FOREWORD

A note to teachers, from Lois Lowry, about the power of stories …

The first story I remember hearing was The Gingerbread Boy. I was very young: 3 years old.  My sister, new to reading in 1st grade, read it to me laboriously, struggling with each word, and perhaps that’s why it is so strong in my memory. Surely my mother, a former kindergarten teacher, had read to me often before.  But it is my sister, her forehead wrinkled as she leaned over the book and deciphered the words, whom I picture now in my memory, and whose voice I can almost hear still.

And what, at 3, did I learn from The Gingerbread Boy? To talk in rhyme? To run very fast, so I wouldn’t be consumed by a cow?  Not to be too trusting, so a horse wouldn’t eat me? To be cheerful and a good sport when, at the end, I did get eaten by a sly fox?

No. What I learned was that I could be caught up in a story, could become the main character as I listened, could giggle at the funny parts, cringe at the scary ones, could sigh with satisfaction when the story ended, and realize with glee that the book could — and would — be opened again and again.

Stories are the way we rehearse our lives. In the safety of a parent’s lap, or the comfort of a favorite chair, the smallest child can experience the fear of the terrible, dangerous animal and the relief of the happy ending. Such a story will be told and retold, experienced again and again, and the child will call it forth when her own situation presents a new and scary thing. 

Of the stories in Rhinos and Raspberries, I especially like the Buddhist tale of Supriya’s bowl.  It’s so simple, so human, so true to our own adult lives.  So often we are too busy, too self-absorbed, too lacking in generosity to think of others.  

The Buddha sighed when his eye fell upon the people with hearts of stone. “Is there no one here,” 

he asked finally, “who will take on the job of helping to feed the poor and homeless in these hard times?”

There was silence. Then a small voice piped up, “I will, Lord Buddha.”

The story reminded me of an experience I had many years ago. I was in a small grocery store with my little girl, my first child, who was 4 years old.  It was in a city neighborhood, and into the store, as I gathered my groceries from the shelves, lurched a man who was poorly clothed, mumbling to himself, and clearly drunk. I could smell him from where I stood.  I took my daughter’s hand and moved away from the man, quickly collecting the last few things I needed and moving to the counter so that I could pay and leave.  As I stood there waiting while the cashier rang up my items, I could still hear the man talking loudly to himself as he stumbled around the small store, apparently looking for something.

Suddenly I became aware that my little girl was no longer standing beside me. I turned just in time to watch her walk over to the man and look up at him, her big blue eyes looking into his watery, bloodshot ones.

“Do you need help?” I heard her ask him.

The memory of that moment flooded back to me when I read Supriya’s Bowl and the sentence, Then a small voice piped up.

These stories are each of small voices. But what they teach us — and what they will teach small voices yet to be heard from — is very large and very wonderful.

Lois Lowry

June 2006

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Lois Lowry is a two-time Newbery Medal winner — awarded for "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children" — for The Giver and Number the Stars. She is the author of more than 30 books for children and young adults, including the beloved Anastasia Krupnik series. Publishers Weekly calls her writing "exquisite." Lowry's latest book, Gossamer ($16, Walter Lorraine Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Co., ISBN# 0618685502), a haunting novel that tiptoes between reality and imagination, is available in stores everywhere.

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