MilliCal read it last year and liked it. She wrote a report on it for scgool. She also read Gathering Blue, one of two sort-of sequels.
I wondered about that, too. I mean, a kid might say, “I’m so hungry I’m starving” in our society but most kids, even if they themselves haven’t ever been starving, are aware of what it means. They know that there are places where people don’t get enough to eat, that there are organizations trying to help, maybe they’ve even seen it on TV/newspapers/magazines/Internet. But for these kids, it probably wouldn’t be something they’d think of since it really doesn’t exist except in history books.
It was my understanding that the people were given some sort of historical lessons to show how things were so horrible in the past.
It’s been about half my life since I’ve read it, thought.
This makes sense but it seems like they treat it like it’s been so long since anyone’s starved (I can unspoiler it since we basically did spoil the ending and this is quite a small thing by comparison, right?). Wouldn’t that be like an eight year old talking about a big bonfire as if it’s a Holocaust or mentioning pogroms casually or something?
Spoilers ahead:
I thought only those that perform “releases” knew what they were… And those were in the minority. Maybe they didn’t like to be “released” either, and created a fuss, and are not mentioned. Maybe they come to accept it as a nice ending to a life well lived. See how in this society some older people have opted for assisted suicide (release). The most recent in the news of that London conductor and his wife. And in old news, Kevorkian, of course.
The majority of people didn’t know what release was, only that the person left the community. And release was judged to be good for the old (after a life well-lived), but not for the young ones (who still had their lives ahead).
The twin and multiple birth thing was because they only had X amount of kids permitted per year, and twins, particularly identical twins, messed that up. One thing that did bother me about that is how the hell, if they were so advanced, didn’t they discover the twin earlier and did some selective abortion before the babies were born.
As to the kids and their use of words… They still had dictionaries, they still had some books to read, and they still played “war” and other archaic things that had no need in their current world. Perhaps there was a “starving person” role in one of their war games. Shrugs They were probably told of words they didn’t use just as we’re told and learn words we never/seldom use. It may be his parent said that… exaggerating, maybe as an in-joke in that family that was supposed to be kept private…
As to the ending, I guess it was 50-50… Sometimes when I read it I see parts that recall the first time the kid went down the hill, in one of his memories. In others, I recall parts that are similar to the time he went down the hill, but skidded and had fractures…
Even if he dies, sometimes the fact that he heard music, which is something the previous Receiver heard, made me think the music was real and he was close to another settlement.
That makes a certain amount of sense. I just found it (and a few other examples) a bit jarring.
I really like this book. I agree, however, with whoever above said they didn’t like the sequels. I really felt Lowry should have left the ending ambiguous. Much more powerful that way. and really, not all stories need sequels.
Also, makes you wonder why they didn’t want music or color. Too emotional?
Probably. Speaking of music how can someone be incapable of understanding music? After all they’ll notice it’s a different mode of sound. Are they sound-blind like they are colour blind?
I thought the color-vision explanation was that it was an unintended side-effect. Its loss was seen as unfortunate, but a reasonable trade-off for their utopia.
I read this in 5th or 6th grade. I read Fahrenheit 451 a year or two before, and at the time this just seemed like a crappy rip-off. It probably wasn’t though, I don’t really remember well enough now.
I guessed that the end could mean that this little society was an isolated incident and the rest of the world was living on like normal, and that Jonas had made it to the house. But I really just assumed he died.
Oh, right. I’m not really sure why it would work out that way–what were they doing? Tampering with the brain?
Also, where was Jonas intending to go? Did the Giver know that there was a settlement to go to?
I’m not so sure about that. It seems the communities are strong enough to control the climates over their own area and if the rest of the world is normal why wouldn’t they invade and overthrow the communities?
They don’t want war?
There are many communities, and it is said that each of them has a slighly different “quirk”. Perhaps a slight different architecture, some different planned landscape, etc.
They’re conformists, they’re happy where they are, getting their food and needs met. Why would they go farther away than needed, into the unknown?
Even after Jonas leaves the community, they don’t follow him for long, they don’t go much farther away than the wilderness behind the communities.
I meant the “normal” world against those artificial communities. If they are so tight minded and afraid of the unknown they will be easy prey.
The one year I taught a class of 6th grade reading, we read this book. I didn’t know there were sequels, so I taught the book as if the ending were ambiguous, which I think it is. The sequels were not worth ruining the beautiful ambiguity of the end of this book. I think it’s good for kids to have to contemplate the different possibilities for what happened to Jonas and Gabriel, rather than having some corny and unnecessary happy ending.