Editor, Writer,

That’s right folks, it’s Author Review Thursday! I thought I’d start with my very favorite author: the prolific and talented Lois Lowry (applause). Considering that my pal Lois is a kid lit author, I discovered her pretty late in life. It wasn’t until I took a children’s literature class that I even knew her books existed. Now, I can’t imagine quite where I would be in life had I never picked up The Giver.

Besides having a well-paced and original story, The Giver explores some pretty complex themes: what a utopian society would really be like, the dangers of an overly controlling ruling body, and what truth, love, knowledge, and beauty really mean to a people group.

It is because of these intense themes that The Giver has landed at number 14 on the list of ALA’s 100 most challenged books from 1990 to 2000 (of course, banning a book boosts its popularity by leaps and bounds, so it kinda backfires). Think of it as a watered-down and slightly more interesting kid version of Brave New World, with euthanasia.

For a long time, The Giver was a stand-alone book and Lois didn’t seem to be planning on writing any sequels. Now there are two additional books, which is actually a little disappointing. The Giver by itself is perfect, and the added storylines of Gathering Blue and Messenger really seem to muddy the waters and complicate the overall impact of the first book. Not to mention, a key element of The Giver was its open ending that Lowry encouraged her young readers to analyze for themselves. It is still an interesting story and the trilogy has a uniqueness that I haven’t really seen with many other kid lit authors. And yes, I do have a signed copy of The Giver.

Lois Lowry has two Newbery Medals to her name. This award is the most prestigious kid lit award out there, and winning it more than once has only been done by a few notable authors. She’s won for The Giver, and for my other favorite of hers, Number the Stars. This book tells the tale of Denmark’s resistance during the Nazi takeover through the eyes of a 10-year-old. It is actually very appropriate for the age without sacrificing any of the impact of the events. I highly recommend this one; it’s a short and entertaining read.

Now, as much as I love her writing style, I have to admit that Lois Lowry’s recent stuff has been a bit of a disappointment. The Silent Boy was bizarre and a little disturbing, especially compared to many of her other books that are more light-hearted and funny. It seems like she’s trying to push the envelope with her latest stuff, especially with the gist of The Silent Boy being that a mentally handicapped farm boy is instructed to drown unwanted kittens, and so chooses to do the same with his sister’s unwanted baby, born out of wedlock. Good times. Her most recent book, Gossamer, was a lot less morbid and pretty cute. Written by any unknown author though, I think it would’ve ended up in some publisher’s slush pile for eternity.

She’s got a new book set to release this spring, called The Willoughbys. I’ll of course read it, although from the description on her site the tone is sounding a bit like A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I hated (rant forthcoming in a future post).

All this to say, I really appreciate an author who can write so many books covering as many topics and tones as she has. She seems to have had a few missteps along the way in terms of writing popular books, but that hasn’t seemed to influence her. Really, she has the luxury of writing anything she wants because she’s such a big name. Her first book, A Summer to Die, is probably a little too kooky a debut novel to be published in this age of profit-driven publishing, and I envy her a bit that she was able to break into the market with that. Oh, and Jeff Bridges purchased the rights to the film version of The Giver a few years back. From what I hear, they’re currently in production for the movie and I’m pretty eager to see what they do with it.

Hi, I’m Jill. I’m currently a full-time freelance editor and creative writer, and the purpose of this site is two-fold. 1. I wanted a place to post creative work and hopefully in the future to market and promote my books. 2. On the business end of things, I think it’s a good idea for me to have my resume and portfolio samples available online if the freelancing should become more than a short-term thing. So it’s creative vs. business, editorial vs. writing, with a sneaky ambition to diversify my pen collection.

Yes, a key feature of the site is the trade-me-pens aspect…what can I say? I’m a collector. Check out the Contact link on the left-hand side if you’re interested in doing some trading. I may or may not have some Jillangill.com pens on the way.

What else? I love books and will most likely post reviews and recommendations periodically. Maybe movies as well, since Hollywood seems to have run out of ideas and is making a movie out of every book they can get their hands on (a movie of He’s Just Not That Into You? Really, it’s come to that?).

I’m also into bowling, hiking, am a musician of sorts, and a fan of cats. Yes, I will try to keep the cat stories to a minimum, but I can’t promise one won’t sneak in when I’m not paying attention. Which is most of the time—what?

So, welcome. A BIG THANK YOU to Matthew Gallizzi of Notix Technical Solutions, designer, builder, and hoster of my site. Seriously, Matt’s awesome, talented, driven, and a terrific human being. Check him out at notixtech.com.