The Giver

This book is amazing and deserves the Newberry award. I always loved how Lowry gives enough description that you can imagine every scene in your head. I also love how she was able to give each character something so that it was not just about Jonas and the Giver, but all of the characters. I really like how Lowry created a world where everything is the same and there is no color, it gives insight to the saying "I do not see color" when referring to race. It shows the world if they literally cannot see color, feel pain, or even make decisions of who they are. The people in the Community do not get to choose their child's name, or what they do in their lives for an occupation. If they do something against the rules, then they would get a consequence. It really shows what a world would look like in perfect harmony and equality. It also shows what we lose from gaining equality. An example of how the community has rules to make sure everything is perfect, is the use of specific language. They cannot use the word "starving" for example, as shown in the book when Jonas got chastised, because they are not actually starving, they told him that he had to say hungry. Another example is on page 159-160 when the mom said "Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it's become almost obsolete" that was over the word "love" the society has been so equalized that the word love has lost its meaning in each of the family units. Overall, my favorite book 10/10 would read again!!

This book, The Giver, Jonas is given the task as receiver to feel emotions and memories of the past. The Giver is trying to help him see what the world was like before the sameness happened. The more he receives from the giver, the more questions and concerns Jonas develops. The Giver is a dystopian world that is full of the same and dull individuals. It has some qualitative and quantitative methods of helping the reader figure out the message or bigger meaning hidden within the text and being a good amount of length to get the message across. The bigger meaning being that no one is the same and shouldn’t be. Also, memory is important and shouldn’t be suppressed. Memory is history and history can repeat itself if we don’t pass that information onto the next generations. Which can help the reader take in consideration of what we thought we knew and what we know now. It also allows the readers to know that it’s okay to ask questions and be curious, but most important to be yourself. Some people might think it’s too mature for young readers due to the pain, emotions, and hidden means including some sexual references, but it’s a good story and teaches young readers to be themselves and be interested in the history of our world. This book won the John Newberry Medal. After reading it, I can see why it won. The Giver is a great read and good for educational purposes in school!

What is the ideal society that you can imagine? Would you like to be happy? Does a society with no war, no disease, no pain or suffering appeal to you? Would you like to have someone else choose a very compatible mate for you and not have to worry about dating? How would you like a job that is guaranteed and is enjoyable and fits your interests and personality? The Giver is about such a society. What is the trade-off? What is missing in the people’s lives? The Giver is a very thought-provoking book.Jonas lives in this community. His thought his childhood was delightful. However, at age 12, he knows he will be assigned a job. He is apprehensive about the prospect. What does he really want to do? He is not sure. Everyone in the community is assigned an occupation that suits his or her abilities. In a special ceremony, children who turn 12 years old in a given year are grouped together. He sits in the auditorium and watches and listens as all the other children in his age group are assigned jobs. Jonas is the only one left without an assignment. Is something wrong?At the end of the ceremony, he is finally called up and told he is to be a “Receiver”. This is the highest honor. He is to be trained by the Giver. The Giver is the only one in the society that has any sense of history; he is the depository of memories. The others live only in the present. The Giver is to transfer his memories of the human race to Jonas, for the Giver is old and tired and needs to be replaced.This society is one of conformity. “Sameness” is fostered and rewarded. All the houses are identical. Haircuts, dress and activities are strictly regimented. Everyone sees grayness; no one even sees colors. Only the separate job assignments differentiate the members. They are told how to act; they are told how to live. Everyone takes a pill to keep all passion at bay. Only superficial discussions of one’s feelings are allowed; only certain feelings are appropriate. The people know vaguely about “Elsewhere”, the outside world, but they stay in the Community and do as they are told.When Jonas starts receiving memories from the Giver, he experiences pain and suffering but also love and freedom of choice. He also begins to see the world in color. He is told he can lie about his training and not tell anyone what he is experiencing. Jonas is careful of what he says at home now. When he is asked if he dreams, he says “no”, because his dreams would not be acceptable. He does not tell them that he has stopped taking the pill to suppress passion. His feelings and emotions grow, and he tries to hide these from his family and the others in the Community. The Giver is the only person who knows what he is going through. Jonas thinks the other people in the Community tell the truth about their jobs. Then one day, the Giver allows him to watch a video recording of his father at work with his job taking care of infants. Jonas had always thought his Dad liked the infants that were in his care. This view was reinforced since his father brought home an infant named Gabriel who needed some extra care. Gabriel was not learning to sleep through the night; he was different than the other infants in the ward. If he did not learn to sleep through the night he would be RELEASED. Jonas soothes the boy to sleep by acting as Giver and sending the child peaceful thoughts. The child does not sleep when he is in the new infant ward, however. Jonas learns that Gabriel is to be RELEASED.In the infant ward, twins have been born. Twins are not allowed in the Community. Only one of the twins can be kept. The other is be RELEASED. Jonas watches as his father weighs each of the twins and sets aside the smaller of the two. Then his father calmly injects the smaller twin in the head with a lethal chemical. The boy dies. Jonas is devastated. He had always looked up to his father. Jonas now knows what RELEASED means. He had thought that those who were RELEASED, including the disabled and the elderly went to a heavenly place in another community. Jonas now knows that RELEASED means death. Shocked and scared, Jonas knows that his father has been lying to everyone about what he does. Is everyone lying about his or her work?Jonas is disillusioned and decides to leave the Community, something that is forbidden. He realizes that the Community is a horrible place; it is a dystopia, not a Utopia. Jonas hoards some leftover food (all leftover food must be put out in front of each house) and prepares for the right opportunity.The Giver helps him escape. He escapes with Gabriel and is pursued by helicopters. Freezing and nearly starving, they reach a hill and look down upon a lit up house below. A family is sitting cozily in a living room with a lovely Christmas tree. The scene is a memory that Jonah had received from the Giver. Is this real or is it just a memory? Are Jonah and Gabriel safe in “Elsewhere” or are they dead?What information is kept from us in today’s world? It is easy to see distortions of truth in our media. Misinformation is spread rapidly though the Internet as well as television, and, probably, our newspapers. We see many different cultures in the world, and they all have their version of reality.Medical doctors often give tranquilizers and antidepressants to dull patients’ emotions. There is some parallel here to the pill that every 12 year-old child in the Community must start to take daily to get rid of passionate feelings. Does not great art and music need passion and intense feelings to be inspired?

