The Giver – Lois Lowry
180 pages; Copyright 1993
Age range: Older children [6th grade and up]
Review by Richard Sanders

Several reviews ago, this column referenced a scary little book called The Skeleton Man. This week’s review concerns a science-fiction/fantasy novel that’s even more chilling in its near-plausibility. The setting is an almost totally homogenous pseudo-suburban community somewhere/sometime in the future. The society’s control of the individual is almost complete, and there are rigid rules for literally every single aspect of daily life – language, clothing, family, even emotion – with sanctions and punishments for rule-breakers… but rule-breakers are very rare. Everyone wants to fit in… and seems happy to do so.

The young hero, Jonas, undergoes his Ceremony of Twelve, at which all the 12-year-olds of the community receive their Assignment – the career path at which they will work for the rest of their lives. Jonas has been concerned about what his Assignment will be – he hasn’t noticed any special gifts or talents within himself, except something odd about his vision, sometimes – and he is as surprised as any in the community when he is named as the community’s new Receiver of Memory. This is a prestigious, but very mysterious, job. The Receiver holds all of the community’s collective memories of the past, back to ancient times. He and his memories are consulted by the community Elders on controversial issues… and now Jonas will be the new one.

He becomes the Receiver, and the former Receiver becomes the Giver, and what he gives Jonas are… memories. At first the memories are pleasant: warmth, and fun and family, but later, Jonas is given memories of pain, and war, and famine, and all of the other experiences that the rest of his community has given up. Jonas begins to feel alienated from his community and family, because he now knows things that they will never understand and has experienced emotions that they can never feel, and he realizes what the people have given up for the sake of “Sameness” – the key concept for life in the community. But Jonas doesn’t feel completely alienated until he observes the unspoken truth behind the rituals – where do people go when they are “released” from the community? And what happens to children who don’t fit in? When he finds out, he has to take drastic, and heroic, action.

The Giver contains some genuinely startling moments, as Jonas’ mind is expanded and he realizes what he’s been missing, not by his own choice. The book is as frightening and thought-provoking as a lot of adult books [George Orwell’s 1984 comes to mind], and yet is written so that young readers can easily understand the implications of a society where thought and emotion are controlled, and differences are not just frowned upon, but are actually illegal.

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Richard R. Sanders
Director - Hart County Library