Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry

First published: 1979

Subjects: Arts, education, and family

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Domestic realism

Time of work: The late 1970’s

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Boston

Principal Characters:

• Anastasia Krupnik, a ten-year-old who is confronted with the impending arrival of a sibling
• Myron Krupnik, Anastasia’s father, who is a college professor and poet
• Katherine Krupnik, Anastasia’s mother, who is an artist
• Grandmother Krupnik, Myron Krupnik’s mother and Anastasia’s grandmother
• Mrs. Westvessel, Anastasia’s teacher

Form and Content

Anastasia Krupnik is a short novel about her tenth year, during which she learns about herself and others. Anastasia is the only child of a professor-poet father and an artist mother, and her life is a relatively happy one until a series of events causes her to consider her situation. First, she gets an F on a poem that she wrote for Mrs. Westvessel’s class. Anastasia has written the poem in a style she learned from her father, but that style does not meet with Mrs. Westvessel’s approval. Anastasia is humiliated and hurt until her father assures her that she is not a bad poet.

Soon the F seems a minor issue when she learns that her parents are expecting another child. Anastasia is unhappy with this turn of events: She considers the impending birth of her baby brother to be a humiliating and completely unnecessary occurrence. She thinks that her parents are much too old to be having a baby. “Thirty five is too old?” her mother asks. “You don’t need a baby,” Anastasia argues, “You have me.” She decides that she will move out of the apartment to make room for the baby. Her father convinces her that she need not make that decision immediately.

Anastasia keeps a green notebook in which she lists the most important things that happen to her during her tenth year, and she has a page divided between “THINGS I LOVE” and “THINGS I HATE.” During the course of the novel, several items jump back and forth between the lists as Anastasia revises her opinions.

During this year, Anastasia experiences a variety of revelations. She considers becoming a Catholic but ultimately changes her mind. She falls in love but again changes her mind. She dreads visits with her senile grandmother but comes to understand her.

Anastasia’s grandmother is ninety-two years old and is losing touch with reality. Grandmother Krupnik cannot remember Anastasia’s name or who her granddaughter is. Anastasia has a difficult time coping with her grandmother’s wandering memory.

One of the hardest things to understand, she decides, is love. In her search for understanding of love, Anastasia listens to her grandmother talk about Sam, Anastasia’s late grandfather, and learns something about her grandmother’s younger life. She quizzes her parents about the love interests that they may have had before they met each other. She also spends some time considering her own feelings for Washburn Cummings, the boy she loves. He is also one of the items that jumps back and forth between her “THINGS I LOVE” and “THINGS I HATE” lists.

Ultimately, Anastasia experiences both loss and renewal. She is sad when her grandmother dies, but the cycle of life becomes clearer to her. When the birth of her brother occurs, she is faced with a choice that forces a degree of maturity. Anastasia has been given the responsibility of naming her new brother, and she does so in her own inimitable way.

Critical Context

That Lois Lowry is a splendid writer for children and young adults is attested by the Newbery Medals that her books have earned. The first of these awards was for Number the Stars (1989), a book dealing with the efforts of Danish citizens to save their Jewish friends and neighbors from the Nazis during World War II. A second was for The Giver (1993), a fantasy/science-fiction book dealing with an oppressive cult. Anastasia Krupnik garnered no such awards, but it did engender numerous sequels; indeed, the Anastasia books have become like a series.

Series books are generally held in low regard by children’s literature critics, although there are exceptions. Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books are almost universally beloved, although whether these books could truly be classified as series in the same way as the Babysitter’s Club books is debatable. Whether the term “series” could apply to the Anastasia books is also questionable, but the novels have been so popular that Lowry had written a total of nine books in the group by 1996.

Unfortunately, books as smoothly written, as light, and as humorous as the Anastasia books seldom reach the consideration of Newbery Medal committees. Nevertheless, these novels are high in quality and have significance. Teachers and students might become aware of them for the pleasures and the values they impart. Anastasia herself is an interesting, rounded, realistic character, and she seems to have found a place in the hearts of many young readers.