| "THE GIVER"
Author: Lois Lowry
Interest Level: Upper Middle Grades (6-8)
ATOS Reading Level: 5.7
AR Points: 7.0
Publisher Recommended Age: Young Adult
Publisher: Random House/Laurel Leaf
Book Type: Paperback
Pages: 192
Notes: Mature content
Book Description:
The Giver is set in a future society which is at first presented as a utopian society and gradually appears more and more dystopian; therefore, it could be considered anti-utopian. The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the twelfth year of his life. The society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to "Sameness", a plan which has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. Jonas is selected to inherit the position of "Receiver of Memory," the person who stores all the memories of the time before Sameness, in case they are ever needed to aid in decisions that others lack the experience to make. As Jonas receives the memories from his predecessor—the "Giver"—he discovers how shallow his community's life has become.
Despite controversy and criticism that the book's subject material is inappropriate for young children, The Giver won the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold more than 5.3 million copies. In Australia, the United States and Canada it is a part of many middle school reading lists, but it is also on many banned book lists.
The novel forms a loose trilogy with Gathering Blue (2000) and Messenger (2004), two other books set in the same future era.
Book Reviews:
School Library Journal: "This tightly plotted story and its believable characters will stay with readers for a long time." Grades 6-9
Book Awards:
USA: Newbery 1994
USA: William Allen White Award 1996
USA: Boston Globe-Horn, Book Honor
USA: Regina, Medal
USA: Booklist Editors' Choice
USA: School Library Journal, Best Book of the Year
USA: American Library Association, listings for "Best Book for Young Adults", "Notable Children's Book", and "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000"
About the Author:
Lois Lowry (born Lois Ann Hammersburg on March 20, 1937) is an author of children's literature who has been awarded the Newbery Medal twice: first for Number the Stars in 1990, and again in 1994 for The Giver, a widely-known and controversial work.
Lois Lowry was born March 20, 1937, in Honolulu, Hawaii to parents Robert and Katherine (Landis) Hammersberg. Initially, Lois' parents named her "Sena" for her Norwegian grandmother but upon hearing this, her grandmother telegraphed and instructed Lois' parents that the child should have an American name. Her parents chose the names Lois and Ann, which were the names of her father's sisters.
Lowry was born the middle of three children. She had an older sister, Helen, and a younger brother Jon. Helen, three years older than Lois, died in 1962 at the age of 28. This experience informed Lowry's first book A Summer to Die which is about a young girl who tragically loses her older sister (which is also a subplot of Number the Stars).
Lowry entered Brown University in 1954. She attended for two years until her marriage at age 19 to Donald Lowry, a U.S. Navy officer, in 1956. Together they had four children: daughters Alix and Kristin, and sons Grey and Benjamin. The Lowrys moved quite frequently in their early years of marriage due to Donald's military career.
As her children became older, Lowry found time to complete her degree in English literature from the University of Maine in Portland in 1972. After earning her B.A., she pursued graduate studies at her alma mater. It was during this coursework that she was introduced to photography, which became a life-long passion as well as a profession.
In 1979, Lowry began her Anastasia series of books with Anastasia Krupnik, the story of a precocious and quirky 10-year-old girl (based, in part, upon Lowry's own daughters) who wants to be a writer. Lowry would go on to write seven sequels to this book including Anastasia Has the Answers in 1986 and Anastasia at This Address in 1991; and five further books about Anastasia's brother Sam.
Lowry would go on to write several more books, including Number the Stars in 1989 and The Giver in 1993. "Number the Stars" tells the story of a young Danish girl and her Jewish bestfriend growing up in Nazi controlled Denmark. "The Giver" is about a boy, Jonas, coming to grips with the fact the the "Utopia" he lives in is far from perfect.
Many of Lowry's works deal with somber topics, but Lowry manages to mix the comic and the tragic skillfully in a way that makes them enticing to readers both young and old. Following her characters as they cope with hard times, often with humor, helps her readers face the same issues.
Lowry said the following of her own writing: "My books have varied in content and style. Yet it seems that all of them deal, essentially, with the same general theme: the importance of human connections. ... I try, through writing, to convey my passionate awareness that we live intertwined on this planet and that our future depends upon our caring more, and doing more, for one another." |
