Books With Bean ~ The Giver

Title: The Giver: Giver Quartet Book One

Author: Lois Lowry

Published: 1993

Genre: Sci-Fi, Post Apocalyptic,

Summary: Jonas is nearing the time for his ceremony of 12. A time in his community when children start to become adults and get their jobs. He is apprehensive because while a lot of his friends seem to fit so well in the different jobs in the community he doesn’t know what job he might get. When the ceremony comes the children get their jobs one by one, his caring friend Fiona, will work in the house of the old, his fun loving friend Asher will help with games for the younger children, but when the Chief Elder gets to Jonas' number she skips over him. Jonas is worried, had he done something wrong? When she gets done with the last child the Chief Elder tells the crowd why she skipped over Jonas. He had not been assigned a job, Jonas had been selected to be the Receiver of Memory, an important but secretive job in the community. Jonas is a bit confused at first but when he goes to the annex where the current Receiver of Memory lives he learns that his job will be to keep all the memories of before. From before the sameness they live in now, back when the world had color and seasons, hills and valleys. But Jonas soon learns that while there are many good things that were done away with when the community decide to go to sameness there is also a lot of bad. War and famine scare Jonas at first, but knowing that this is his job he continues to take the memories from the Giver. As he learns Jonas begins to see his world in a totally new way and begins to feel different from the people around him, even his best friends from childhood. But it is not until he learns a dark secret of his community that he begins to wonder if he can help change the world for the better with his new found wisdom.

What I liked about it: I liked the wording style, and I liked Jonas. The Giver is an interesting man and I found the world and setting very interesting. It feels very real and I honestly could see our world at least trying to become like that in the future which made it more believable as a story. The problems that the community tried to solve are real problems but the author shows us while sameness sounds good at first and seems like it would be good there is always bad with the good and no society no matter how hard they try is perfect.

Language: None

Romance: Jonas begins to have feelings he can’t quite discribe for his friend Fiona, however once these feelings start he is given a pill and they go away.

Violence: There are a few parts where he receives memories of war and violence but these are brief, and while they are there to show Jonas all of what the world was like before they are not overly graphic.

Magic: None

Recommended Age: Jonas is almost 12 when the book starts and while I think that is a good age to start I would not really recommend it any younger as I don’t think a younger child would be able to grasp and understand what is really going on in the book.