I bought this book for my son but I was so intrigued by it that I decided to read it myself. It's a cracking little book that kept me glued to the pages and I couldn't put it down until I had read it from cover to cover! To be honest, this didn't take long as it's a fairly short book and the language is reasonably simple. I think it's probably aimed at pre-teens or early teens.The main protagonist, Jonas, is coming to the age where he becomes an adult within the 'community' that he and his family and friends live in. However, things are not as they seem and the direction of the book takes a deep, dark turn and Jonas starts to see things in a different light....I won't say much more than that as I don't want to spoil it but let the above intrigue you enough to buy and read this book! It's an easy read and the story sticks with you.

Although this novel was published about 25 years ago, it has an immediacy that makes it timeless. Primarily targeted as a children’s book, it manages to captivate both young and old readers with its identifiable dystopian themes. An ordinary boy, Jonas, in an ordinary nuclear family unit, soon finds out what he had taken for normalcy and safety stems from a much more sinister design. There is something disconcerting about the Sameness that defines the entire community, with strictly regulated progress at every age as a child, each year marked by a formal ceremony, right from the time he was “born”, or rather assigned to a family, to the time he turns twelve.The community regulates its population with systematic “Release” of their elderly and genetically weak “Newchilds” to “Elsewhere”. What’s probably most eerie is the lack of deep emotions, the tightly-reined speech and language, and appropriate behaviour expected of everyone in fulfilling their roles apparently cheerfully and without contest or discontentment. Jonas begins to question this reality and sets himself apart when he is assigned a specific role to play that would tear his whole world apart.It is to Lowry’s credit that she creates this preternaturally-perfect little community in a simple manner, which would not be difficult for a child to imagine and process, and yet arouse uneasy feelings that forces the reader to confront established values and ways of living that he may have taken for granted without question. As a speculative novel, it is highly disturbing for the way it is entirely believable as a possible future.

An absolutely outstanding short read. This has been in my TBR pile for 6 months and in a way I'm gutted I left it so long to read. What a phenomally well written short story from the perspective of a 12 year old boy living in a society where they value sameness and rules. Despite being written from a child's perspective there is nothing childish about this writing style. It is informed, engaging, it is exceptionally good at the slow reveal and completely heartbreaking at the same time. Really makes you think, particularly in relation to totalitarian regimes

Jonas 11yrs lived with his parents and his sister Lily, his father was a Nurturer of small children, mother worked at the Dept of Justice, father brought one baby home, Gabriel, he was a little behind the other children and needed some family life, Lily wanted to keep him but only one boy and girl were allowed, the society they lived in had no memories, everything was one colour, children at 12yrs are told what employment they would do, Jonas was shocked to find he had been given the most important one, he was apprenticed to the Receiver who was responsible for all memories of the societyHe could discuss nothing of what he learnt or the memories he was given, he was given good memories of snow and sunshine but also given memories of pain and torture, each time he received a memory the Receiver lost it to Jonas, father was trying to decide which of twin boys were to be nurtured and which was to be release, Jonas had heard this word before when old people are released, he asks the Receiver who tells him, Jonas is totally shocked

Step by step Lois Lowry draws you into Jonas' world that of his family who live somewhere in the world, simply referred to as the community, sometime in the (distant?) future. Jonas is approaching the ceremony of the twelves where children start to become adults and the role in the community is chosen.As we learn more and more about the society in which Jonas lives it because increasingly dark and troubling more and more of a dystopia rather than a utopia.As this is a book for young adults the language is simple and the book itself is reactively short. This does not mean that the book itself is either simply of lightweight. It ask profound question about our own society and indeed all societies. I would highly recommend it to any Young adult, maybe over the age of thirteen as some of the ideas raised I would also say that any adult reader would probably find lots in it to make them think. And it is certainly an engaging read.I found Jonas' voice utterly realistic though out that the subtle way in which he starts to see the word differently is beautifully conveyed.