Blog 19: The Giver

Anticipating

I do not think that I have ever read The Giver. The reason I am unsure is because the book description sounds so familiar, but I cannot recall actually reading the book. I, unfortunately, have the memory of a goldfish, so it’s not so surprising that I cannot remember. I read some reviews on Barnes&Noble.com and Amazon.com, they all say the same thing: The Giver is AMAZING, but skip the rest of the series. (I did not know it was part of a series, until reading this.) From the description, I feel like it may be similar to the movie Pleasantville. The description sounded similar to the movie in the sameness, and then discovering that everyone has differences. The issue came up in class when discussing the “Of Wands and Wizards” class post that there are relationship and boy/girl issues in this book also. I will be sure to keep an eye out for them so that we can discuss it J.

PS: I love love love Number the Stars, also by Lois Lowry. It is amazing and beautifully written, but keep a box of tissues handy. I am hoping that this book is just as good.

Notable Moment

At first, I thought that Jonas’s vision blurriness with the apple and everyone faces was going to be a cancer or a need for glasses. Something that would make him stand out to the community as ‘different’. I was way off. But what it actually was makes a lot of sense once The Giver explains it.

“Let me try one more thing. Look over there, to the bookcase. Do you see the very top row of books, the ones behind the table, on the top shelf?”

Jonas sought them with his eyes. He stared at them, and they changed. But the change was fleeting. It slipped away the next instant.

“It happened,” Jonas said. “It happened to the books, but it went away again.”

“I’m right then,” The Giver said. “You’re beginning to see the color red.”

“The what?”

The Giver sighed. “How to explain this? Once, back in the time of the memories, everything had a shape and size, the way things still do, but they also had a quality called color.”

I did not realize until this moment in the book that nothing had color! I guess my feeling about the book being similar to the Pleasantville movie were closer than I realized. The concept of sameness and rules is brought up a lot in the book prior to this quote, but how extreme it was it a bit scary. I cannot even imagine a world without color. Cars, TV and cleaning the kitchen I could definitely get used to, but no books or color just sounds like torture, not sameness.

Analysis

I must admit that I went thru quite a few tissues while reading this book. I loved it, but thought it was maybe a bit mature and serious for a 4^th grade audience. The concept behind the book was very interesting though. With all the fighting, wars, and other issues we have today, it is not surprising that the idea of a world without these issues should come up. I can’t figure out though how they got everyone to see everything in black and white, but then everyone had to take a pill for stirrings. Obviously there has been some genetic something going on. They could suppress the brain from seeing color and feeling love and pain, but could not suppress the feelings of wanting. It seemed to me like the idea was thrown into the story after. The stirrings never go beyond dreams for Jonas, and it does not contribute anything to the story that is incredibly significant. I think it is a great topic for discussion though. With all young children, the beginnings of feelings toward the opposite sex are an issue. I do not agree with the books message to suppress these feelings however. I get that maybe the author is saying to wait until you have the wisdom and understanding to better comprehend these feelings before acting on them, like when Jonas decided to stop taking the pills, but the overall message of hiding feelings is upsetting to me. That should not be something we teach children. They need to be taught to understand the feelings, then to control them on their own.