The Giver is about a village of the future: no war, no fear, and no pain. Everything is the same. Nobody can have their own thoughts. Not a soul can have real emotions, or as they call it, “Stirrings,” or they will have to take pills. The village gets scared they will get discovered. Or bombed. Or blown up. Every day is identical. All kids will have the same birthday and kids are assigned jobs at the age of twelve. But when Jonas gets singled out to get training from the Giver, things will never be the same again. The Giver holds the true pain and joys of the world. Now Jonas will know, too. There’s no turning back. Nothing will ever be the same again.

I think The Giver is a marvelous book that teaches us all a very important lesson that some people forget; it’s good to be different. Everybody has something different about them, like their clothes, hair, or skin color, but that’s what makes you special. This book also tells us something else about what we take for granted: appreciate what you have. This book spoke to me on this lesson, and I wrote it down on a piece of paper and stuck it in the book so whenever I open it, I’ll be reminded of this lesson. This book reminded me of these lessons and I shall cherish them for years to come.

This book is by “1# New York Times Bestselling Author,” Lois Lowry. I say with confidence that Lois Lowry will enchant anybody that comes in contact with her work. And if you read this book, I feel you’ll be saying the same.

Lois Lowry’s other books are:

Gathering Blue (companion to The Giver)
Messenger (companion to The Giver and Gathering Blue)
Gossamer (Winner of the Newberry Honor)
Number The Stars (Winner of the Newberry Medal)

These books are (mostly) as vivid and beautifully written as The Giver. This author will inspire and create a whole new world. You will go places you have never imagined with her books. Everywhere you go, you will have remnants of her books stuck in your head for eternity.

Lois Lowry has won a magnificent amount of awards for The Giver. They are:

A Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
An ALA Notable Book for Children
A Newberry Medal
A Regina Medal
A Booklist Editors’ Choice
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year.

Lois Lowry has also received a Newberry medal for Number The Stars, a book about a Jewish child in Hitler’s time. Lois Lowry also received a Newberry Honor for her quick read, Gossamer.

If you are interested in the companion novel to The Giver, Gathering Blue does mention a village like the one in The Giver. It also mentions a boy near the end in great similarity to Jonas: “A boy, a two syllable boy, and his eyes are amazing blue.” Lois Lowry comments on this and says, “There is a reference at the end of the book to a boy with light eyes - he can be Jonas or not, as you wish.” This tells me she worked Jonas into the book, and in Messenger, the second companion to The Giver, the two main characters in The Giver and Gathering Blue both make an appearance.

Lois Lowry was born in the year 1937 in Hawaii. She ended up moving from Hawaii all the way to New York because her father was a career military officer - an army dentist - and was moving constantly. Lois then went to her mother’s hometown, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to reside during World War II. Then she went to Tokyo when she turned eleven. By the time she went off to college she was living in Washington D.C.

Lois Lowry admits that she was rather fortunate to be born the middle child of the family. For Helen, her older sister, was very much like her mother: gentle, family-loving, and eager to please. Jon, her younger brother, spent all his time with their dad building model trains and bonding. Neither had much time for Lois, so she found herself alone many times. She called herself “A solitary child who lived in the world of books and vivid imagination.”

Lois married when she was just nineteen, and was married to a Navel Officer. She took up where she left off with her father, moving everywhere. They ended up at California, Connecticut when she bore a baby girl. When they moved to Florida after her husband left the Army (not illegally) and attended Harvard, they had four kids - all under the age of five!

Lois Lowry says her inspiration to become an author came from all the books she read when she was young and she tries to teach her grandchildren the power and passionate force of reading by showing them these books. You can visit her website at loislowry.com. It has FAQ and everything. Be sure to visit it!

In summary, The Giver was a magnificent book that I read in one sitting. Though short, it was packed with emotion, dashed with sorrow, and even had a dab of terror. This book will take you to a whole different world, maybe even a whole different galaxy. You might find the end of the universe in these (approximately) one-hundred-eighty-six pages. Well, I guess it is true. Big things come in small packages.