses of genocide. You can learn more about their work and the Visual History Archive at sfi.usc.edu.

You can find additional links, book lists, testimony clips and all types of other resources and stories on our website: memorygenerationpodcast.com.

Our editor is Lene Bech Sillesen. Our executive producer and co-creator of this show is Stephen Smith. The music is from Kodomo.

I’m Rachael Cerrotti. We’ll be back next week.