“The Giver” is an absolutely fascinating science fiction novel written for the young adult market. I spent last night glued to it.
Jonas lives in a community where everything is run and regulated by the Elders. Imagine for a moment that there is no freedom of choice – your mate, your occupation, your food is all chosen for you. You don’t have your own children – they are provided by birth mothers, and are assigned to you. You never have to feel pain – as soon as you begin to ache, you are injected with a strong drug that takes all the pain away. You never have to deal with anything unpleasant, and you never have to worry about being safe. All of that is dealt with for you.
But also imagine that there is no real love, or enjoyment, or pleasure. You are told what to think, how to behave, and how to exist every minute of every day.
Jonas has lived in this community his entire life, and knows no other way. His parents also grew up here, and so this mindless existence is normal to them. But as Jonas reaches his twelfth year and is ready to receive his occupation assignment, he learns that he is to be the next Receiver of Memories, the person designated to retain all the memory for the whole community, to handle the pain so they don’t have to. As he works with the Giver, the man who was formerly the Receiver and who will train Jonas in all he needs to know, Jonas begins to realize that this way of life is crippling. He is given a memory of snow, but they don’t have snow in the community because of climate control. He is given a memory of Christmas, with grandparents and babies all gathered together for a loving celebration, but he’s never seen Old Ones and Newchildren together in the same place. In the community they are kept apart, and he’s certainly never heard of “love” before.
Jonas always thought it was dangerous to let other people make their own choices. What if they chose wrong? But the more he learns, the more he sees that it’s through making our own choices that we become wise.
This book impacted me deeply. It helped me understand even more thoroughly the blessings of choice we’ve been given, how important the freedoms we have really are, and how marvelous it is to decide for ourselves what we want our lives to be. It’s no wonder to me that this book received the Newbery Medal. I highly recommend it for young adults and their parents alike.
(This book was published in 1993 by Dell Laurel Leaf.)
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