One more thing: I have compiled my list of reviews of the 28 (no, I didn't quite make 30) YA books I read this semester. Anyone who wants one can have a copy.
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It's been awhile since I read the Giver, so the details are a little fuzzy, but I remember liking it very much. I also remember it reminding me of A Wrinkle in Time in amny respects. I'm a teacher, and whenever I hear my students bring it up, most of the feedback is positive.
Posts: 72 | Registered: Jan 2004
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I have to say at the time I read it (and re-read it over and over like I do to all books ) I really liked reading about all the aspects about the community and often got bored at the end. Anyways... more specifics on the question may help...
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It's a fascinating book.I like to think the kid made it at the end, to a better town. But I'm an optimist most of the time. I loved Life of Pi, especially how he wanted to be 3 different religions.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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This was actually my favorite book as a child.
It was very different from anything else I have read back then. The whole concept of a black and white world, where everyone's life is planned out according to the world's vision of conformity and organization was awesome. I also liked the idea of how they would examine every child from infanthood to twelve, to assign them jobs in accordance to where they fit. I also liked the "ceremonies" where according to their year, something would happen- like at age 7 or whatever, a child would receive a ribbon, and the next year a bike. The apprenticeships...neat incorporation!
"The Giver" and the concept of "The Giver" was the best part of the book. The world the author created was simply... imaginative! and very engrossing.
Maybe it was because I was young and was fairly oblivious to the world of SF and fantasy back then that I thought The Giver was so great. All I know is that I was crazy about this book as a child. If you haven't read it yet, then definitely give it a try.
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I'd also recommend Gathering Blue by her. It was quite wonderful, that book... Had an interesting lesson.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I liked how color was the first thing Jonah got to experience "beyond".
To be honest, I need to read it again to see if I understand the ending any better. Once reading it I was convinced that he died, the next time I knew for sure that he made it.
I read Brave New World my sophomore year. Similarities?
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I think what I liked best about it was how it unfolded. The community that seemed so perfect and ordered is gradually shown to have darker and darker aspects and lurking secrets.
When I read it, the ending seemed very reminiscent of H.C. Anderson's "The Little Match Girl" -- so I assumed that Jonas died in the snow. In fact, I had at least one passionate argument with someone else (another adult), who held the other view -- and convinced her of it, using specific lines in the text.
But the last time we discussed this book on Hatrack (almost a year ago, IIRC), someone linked to this:
quote: I will say that I find it an optimistic ending. How could it not be an optimistic ending, a happy ending, when that house is there with its lights on and music is playing? So I'm always kind of surprised and disappointed when some people tell me that they think that the boy and the baby just die. I don't think they die. What form their new life takes is something I like people to figure out for themselves. And each person will give it a different ending.
I was happy to be wrong. And I told the person I had (mistakenly) convinced.
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I didn't like it very much. Seemed like a watered-down Brave New World without the moral ambiguity.
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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The Giver is also one of my favorite YA books. I think I've read most of the Newberry books now. Most I have thoroughly enjoyed. I thought The Giver told a great moral lesson. I, too, thought the ending was ambiguous when I read it the first time, but the second time it was clear to me that the boy and baby lived and became part of the world as we know it.
Posts: 277 | Registered: Apr 2003
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An interesting bit to me was that the community relies on a person with psychic powers to maintain its utopia/dystopia... similar to how in Asimov's Foundation telepaths are the ones who make psychohistory really work... there's a trend in SF stories for writers to say that a stable utopia/dystopia can only be achieved by some extraordinary means like this. (Probably because the writers look at human history to now and see just how unstable we are...)
Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I studied The Giver a lot in middle school, so I kind of got fed up with it, but I definately liked it. I found it incredibly stressful to read, however, because losing memories (giving them away), even for good, tears me apart. It's a very vivid book though- and I like that Jonah sees RED first. What stunning colour to see first.
I'm in the optimistic camp about the ending.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I really like the Giver. I think it's a wonderful introduction to dystopias. Granted if you're reading it after reading stuff like Brave New World and 1984 you might not like it. But I think normally this book would be read before this. I also feel that Lowry is a great YA author and have read several of her books.
Posts: 872 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I don't find it that depressing (or unoptimistic) that they die at the end. The best dystopian novel I have yet to run across is We by Yevgeny Samyatin
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Did you read rivka's link? The author said it was an optimistic ending. She did not see them as dying at the end.
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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No I hadn't read it, but I have now. And While I admit that it has been quite sometime since I read the story, having them die at the end seem to make it all fit together better.
Posts: 1458 | Registered: Feb 2001
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BTW, I agree with the recommendation of Gathering Blue. This book is directly related to the theme of The Giver. The protagonist, Kira, lives in a different village, also a dystopia, apparently in the same world as Jonas (though he does not appear in the story).
There is a new book, out this month, that links the two books, The Messenger. It is currently featured on the homepage of Lois Lowry's website.
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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I remember reading The Giver in middle school, I loved that book, I remember we spent a month reading the book in class...and I had gone ahead and finished it around the third day after we got it. Satyagraha
Posts: 1986 | Registered: Apr 2001
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To my shame, I haven't read this... but can I see the reviews please Brinestone? Email address in profile I think, but if not then it's amira_tharani@hotmail.com.
Posts: 1550 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
I read The Giver last year, on the recommendation of my niece who loved it. I think they died in the snow, (or that the good place they made it to in the end is not in this life, whatever else it may have been.) The reason I think that is that the place was too exactly like the one in the dream/vision/memory he had. Yet it is still true. I like it that the end was left as it was, for sure, so that you can bring your own story to the book. That actually makes the book, in my mind, leaving it like that.
It's true that I think this is a good book for kids, while my favorite kids' books (Heidi, The Jungle Book, Winnie the Pooh (original version NOT DISNEY), Charlotte's Web, Little Women, etc.) are just plain good books with no qualifiers, so I can understand those who felt it was lacking something.
I like how the world seems utopian at first, then you gradually feel more and more uneasy about how things are, until in the end you would do anything, even die, to break free. It reminds me of the Worthing Saga, because I think they both address the problem of pain, or of evil. The question is do you want to be happy or do you want the whole truth? And in the end the truth is the only acceptable answer.
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I'll have to read The Gathering Blue again, I never realised that it was in the same world as The Giver (The Giververse?)
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I liked The Giver a lot. The ending was very similar to the ending of Radio Flyer. Talk about ambiguity.
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I hated the ending, I guess I'm just the kind of person who wants to be told by the author everything that happens instead of interpreting it for myself.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Well, I do believe that there should be special disclaimers for all books that make you have to think for yourself. I'll read them, but I don't want to be thinking I'm going to get the real story, and then I have to make one up myself.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I loved The Giver. I think in a way it made me compare it to a child growing into an adult -- when kids are young they tend to see the world very "black & white", right and wrong, and very happy. Then as they mature and get older, they realize life is not always a simple as they thought, and not very perfect.
I liked the book so much that I offered to donate it to my kids' school library (K-8 school) when I realized they didn't have a copy of it. The librarian really bristled, though, we I offered The Giver and refused the donation, saying "I will NOT have that horrible book in my library!"
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) I really liked reading about all the aspects about the community and often got bored at the end. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Anyways... more specifics on the question may help...![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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