SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Lois Lowry has written dozens of books for children and young adults, including "The Giver." That's her 1993 dystopian novel that's become a staple of middle school language arts. That book turned into a quartet that ended in 2012. She has not written another book about oblique future until now. What was she waiting for? Lois Lowry spoke with that about Andrew Limbong, who's host of NPR's Book of the Day podcast.
ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: "Building 903" is set in 2099. Ruling over this world is the autocratic leader Zokiris, who has figured out how to rig the electoral system to stay in power indefinitely.
LOIS LOWRY: And he is over 100. And so the people hate him, but they don't know how to get rid of him. And over the decades, he has changed the way the world works to, in my opinion, their detriment.
LIMBONG: That's underselling the situation a bit. While there are hints of a previous world lush with greenery and vibrancy, this world is grim, filled with no's - no art, no music, no pets, no books. Lowry says she was inspired by the loss of humanities departments in some colleges by how many high schoolers are reading excerpts as opposed to full novels in class.
LOWRY: And my life with literature has been such a long connection and so important to me that that prospect began to feel so painful, and I began to envision a world without books. And in this world, they've been illegal for so long that not only the young protagonists, teenagers, have never seen or felt or touched or opened or smelled or read a book, but nor have their parents. So it's been a generational deprivation.
LIMBONG: The book follows Tessa, a 14-year-old girl. Her twin brother, Theo, has been missing for some time now. But one of Tessa's closest friends is an elderly neighbor named Miriam. When Miriam gets sent away to a facility for the elderly, Miriam slips Tessa a key to some boxes of contraband she'd been hiding. In the boxes are some old newspaper clippings, a catcher's mitt. And here's Lois Lowry reading.
LOWRY: (Reading) Each of the remaining boxes was filled with books. They were different sizes, different colors. One was quite thin with a brightly colored picture on the cover. Tessa opened that one, glanced at a random page and read aloud, one Sunday morning, the warm sun came up and, pop, out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar. The colors are nice, she said, looking up, but I don't really understand what it's talking about. Well, her mother replied after a moment, it was a very long time ago, and things were so different then.
LIMBONG: Can you talk a little bit about writing that moment of since she'd never seen a book before - it's wonder, but it's also confusion. It's excitement, but also, you know, there's some fear there?
LOWRY: She also, incidentally, has probably never seen a caterpillar.
LIMBONG: True. Yeah.
LOWRY: Or a butterfly.
LIMBONG: Yeah.
LOWRY: So much has been lost. But I think what isn't ever mentioned by name, I don't think in the book, is what's really been lost is the power of imagination. And so this child - not really child, teenager - cannot read a piece of fiction and envision what it's talking about. She's lost that capacity. And of course, this word, I know, is not mentioned in the book, but it's implied. When we lose that power to imagine ourselves into the being of another creature, another human, or, in fact, a caterpillar, we lose the capacity for empathy, and that's the thing that's going to destroy us in the future if we let it.
LIMBONG: Are you a big "Very Hungry Caterpillar" fan?
LOWRY: I am too old to have been brought up on the caterpillar, but I had four children and I have grandchildren, so I know a lot about caterpillars.
LIMBONG: Lowry published the last book in "The Giver Quartet" in 2012. Since then, her books have taken place in the present or the past. They've tackled serious issues, but also have been totally goofier, more colorful. She says revisiting the future was exhilarating.
LOWRY: But also kind of discouraging as we - as the future is so uncertain now.
LIMBONG: When you talk about so many things being uncertain about the future, what are you hinting at there?
LOWRY: Well, I mean, of course, the big thing is AI, of course. I mentioned I'm a literature person. I majored in English in college.
LIMBONG: Yeah.
LOWRY: Most people do not sit around remembering poems by Robert Frost, but I did the other day. And the first two lines of a famous poem by Robert Frost is some say the world will end in fire, others say in ice. I could go on, but I'm not going to. But I rewrote the whole thing, and mine begins, some say the world will end in fire, others say AI. So take it from there.
LIMBONG: Not a fan. Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
LOWRY: There are things we need to be concerned about, aware of, scared of.
LIMBONG: And yet "Building 903" has a happy-ish ending, at least happier than the ambiguous one in "The Giver."
LOWRY: I'm glad you added the word ish to happy, though.
LIMBONG: Yeah.
LOWRY: And probably because kids had objected to the ambiguity of "The Giver's" ending, perhaps I consciously tied this up a little more cheerfully.
LIMBONG: Is it also wishful thinking on your part?
LOWRY: The happy-ish ending?
LIMBONG: Yeah.
LOWRY: Yeah, of course, it was. I mean, anybody thinking about the future and pronouncing it a happy one is indulging in wishful thinking. But what else do we have?
LIMBONG: Andrew Limbong, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF HUG, ET AL.'S "COW WITH HALF MOON PARASOL")
SIMON: And for that full interview, you can subscribe to NPR's Book of the Day podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF HUG, ET AL.'S "COW WITH HALF MOON PARASOL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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