They love ‘em like no bunnies business
May 21, 2014
Bagel more than breakfast
May 21, 2014
Do you remember the books that were mandatory readings when you were a kid? Usually these readings were classics or award-winning titles, which, when you’re a child, don’t have much appeal. If you were like me and had a choice from a list of books, you went to the library and looked at how many pages each title had and selected the one with fewest pages. Well, somehow I went through grade school without ever reading the Newbery Medal title The Giver by Lois Lowry and decided I’d give it a shot now. I’ve got to say, I enjoyed this book so much, I had to read it twice. I’m almost ashamed that’s it taken me so long to review it.
The Giver is set in a world where everything appears perfect – no war, no sadness, no pain. Everyone receives equal treatment and identical gifts. For example, when children turn 9 years old, they each receive a bicycle. Families are allowed no more than two children – a boy and a girl. There are rules, and the rules are to be followed, which is believed to keep things fair and balanced, creating “sameness.” Emotions like anger and anxiety are not expressed and only talked about at night among family members, who help one another sort through these inappropriate feelings. As extreme as this world seems, everyone appears happy, because the community knows no world beyond their own – a world with choices resulting in emotional complexity.
Whenever children turn 12, they are issued their career by a governing board. The main character Jonas is given the duty of the Receiver of Memories. Within his community, there is only one person with this duty, unlike the occupations revolving around fields like medicine and law. He undergoes training from the current Receiver of Memories who will be released once the training is complete. Jonas is both enlightened and troubled to learn the truth about his community, finding out that much of what he knows is a complete lie. He is even baffled by the concepts of love, pain, and excitement as he feels these emotions for the first time.
While I enjoyed nearly every aspect of this book, I felt it was too short. Even though this title is the first of a quartet, I’m still disappointed by the length of the book because the other titles feature different characters. It’s like Lowry was rushed to complete the text within the last couple of chapters. Its length probably has more to do with the title’s audience, which is geared toward a fourth or fifth graders but actually attracts young-adult readers because of the currently trendy dystopian genre. Don’t let your age stop you from reading this great story though! Even with these few disappointments, I found this book to be incredibly enlightening, compressing a great deal of truth into a mere 200 pages. Ultimately, the message and truth buried in this book overpowered my struggle with the debatably unresolved story.
If you’re a fan of the dystopian genre and enjoy books like the Hunger Games and Divergent trilogies, this book is most certainly for you. The Giver was written before dystopian books were “cool,” so it’s interesting to compare this novel from 1993 with other, more current works. I can’t think of any reasons to not read this book, as I think everyone can take something from it. And for you movie-book buffs who like to brag about reading the book before the movie, The Giver film will be in theaters in August 2014, so you still have time!
– Rachel LeCompte is a library lover who enjoys nothing more than a good book with a strong cup of coffee. S he may not be saving lives like doctors (and Superman), but she’ll do her best to save literature – the enrichment to life.
Author Lois Lowry was ahead of her time when she penned the dystopian novel “The Giver.” Now that Hunger Games and Divergent have proven to be box-offi ce draws, “The Giver” arrives in theaters in August.
