Lois Lowry and Like the Willow Tree: The Diary of Lydia Amelia Pierce

Dolls of Our Lives

Allison Horrocks and Mary Mahoney

Society & Culture, History

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Lois Lowry has written more than 40 books. As of this month, she is also featured in half of our 2021 Patreon episodes. This is incidentally very close to the total number of surviving Shakers. Just in time for spring, we read Lowry's Like the Willow Tree, a Dear America journey for the ages. Based on meticulous research at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community, this book features a young diarist named Lydia who loses her parents to the flu pandemic. Though the Shakers initially wreck her plans, Lydia eventually teach her how to bend to the wind. We discuss Shaker controversies, our varying levels of interest in intentional communities, and much more.

Like to read along? You can support the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village

by purchasing Lowry's book here:

https://www.maineshakers.com/product/like-the-willow-tree-by-lois-lowry/

Our next book (May 2021) is Last Night at the Telegraph Club, a novel

by Malinda Lo.

Original air date: April 21, 2021

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I have something to say to you.
0:02.0	Uh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh.
0:05.0	I have something to say to you.
0:10.0	Uh-oh, yes. Life was a willow and it bent say to you. Uh oh, yes.
0:13.2	Life was a willow and it bent right to your wind,
0:15.9	head on the pillow, I could feel you sneaking in.
0:18.8	Is this, is this a Taylor Swift lyric or an entry from Lois Lowry's diary?
0:27.0	You have two seconds.
0:28.0	Uh, Tay-Tay? Yeah, that's it. That's it, you got it.
0:36.2	It's a, but here's the thing I wanted to be B. You know what I mean?
0:40.4	I think where I kind of tricked you and kind of came for you is when we asked people
0:46.8	We want to do something a little bit lighter folks. We said you know we've covered a few pretty heavy books this year and our beloved listeners on the discord said,
0:57.3	we know just the thing.
0:59.3	How about a story about an orphan living in a commune during a pandemic.
1:03.6	And I said, gosh darn it, these folks know me.
1:07.4	Joy ride.
1:08.8	So here we are.
1:10.0	We're covering a pandemic story. Don't worry. It's from a different time period so you will be able to feel a little bit of separation
1:18.1	But the entire time I was reading like the Willow Tree by Lois Lowry. I had this song stuck in my head you know I am
1:26.2	highly selective about music I download a song once every few weeks this was my
1:31.9	one for March yeah I'm actually shocked it's every few weeks for you. I was going to say every
1:36.7	few months, perhaps a year. I went a few years without really listening to music. I believe that.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Allison Horrocks and Mary Mahoney, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Allison Horrocks and Mary Mahoney and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.