The only Lowry book that I can remember reading was The Giver, which I had mixed feelings about. I thought that it was really well written and also thought that it would have totally flipped me out as a kid (I read it as a college student). One of those books that I could imagine giving to my child if I felt as a parent they were ready for it but would go ballistic if a school tried to assign it since they would probably end up traumatizing at least one kid in the class.

Short summary: the book is set in a seemingly-utopian world where everyone has a house and food and a job. But everything is also entirely controlled by whatever the government or societal-control mechanism is. You see this world through the eyes of a boy who is just reaching the age where he'll go on to be assigned his job and start fitting into society. He ends up in a job that requires him to find out about a lot of things his world doesn't have but used to - things like feelings, which get repressed out of people since it isn't consistent with maintaining the society.

Ultimately, I felt like this book didn't really answer any of the questions that it raised, it just pointed out that those questions existed. I was disappoined by it.

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