You could see it in his eyes and feel it in his touch...

The Giver. 0-395-64566-2. Lois Lowry. 1993. Newbery Award. Ages 10-16. Fantasy. Caucasian white middle class.

Jonas lives in a small village where the community is based on peace, order, and “sameness.” People appear to live a perfect and happy existence. Each family is given one boy and one girl. Apologies are commonplace. Younger members care for the elderly until their “release.” At the December Ceremony, each child up to the age of twelve grows one year older and is given more responsibility. During the Ceremony of Twelves, blue-eyed Jonas receives his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory, which changes his life forever.

When he begins receiving memories from the man identified as the Giver, Jonas realizes that his world is not so perfect. He experiences moments of joy, like riding a sled in the snow, and moments of suffering, from a simple sunburn to the difficult pain of war. As he begins to see colors and develop emotions, Jonas understands that a society without color and emotion is not ideal. He learns the truth about his world, that his people have no choices, no true feelings, and no love in their lives.

After realizing that “release” is simply another name for murder, Jonas decides to change his world. He devises a plan with the Giver to escape to Elsewhere on the eve of the December Ceremony to release all the memories to the people themselves. The plan changes when Jonas finds out that his father plans to “release” his family’s foster-child Gabriel, to whom Jonas has become attached. The story ends as Jonas escapes with Gabriel, sledding towards the lights, love and music below.

Young adults who read The Giver can start a lively discussion about the lives of children on our society as compared to the life Jonas leads. They may touch on the concepts of growing up and responsibility and even tough choices one has to make for the good of society.

Lowry does a great job of bringing very relatable characters to life in the Giver and Jonas. The Giver really does have a humanity that no one else in the story has; he worries about Jonas, misses his daughter, and loves the people of his community. Jonas has the inquisitiveness, dependability, and morality that helps readers sympathize and root for him as he is able to and goes against the rules of the community.

I especially like how Lowry contrasted the setting of a seemingly perfect town and society with the underlying ugly truth of release, making it integral to the plot. Only in a town created by people who are trying to take away all that is bad in the world can all the good also be taken away, and sometimes the bad remains. This world of sameness helped made many of Lowry's themes more impactful.

Lowry’s themes are layered throughout the story. The theme of the importance of having emotions and memories is probably the most obvious. Although this idealistic society does not experience pain, suffering and sadness, we see through the Giver’s and Jonas’ eyes that it is not necessarily a better choice than one with the full range of human emotions because you lose all the good emotions and memories too. People need to make choices, learn from their mistakes so that they can find true joy in their lives. Another theme that Lowry shows her readers is the importance of our own society which values the individual rather than the collective. Even in the description of Jonas’ eyes, the reader see Jonas is different from others in his society. Lowry does a wonderful job of developing this character who learns the truth and then questions why his society is so obedient, like in the incident with the plane overhead. Later, through his training, his interactions with his foster brother and finally their escape, Jonas’ individualism shines through. The readers see that being unique is a goal to strive for that helps, not hurts, others. Finally, Jonas makes courageous choices when willingly receives memories of pain and suffering and later when he leaves his community and journeys into the unknown. These are just a few of the many themes that Lowry has infused so well into her writing.

The Giver could be used in a middle school or high school setting to discuss our individualistic society as compared to other society models, like that of Nazi Germany, and the one in The Giver. I could see using this in conjunction with the other book that we read this week, Number the Stars. This could extend in any classroom into a discussion on the advantages of diversity in society and the world. Finally, the fact that Lowry leaves the ending to the reader to interpret could lead to a class discussion about cliffhangers in stories, leading them to develop their own stories with cliffhangers or to write their own ending to the story.