Rating: 
Summary: Another challenging story by Lois Lowry
Review: The author is known for her sudden and unconventional endings. The best of these being The Giver. The Silent Boy is the author's most recent work. It too provides a conclusion that defies the usual "feel good" story endings of most children and adult novels. To some this may be disconcerting, but I commend the writer for respecting her audience enough to challenge their imagination and intellect. That said, I found this story to be less engaging than some of her other works. I would have preferred the story to say more about the boy of the book's title. Overall, I believe that this book is very appropriate for youths fourth grade and older.
Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: This is the fourth book I've read by this author, and I've enjoyed all but Messenger. (That seems like a weak retry to tell a similar story to the wonderful Giver.)I'd say this about all her books, but most especially this one: This tale is NOT for children. I know that a lot of today's children know most "adult secrets" by the age of six or seven, but nevertheless this book is just too strong. A child who can "handle" its story line will probably be too jaded to be moved sufficiently by it, and an innocent child shouldn't be allowed to read such a haunting, innocence-destroying book. This is really an "adult" book about child characters, and at that it excels.
Rating: 
Summary: Lowry gives spice to a long ago time and place
Review: When you start reading about Katy Thatcher, she might remind you a little bit of another long ago American girl, Laura Ingalls. Like Laura, Katy has a nascent kindness and innocence and a particular way of accepting life around her for what it is, neither good nor bad, just life. Like Laura, Katy has a strong, direct and healthy relationship with her father, here a small town doctor instead of the homesteader that Pa Ingalls had to be to fit in with his time and place. But if Ingalls had been a doctor, he might well have been like Dr. Thatcher. Into their lives comes--the silent boy.
The silent boy isn't silent because of shyness, though Katy is especially kind to him because of her innate goodness and feeling that he might respond to her overtures and break through his reserve. He has some sort of autism which, as Dr. Thatcher observes, is like nature, neither good nor bad, just a fact to be reckoned with. (Medical science wasn't as developed back then as it is today, as the now grown old Katy realizes from her present day perspective.)
It's a touching tale of growing up, and of failure to grow. And it's also sort of brutal and chilling.
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