One community, one book.

That was the idea behind the Centre County Reads (CCR) program, which welcomed two-time Newbery Medal winner Lois Lowry to town Saturday night at State College Area High School.

The author took the stage at 7:45 p.m. and was welcomed by an enthusiastic crowd of several hundred children and adults.

Lowry started her speech with recounting her day's journey from Boston to State College.

"I'm going to tell you about my journey today not because other people's traveling [experiences] are that interesting but because it's the stuff that makes stories," Lowry explained, as she told of missing a flight and being booted from numerous other ones.

The group eagerly listened, for the next hour, to the author talk about her day, her life and the thought process behind her many books. The talk was, however, focused on The Giver.

The idea behind the book came to Lowry in the early '90s when she watched her parents die slowly; her father losing his memory, her mother losing her physical health.

After one particular visit, she asked herself, "what if we could take a pill or get a shot with which we could forget all the bad memories and only remember the good ones?"

From this idea, the book was born, Lowry said.

After her speech she took questions from the audience. Many children bombarded her with questions like:

"What happens to Gabrielle at the end of The Giver?"

"Is Jonas' dad supposed to be evil?"

"Are you writing another book?"

Paige Fry, a sixth grader at Mount Nittany Middle School, enjoyed hearing about how Lowry comes up with ideas for her books.

"I liked how she said she used stories from her life to tell fictional stories," Fry said.

After her speech, Lowry signed books that were available to buy from Barnes & Noble.

CCR, in its second year, is an all-volunteer-run organization that aims to have everyone in the county read the same book in the fall.

Last year's pick was To Kill A Mockingbird, a book banned in certain regions of the county, followed by this year's The Giver by Lowry, another controversial pick.

Dotty Delafield, CCR chair and Mount Nittany Middle School librarian, said the book was picked because it has significance to people of all ages.

"We're all either going through adolescence or have been through it," Delafield said. "[Lowry] seems to be able to take issues that come along in adolescence and bring them to life. But it's not just adolescent issues, it's issues that resonate with people throughout their lives."

Parents who brought their children were equally excited about Lowry's visit.

"She is a really great writer [because] she writes books that are accessible to children with fairly mature themes," Amy Allison said. "She can be funny, witty and probing all within one book."