GB: Thanks for agreeing to do this with me!
LL: You are welcome.
GB: What or who got you into reading?
LL: I was lucky to grow up in a very literate family, in a house filled with books, and with a mother who read to me.
GB: How did they influence your writing?
LL: I don’t think any individual influenced my writing, just that they valued my writing, made me feel that it was a worthy goal. My parents gave me a typewriter for my 13th birthday. Now, eveyr kid has a computer. But in 1950 a typewriter was an enormous gift for a child.
GB: When you were growing up what character did you relate to? What character do you relate to now?
LL: I felt very close to a young boy named Jody Baxter in the book THE YEARLING. My copy of the book was beautifully illustrated by N.C. Wyeth, and in his paintings, the boy Jody even looked like me.
GB: Are your books based on real life?
LL: Some are, not many.
GB: Is there a certain order of reading your books?
LL: I have written 46 books. The ones that are a “series”…Anastasia Krupnik, The Giver, Gooney Bird Greene…should be read in order. The others are individual books.
GB: The Giver was made into a movie starring Jeff Bridges and Taylor Swift. Do you like who they cast in the movie? If not who would you have cast in the movie?
LL: I thought Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep were both terrific.
GB: Are there plans to make the other books into movies also?
LL: My book THE WILLOUGHBYS is currently in the works as an animated film.
GB: Do you have any events coming up? If not, how can we get signed copies of your books?
LL: You can mail books to me, with return postage, at my summer address after June 15: 465 Upper Ridge Road, Bridgton, ME 04009, and I will return them, signed. BE SURE TO INCLUDE RETURN ADDRESS!
GB: Thanks so much for agreeing to do this with me!
LL: You are welcome.
Lois’ Links:
YA Books are Epic 