Book Reviews by Carol Neeland for LS 5603: Literature for Children and Young Adults

Summary:

Eleven-year-old Jonas is a member of a well-ordered and rule-driven society. Like all the other members of the community, Jonas has never felt real pain or loss. On their twelfth birthdays, he and his friends receive assignments for the jobs they will do for the rest of their lives, jobs chosen not by themselves but by a committee of elders. Jonas is chosen to be The Receiver of Memory and during his training the previous Receiver, who is now called The Giver, transfers the collective memory of the community. The memories that Jonas receives show him what life was like prior to the order the community now lives with. Receiving the memories and experiencing pain, love, and joy for the first time causes Jonas to become disillusioned with life in the community and he escapes to Elsewhere.

Critical Analysis: 

One of the greatest qualities of The Giver is that the setting is cleverly and expertly developed. Rather than plopping all the details on the reader at once, Lowry uses subtle language cues and hints to let us know that Jonas does not live in present day America. For example, on page 5 Jonas’s little sister Lily describes how angry she was when another child didn’t obey the rules on the playground, “One of them, a male; I don’t know his name—kept going right to the front of the line for the slide.” Contemporary American children would say, a “boy” not a “male”. This subtle use of exact, scientific language is one of our first clues that Jonas isn’t living in our time or our place. Another occurs on page 6, “They were learning usages that my group hadn’t learned yet, so we felt stupid.” Children nowadays certainly wouldn’t say “usages”; they would say methods, rules, or processes. 

Another hint we are given about the world of the community being different is that there are no real animals. Each baby or “newchild” receives a stuffed animal upon leaving the nurturing center. These are called “comfort objects”:  

“But her father had already gone to the shelf and taken down the stuffed elephant which was kept there. Many of the comfort objects, like Lily’s, were soft, stuffed, imaginary creatures. Jonas’s had been called a bear.” 

As Jonas begins to receive the memories, he realizes that the creatures are not imaginary but they existed so long ago that nobody remembers the real animals that they represent. 

According to Tunnell and Jacobs, one of the characteristics of Young Adult literature is that the main character is often a young adult. Jonas is eleven when the story begins and turns twelve soon after. Young people can identify with many of his feelings of anxiety related to the future and their place in society. They would also be able to relate to Jonas’s first “stirrings” or feelings of sexual attraction. What they wouldn’t be able to relate to is that Jonas’s mother gives him a pill to keep the feelings at bay. Sex plays no part in this society. Only those girls who are chosen by the elders to be birth mothers have children, presumably by artificial insemination, and taking this pill eliminates sexual desire.  

One interesting use of language that I noticed is the frequent use of the word “always”. This gives the reader the sense that these situations, which seem strange to us, are so much a part of the accepted norm that nobody, including Jonas, even questions them. If identical twins are born, one is ALWAYS released. There are never any special circumstances or regard for unique situations. 

On page 68 we see the rules covering Jonas’s training. They are all unusual but the one that surprises him most is number 8. “You may lie.” When he receives the list, he cannot imagine ever lying. He has never done so before and, to his knowledge, neither has anyone in the community.  

What if they had all been instructed: You may lie?  His mind reeled. Now, empowered to ask questions of utmost rudeness – and promised answers – he could, conceivably (though it was almost unimaginable), ask someone, some adult, his father perhaps: “Do you lie?” But he would have no way of knowing if the answer he received was true. (p. 71) 

Having never lied before and assuming that everyone in the community is as honest as he is, it comes as quite a shock for Jonas to discover that his father lied about the release of newchildren. Jonas truly believed that his father made the babies “comfy” and then wrapped them up to be delivered to another community. The chapter during which Jonas watches the release of the twin on the video screen is the major turning point in the novel. 

On page 83 we learn that the community’s climate is controlled to such an extent that Jonas and the others have never felt snow, wind, or sunshine. On page 94 we learn that the strange visions Jonas has been having are indicators that he is beginning to develop the ability to see the color red. These are two early clues that this society is not paradise on earth. Although they all have plenty of food to eat and never suffer either physically or emotionally, imagine what life would be without color, weather, or feelings? This well-written and thought-provoking book could encourage young people to ask larger questions. In some cases, it might even help them see beyond themselves and their future to think about the future of society and the planet. 

Review Excerpt: 

“The tension leading up to the Ceremony, in which children are promoted not to another grade but to another stage in their life, and the drama and responsibility of the sessions with The Giver are gripping. The final flight for survival is as riveting as it is inevitable. The author makes real abstract concepts, such as the meaning of a life in which there are virtually no choices to be made and no experiences with deep feelings. This tightly plotted story and its believable characters will stay with readers for a long time.”–Amy Kellman, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh 

Connections: 

The Giver would be an excellent companion novel to The Missing Persons League by Frank Bonham. In The Giver the leaders of the community made a decision to take matters into their own hands and make life safe, pleasant, and happy for a chosen few. The Missing Persons League, written more than 25 years ago, is a fictionalized Young Adult version of what is predicted in An Inconvenient Truth. There is not enough food for everyone, algae is a staple in the diet, and what little food they have is grown in a hydroponics plant. The air quality is so bad that all the characters have chronic headaches, itchy eyes, and sinus problems. Brian Foster, the main character, is coping with and trying to find the truth behind the disappearance of his mother and sister. Finally, his father disappears too. Eventually, we learn that the people who are disappearing are being frozen in a state of suspended animation so that the earth can revitalize itself and the population can start again. 

Comparing these two books would be fascinating for Middle School students. A lively discussion of the responsibilities we have toward each other and toward the earth would be the likely result. If population growth is not kept in check, the earth cannot continue to sustain the population indefinitely. However, in The Giver, if twins are born one of them is killed and if a toddler has difficulty sleeping through the night and fitting the expected norms, he is also “released”. 

Though the books are fantasy/science fiction, I imagine that this side-by-side book study would make the students think about real-life issues in a whole new light. 

Bibliographic Data:

Kellman, Amy. “The Giver” School Library Journal (1993), http://reviews.schoollibraryjournal.com/bd.aspx?isbn=0395645662&pub=sl  (accessed April 19, 2008).

Lowry, Lois. The Giver. New York: Bantam Books, 1993. ISBN Number: 978-0-329-37925-4

Tunnell, Michael, and James S. Jacobs. Children’s Literature, Briefly. 3 ed. Columbus: Pearson Education, 2004.

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