Gossamer, a review by Anonymous #3

Gossamer by Lois Lowry
(by Anonymous#3)
When I went to get this book I had a short time to pick it out in the Harwood Union library. I saw the author, Lois Lowry and had heard her books, such as “The Giver” and “Number The Stars” were quite good. My expectations after reading the mini story was that it was going to be very interesting and with lots of detail.

Gossamer is a fantasy tale about small creatures called dream givers who gather objects representing good memories, then use the memories to create dreams. They then bestow the dreams on humans. Two little dream givers named Littlest and Thin Eldery help a cross little boy named John and a forlorn woman get along by bestowing good dreams and thoughts upon them. Littlest and Thin Elderly become heroes when they help prepare John and the woman to fight against nightmares.

Littlest, Thin Elderly and the group of dream givers face a great challenge when they sense a horde of nightmare-giving creatures gathering to attack John and the woman. Littlest and Thin Elderly must try and stop them before the horde destroys the boy’s past and future. Can they save them?

Lowry goes back and forth with using dialogue and description. In some chapters uses lots of descriptive language and in others she uses quite a lot of dialogue. There aren’t many metaphors or similes but this is one example: “The outdoors was awake and stirring but the little house was dark and silent.” In my perspective, Lois Lowry writes easy to read novels, allowing the reader to remember all of the important (or even minor) elements.

Lowry’s characters show a lot of personal emotion, and experience a lot of sadness. The following passage is a good example:
"They thought it was their fault. If they were nicer, or if she cooked better, or spent less money, or picked up the toys, or if they kept their hair combed a different way, then Fun Daddy would come back. So they tried. And sometimes it worked; that was what always threw her of balance, that it worked sometimes, and she could wheedle him out of his ugly mood and it would be the three of them again, laughing. But this happened less and less often. And not that night, the night he broke John’s arm, the night she called the cops, the night she said ‘no more.’" I wonder, why did John’s father break his arm? Why did his mother try so hard?

I love this book and recommend it to anyone because it is very creative and Lowry uses many visuals, allowing you to feel like you are there, in the story. Lois Lowry uses her amazing imagination and brings it all in to make a novel. The moral of the story is classic: if you set your mind to something you can accomplish it. I wouldn’t change anything about Gossamer; it’s well written and the ending is the best I’ve read.