Lois Lowry
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50 free Lois Lowry trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Lois Lowry did not publish a novel until midlife, yet she went on to write stories that generations of students have read in school. The Giver handed young readers a seemingly perfect society with a terrible secret, and Number the Stars showed ordinary people protecting their neighbors from the Nazis. Behind both is a writer whose own life, spent moving between military postings and marked by family loss, is full of surprising details. This quiz gathers the fun facts fans look for: where she grew up, how she got her start, what inspired her best-known stories, and who brought them to the screen. It also covers the wider shelf, from the Giver companion novels to Anastasia Krupnik, Gooney Bird Greene, Gossamer and The Willoughbys. It suits students who have just finished one of her novels, teachers planning a book unit, and anyone who read her as a child. The early questions are friendly, the later ones reward careful readers, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which pop star played Rosemary, the Giver's daughter, in the 2014 film of Lois Lowry's The Giver?
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift took the small role of Rosemary, the earlier trainee whose failure still haunts the old man. The film reached cinemas in August 2014.
Q 02Which actor spent nearly 20 years trying to film Lois Lowry's The Giver before playing the title role himself?
Jeff Bridges
Jeff Bridges first hoped to direct the film with his father Lloyd as the Giver. Lloyd died in 1998, and the project stalled for another 15 years.
Q 03Lois Lowry, author of The Giver, was born in 1937 in which place that was then a US territory?
Hawaii
Hawaii was her home only until 1940, when the family left for Brooklyn. It was the first of many moves that followed her father's military career.
Q 04In Lois Lowry's The Giver, what does Jonas discover really happens to people who are "released" from the community?
They are killed
They are killed: Jonas learns the truth from a secret recording in which a newborn twin is given a lethal injection.
Q 05To which neutral country do Ellen Rosen and her parents escape by boat in Lois Lowry's Number the Stars?
Sweden
Sweden lay only a short sea crossing away, and Annemarie's uncle Henrik carries the refugees there in his own boat.
Q 06Which British comedian voices the cat who narrates Netflix's 2020 animated film of Lois Lowry's The Willoughbys?
Ricky Gervais
Ricky Gervais narrates as a cat who watches four children plot to send their neglectful parents away for good.
Q 07Number the Stars and The Giver each won Lois Lowry which top American prize for children's literature?
Newbery Medal
The Newbery Medal went to her in 1990 and again in 1994, putting her among the handful of authors who have won it twice.
Q 08In which Nazi-occupied capital city do best friends Annemarie and Ellen live in Lois Lowry's Number the Stars?
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is home to both girls in 1943, and Lowry visited the city's Resistance Museum while researching the novel.
Q 09In Lois Lowry's The Giver, which thrilling first memory does the old man transmit to Jonas during his training?
A sled ride
A sled ride down a snowy hill comes first, and it stuns Jonas because his community has done away with snow, hills and sleds alike.
Q 10Which other trade did Lois Lowry practice, later supplying the cover portrait of Number the Stars herself?
Photography
Photography was her freelance work in the 1970s, and the girl on the cover of Number the Stars is a portrait she took herself.
Q 11What was the profession of Lois Lowry's father, whose military career moved the family around the world?
Dentist
Dentist Robert Hammersberg spent his working life in uniform, so his daughter changed homes and schools again and again as a child.
Q 12In which Asian capital did Lois Lowry attend seventh and eighth grades while her father was stationed there?
Tokyo
Tokyo became the family's home after World War II, and she studied at the American School in Japan before returning to the United States in 1950.
Q 13Lois Lowry's banker grandfather Merkel Landis is credited with creating which kind of savings plan?
Christmas club
The Christmas club let customers pay in a little each week and collect the total in time for holiday shopping. Landis launched the first one at a bank in Carlisle.
Q 21In Lois Lowry's The Giver, what name does the community give its plan that removed pain, color and climate?
Sameness
Sameness trades away color, weather and hills for safety, and it has drained the citizens' lives of deep feeling as well.
Q 22In Lois Lowry's The Giver, which name awaits the struggling infant whom Jonas finally carries out of the community?
Gabriel
Gabriel will only receive the name if he grows strong enough to be assigned to a family, and Jonas flees on learning the child is to be released.
Q 23In Lois Lowry's novel The Giver, which unusual physical feature does Jonas share with the old man who trains him?
Pale eyes
Pale eyes also belong to the one baby who can receive memories, and the 2014 film swapped the trait for a shared birthmark.
Q 14Lois Lowry was first named Cena after a grandmother with roots in which country, who insisted on an American name?
Norway
Norway is the answer: her Norwegian grandmother telegraphed the new parents to demand something American, and so Cena became Lois.
Q 15Lois Lowry left which Ivy League university at 19 to marry, long before it gave her an honorary doctorate?
Brown
Brown awarded her a Doctorate of Letters in 2014, nearly sixty years after she walked away from its women's college, Pembroke, without a degree.
Q 16In which state did Lois Lowry finish her English literature degree in 1972 while raising four children?
Maine
Maine is where her children grew up, and she graduated from the University of Southern Maine in Portland before her writing career began.
Q 17A short story in which magazine prompted a Houghton Mifflin editor to ask Lois Lowry for a children's book?
Redbook
Redbook received her story for adults told through a child's eyes, and the editor's suggestion led to her first novel in 1977.
Q 18Which novel about sisters Meg and Molly became Lois Lowry's first published book when she was 40?
A Summer to Die
A Summer to Die drew on the loss of her own older sister Helen, and its opening quarrel over a chalk line dividing a bedroom really happened.
Q 19As a teenager, Lois Lowry lived at which military post in New York Harbor, where her father was assigned?
Governors Island
Governors Island was a headquarters when the family arrived in the early 1950s, and she finished high school across the water in Brooklyn Heights.
Q 20Lois Lowry's Like the Willow Tree, reissued in 2020, follows a girl orphaned by which historic outbreak?
Spanish flu
Spanish flu leaves the heroine an orphan in 1918, and the publisher asked Lowry for a new introduction when the story felt timely again during Covid-19.
Q 24In Lois Lowry's The Giver, what is the job title of Jonas's father, who brings a struggling baby home at night?
Nurturer
Nurturer is the title for those who tend the community's newborns, a gentle-sounding job that also includes carrying out releases.
Q 25What did Lois Lowry tell fans in 2009 about Jonas, whose fate the ending of The Giver leaves unclear?
He is alive
He is alive, she joked at the National Book Festival, adding that readers no longer needed to ask her the question.
Q 26Which actress played the Chief Elder, leader of the community, in the 2014 film of Lois Lowry's The Giver?
Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep played the Chief Elder, who in the film orders a drone hunt for Jonas after he flees on a stolen motorcycle.
Q 27Composer Susan Kander turned Lois Lowry's The Giver into which kind of stage work, premiered in Kansas City in 2012?
An opera
An opera based on the novel was commissioned jointly by companies in Kansas City and Minnesota, and one performance was webcast.
Q 28In Lois Lowry's The Giver, which sight does the old man share with Jonas to show him what color is?
A rainbow
A rainbow is passed to Jonas because his community surrendered color itself, along with weather and hills, in exchange for security.
Q 29In the final book of Lois Lowry's Giver Quartet, which job is the heroine Claire assigned by her community?
Birthmother
Birthmother Claire bears the baby that Jonas later rescues, and the novel, titled Son, follows her long search for the child.
Q 30In Lois Lowry's Number the Stars, what does the packet Annemarie carries to Uncle Henrik's boat contain?
A handkerchief
A handkerchief in the packet throws the German tracking dogs off the scent, so the refugees hidden on board are never found.