The Willoughbys

The Willoughbys

Lois Lowry

©2010

176 Pages

Ages 9-12

Summary

The Willoughbys is the story of four siblings who decide that they would be better off as orphans. The sad part about it is that they were right. Though the siblings are not perfect, their parents are no where near the fact. To be honest, their parents despised three of the children and did not even remember that they had a fourth. When a baby mysteriously turns up on the children's front porch, the mother proceeds to cut off all of its beautiful blonde curls and tells the children to get rid of it. They take it to a nice looking house and place it on the doorstep. The old man who lived in the house had lived in squalor for the past few years. His life was a mess mainly due to the fact that he had lost his wife and his son when their train car was buried under an avalanche. However, with the arrival of the little baby girl, the ld man began to pull himself out or squalor. The Willoughby children came up with a plan in which they would send their parents off on a vacation from which they would not return (as happened in so many old fashioned stories). Unfortunately, after every turn of events their parents managed to survive. While their parents were away, the children were taken care of by a Nanny whom they came to adore. When the parents sold their house out from underneath the children, they were forced to leave. They sought refuge with the old man who took in the baby girl and lived there with two people who loved them while their parents ended up dying trying to climb an unclimbable mountain.