Anastasia Again! [Library Binding]

Lois Lowry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 9, 2009 | Series: Anastasia

Twelve-year-old Anastasia is horrified at her family's decision to move from their city apartment to a house in the suburbs.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"As soon as I finish this chocolate pudding, I'm going to jump out the window." Twelve-year-old Anastasia Krupnik has just discovered that her parents are planning a move to the suburbs. And she happens to know that people in the suburbs do not have meaningful paintings on their walls. They have paint-by-numbers pictures of kittens with big eyes playing with balls of yarn. And in the place of bookcases they have giant TV sets with bowls of fake fruit on top. One look at their future house in the suburbs, however, and Anastasia falls in love. It's not long before she's meeting the neighbors, including a handsome tennis player and a witch named Gertrude Stein. And it takes hardly any time at all before she's immersed in just the kind of complicated messes that she seems to specialize in.

Award-winning author Lois Lowry has an undeniable knack for knowing the minds of young people, from Anastasia's 2-year-old brother in All About Sam to the 10-year-old Anastasia Krupnik to the precocious preteen character in this engaging novel. Don't miss the rest of Lowry's Anastasia series--as wildly funny, touching, and loaded with personality as Anastasia herself. (Ages 8 to 12) --Emilie Coulter --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

"Anastasia Krupnik is one of the most intriguing female protagonists to appear in children's books since the advent of Harriet the Spy . . . Genuinely funny, the story is a marvelously human portrait of an articulate adolescent." Horn Book

"Anastasia Krupnik is one of the most intriguing female protagonists to appear in children's books since the advent of Harriet the Spy . . . Genuinely funny, the story is a marvelously human portrait of an articulate adolescent." Horn Book Guide

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Library Binding: 145 pages
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439577838
• ISBN-13: 978-1439577837
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,100,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lois Lowry is known for her versatility and invention as a writer. She was born in Hawaii and grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, and Japan. After several years at Brown University, she turned to her family and to writing. She is the author of more than thirty books for young adults, including the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader.s Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, NUMBER THE STARS and THE GIVER. Her first novel, A SUMMER TO DIE, was awarded the International Reading Association.s Children.s Book Award. Ms. Lowry now divides her time between Cambridge and an 1840s farmhouse in Maine. To learn more about Lois Lowry, see her website at www.loislowry.com

author interview
A CONVERSATION WITH LOIS LOWRY ABOUT THE GIVER

Q. When did you know you wanted to become a writer?

A. I cannot remember ever not wanting to be a writer.

Q. What inspired you to write The Giver?

A. Kids always ask what inspired me to write a particular book or how did I get an idea for a particular book, and often it's very easy to answer that because books like the Anastasia books come from a specific thing; some little event triggers an idea. But a book like The Giver is a much more complicated book, and therefore it comes from much more complicated places--and many of them are probably things that I don't even recognize myself anymore, if I ever did. So it's not an easy question to answer.

I will say that the whole concept of memory is one that interests me a great deal. I'm not sure why that is, but I've always been fascinated by the thought of what memory is and what it does and how it works and what we learn from it. And so I think probably that interest of my own and that particular subject was the origin, one of many, of The Giver.

Q. How did you decide what Jonas should take on his journey?

A. Why does Jonas take what he does on his journey? He doesn't have much time when he sets out. He originally plans to make the trip farther along in time, and he plans to prepare for it better. But then, because of circumstances, he has to set out in a very hasty fashion. So what he chooses is out of necessity. He takes food because he needs to survive. He takes the bicycle because he needs to hurry and the bike is faster than legs. And he takes the baby because he is going out to create a future. And babies always represent the future in the same way children represent the future to adults. And so Jonas takes the baby so the baby's life will be saved, but he takes the baby also in order to begin again with a new life.

Q. When you wrote the ending, were you afraid some readers would want more details or did you want to leave the ending open to individual interpretation?

A. Many kids want a more specific ending to The Giver. Some write, or ask me when they see me, to spell it out exactly. And I don't do that. And the reason is because The Giver is many things to many different people. People bring to it their own complicated beliefs and hopes and dreams and fears and all of that. So I don't want to put my own feelings into it, my own beliefs, and ruin that for people who create their own endings in their minds.

Q. Is it an optimistic ending? Does Jonas survive?

A. I will say that I find it an optimistic ending. How could it not be an optimistic ending, a happy ending, when that house is there with its lights on and music is playing? So I'm always kind of surprised and disappointed when some people tell me that they think the boy and the baby just die. I don't think they die. What form their new life takes is something I like people to figure out for themselves. And each person will give it a different ending. I think they're out there somewhere and I think that their life has changed and their life is happy, and I would like to think that's true for the people they left behind as well.

Q. In what way is your book Gathering Blue a companion to The Giver?

A. Gathering Blue postulates a world of the future, as The Giver does. I simply created a different kind of world, one that had regressed instead of leaping forward technologically as the world of The Giver has. It was fascinating to explore the savagery of such a world. I began to feel that maybe it coexisted with Jonas's world . . . and that therefore Jonas could be a part of it in a tangential way. So there is a reference to a boy with light eyes at the end of Gathering Blue. He can be Jonas or not, as you wish.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An overall good book leaves us wanting more, April 4, 2003

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Anastasia Again (Paperback)

Anastasia Again is the sequel to Anastasia Krupnik, and the prequel to Anastasia, at this address, Anastasia at your service, etc. Anastasia Krupnik is upset when she learns she has to move with her parents to the suburbs. The only way she will accept the move is if she can live in a tower. When her parents FIND a house with a tower, she has no choice but to accept the move. With her faithful goldfish Frank, this book makes you want to run out and buy the next book. I give it 4 stars.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anastasia Again Book Reiview, May 14, 2001

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Anastasia Again! (Hardcover)

Anastasia Again is about a girl that is in the 6th grade and moves to the suburbs. She moves because her apartment is getting too small since her mom is a painter and needs a studio and her dad is a writer and needs bookshelves. Anastasia is 12 and her brother Sam is still a baby. Her father Mr. Krupnik asks what everybody wants in their new house. Anastasia said, "how about a tower for my bedroom". She thought if she asked for something so outrageous she would not have to leave her home and her friends. To Anastasia's surprise, one day they went out to look at the new house and there was a tower on it where Anastasia's room was going to be. They moved in and Sam saw a lady next door and said that she looks like a witch. Anastasia is curious of what Sam saw because she did not believe him. She goes over to the neighbor's house to see if she really does look like a witch. Sam wants to go so they go over there with the excuse to get a pitcher cause their mom wants to make ice tea. So they go over but Sam hid behind a bush at the front door. You'll have to read the book to see what happens next.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anastasia Again Book Review, May 14, 2001

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Anastasia Again! (Hardcover)

Anastasia Again is about a girl that is in the 6th grade and moves to the suburbs. She moves because her apartment is getting too small since her mom is a painter and needs a studio and her dad is a writer and needs bookshelves. Anastasia is 12 and her brother Sam is still a baby. Her father Mr. Krupnik asks what everybody wants in their new house. Anastasia said, "how about a tower for my bedroom". She thought if she asked for something so outrageous she would not have to leave her home and her friends. To Anastasia's surprise, one day they went out to look at the new house and there was a tower on it where Anastasia's room was going to be. They moved in and Sam saw a lady next door and said that she looks like a witch. Anastasia is curious of what Sam saw because she did not believe him. She goes over to the neighbor's house to see if she really does look like a witch. Sam wants to go so they go over there with the excuse to get a pitcher cause their mom wants to make ice tea. So they go over but Sam hid behind a bush at the front door. You'll have to read the book to see what happens next.