Giver

I found this book listed in an article titled 25 Best Science Fiction Books for Kids. It won the Newbery Medal in 1994. The story follows Jonas, a boy living in what seems like a perfect community where pain, conflict, and difference have been erased. As Jonas begins training with the Receiver of Memories, he learns the hidden truths about his society and starts questioning the cost of sameness and control.

One of the book's greatest strengths is its ability to introduce complex themes like individuality, freedom, and emotional depth in a way that is accessible to young readers. Lowry's simple, but powerful, writing style gradually builds suspense and encourages readers to think critically about society and human experiences. The character development of Jonas is very effective because readers witness his growth as he gains knowledge and empathy. The novel presents a community that intentionally removes cultural, racial, and personal differences in order to create 'sameness'. While Jonas appears to come from a white society, the lack of diversity is actually central to Lowry's message about the dangers of eliminating individuality and cultural identity. The book opens opportunities for discussions about why diversity is important.

A strong literacy related classroom use for this novel would be a Socratic circle that focused on essential questions such as "Is sameness ever worth sacrificing freedom?" or "Why are memories important to humanity?" Students could also compare the society in the novel to real world communities and practice citing text evidence to support their ideas.

Ordinarily, I’m not a huge fan of the YA Dystopian genre. Reading this story, I think I finally realised why that is: they’re all poor imitations of this one!

Just kidding. They’re actually quite different.

In most modern YA Dystopian stories, we’re told “the way things are” over a few pages, early in the story. Most of these stories are also told in the first person (often through the eyes of a teenage girl), and they’re presented in a way that intends to disgust and revolt us straight away. The situation is unequivocably, irrevocably bad, it needs to change as soon as possible, and the protagonist is going to be the one to do it.

You’re told what to think and how to feel about the state of the world.

This story’s different. It’s told in third person, and focusses on Jonas, a regular kid of approximately eleven years old (I say “approximately” because nobody really knows exactly how old they are or when their individual birthday is). The author describes the way the world works, and the rules under which Jonas and his peers live, very matter-of-factly. Jonas himself has no particular feelings about whether they’re good or bad; they just are.

You as the reader aren’t encouraged to have any feelings about whether they’re good or bad either. You get to make up your own mind. The various cultural norms and expectations are also unwrapped slowly over the course of the book.

That you’re allowed to make up your own mind gives you the freedom to feel like some things are actually good. For a good chunk of the beginning of the book, I thought, “Oh, that’s not so bad!” or “Hmm, okay, I can see how that might be useful,” and it wasn’t until Chapter Five that I read something and really went, “Oh, heell no!”

That’s powerful storytelling, because it shows how insidious things can be. How seemingly innocuous things, left unchecked, can escalate to where nobody understands how they got there and no idea how to fix it.

Like many YA Dystopian stories, Jonas starts out feeling apprehensive about a big upcoming event. Unlike many YA Dystopian stories, his anxiety doesn’t devolve into the over-the-top teenage angst we find in so many modern YA stories: “OMG! OMG! My life is over! The sky is falling! What am I going to do now?! Nothing’s ever going to be the same again!”

Please.

No. Jonas is apprehensive, and a little anxious, but he’s also excited. He knows that he’s about to go through what his father went through when he was an Eleven. What his mother went through. What his younger sister will go through in a few years’ time.

It isn’t the end of the world. Nor is it particularly good or bad. It just is.

This is such a refreshing story, I honestly can’t think of a single bad thing to say about it. I’ve heard it described as the story that started the YA Dystopian genre. I can believe it, and I can safely say that while there have been many imitations, there’s never been one to rival The Giver.

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