Couple of tiny tears in jacket, looks like a once gently read copy; nice. Used - Hardcover Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. Complete number line. Color bright and sharp. Under archival quality mylar cover. Photos upon request. Packed well and shipped in a sturdy box.
Published by houghton mifflin, boston and new york, Seller: broken wing books , Blaine, MN, U. NEW, never opened, 1st edition, 3rd printing. From Canada to U. Special order direct from the distributor. Published by Editorial Everest, Used - Hardcover Condition: Excelente. From Spain to U. Condition: Excelente. Desde el momento en que muere su madre, teme por su futuro hasta que es perdonada por el poderoso Consejo de Guardianes.
Used - Hardcover Condition: Como Nuevo. Condition: Como Nuevo. Published by HMH, Used - Hardcover Condition: As New. Hard Cover. Condition: As New. Dust Jacket Condition: As New. Movie tie-in edition.
Very Fine condition, never opened. Brodart protected, ships in a box. First edition, first printing indicated by full number sequence, including the 1. Fine in a fine dust jacket. A tight, clean copy, which appears unread. Comes with archival-quality mylar dust jacket protector. Shipped in well padded box. Published by New York, N. First Edition Signed.
Dust Jacket Condition: New. Signed in person by Lois Lowry directly on the title page. NOT signed to anyone. Photos of Lois Lowry at her book signing event will be included with the signed book. No marks, no inscription. Not a book club edition, not an ex-library. Dust jacket is new, not price clipped, in a removable, protective clear cover. This is a beautiful autographed book. Makes a great gift. Signed by Author s.
Very good to excellent condition. Inscribed, dated, and signed by Lowry on title page. Mild wear overall to book and jacket. No obvious flaws. Jacket is not price clipped and is protected in archival Brodart cover. See all pictures and please send questions if any. Customer satisfaction guaranteed. Will be shipped with care. Inscribed by Author s. Published by Houghton Mifflin, A lovely copy of the first printing of this special edition.
Signed by Lowry on a tipped in page. Quantity: 2. Signed Special Edition! The pages are crisp, clean, free of any writing or blemishes. The Jacket is covered in a protective archival sleeve, custom fit. This lack of argument makes sense from a political standpoint, since there is no reason to analyze the worth of propaganda: its worth is that it agrees with society and indoctrinates readers.
Analyzing it would defeat the purpose; political diatribes do not stand up to thoughtful attention. Perhaps someday someone will create a thoughtful, textual analysis of this book that will point out its merits, its structure and its complexity. I've gradually come to doubt it.
I never expected when I wrote my original review of this book that it would garner this much attention. I still welcome comments and thoughts, but if your comment looks roughly like this: "You should read this book again, but this time, like it more. You think you're smart but you aren't. You're mean. Lowry is great. This book won awards and kids like it. It's meant for kids anyways, why would you analyze what its about? I bet you never even read the sequels. Go read 'Moby Dick' because you are full of yourself.
If you do want to comment though, you might check out this article ; I find it helps me with presenting my ideas. View all comments. Alex This review has more good quotes than the entire last book I read. I've thoroughly enjoyed this review. It's very good, honest and lucid, and a fluent This review has more good quotes than the entire last book I read.
It's very good, honest and lucid, and a fluent read, thank you. Jul 11, Kristine rated it it was amazing. I've taught this book to my 6th graders nine years in a row. Once I realized that the book is actually a mystery, and not the bland sci-fi adventure it seemed at first skim, I loved it more and more each time. Nine years, two classes most years I've come to see that the book isn't the story of a depressing utopia.
It's the story of the relationship between the main characters the Giver, Jonas, and I won't say her name. And of course, the baby Gabe. Every year, as we read the book I've taught this book to my 6th graders nine years in a row. Every year, as we read the book out loud together, I am amazed at details the students notice things I've missed the previous 15 times , or questions they raise that lead to further insights for not just the class but ME.
My God, the things they come up with, that I as an English major, or even me if I'd read this with a book club, could never have gone that far in depth. As I began to more fully understand the book over the years, I was better able to guide their discussions, which helped them think more deeply about the book, and made me appreciate the book even more.
And by "guide," I don't mean calm, controlled, teachery, "I already know the answer" talk. My discussion techniques, simple: --I'd stop the tape books on tape are AWESOME- the narrator is always so much better than I could ever be and say something like, "So, what do you think? Once I myself knew how to be interested in this book, I knew what might keep them hooked. I'm not spoiling the ending when I bring up my own questions, because I know this book is a mystery in which things don't much get answered- they're left to linger, and that's part of the beauty and hopefulness in this book.
There are still lines, moments, in the book that give me chills. I wait for them greedily, just to hear the words spoken. I feel lucky to have been forced to read this book a dozen times. There are other books I've read a lot with my students, and this is the one that most stands up over time, the only one that keeps my interest.
I truly am on the edge of my seat to see what we will realize next. Because I've seen that, even if I think I have it all figured out, some kid is going to say something to rock my world. I can't believe Lowry was able to make a book this clever; part of me thinks a work this good is impossible, and that we are just reading too much into it.
But no, it's all there, all the pieces, and she put them there. I just don't see how could she have written such a tightly woven mystery- how could she have know all of the questions the book would raise?
And you know what, she probably didn't. A book isn't like drawing a map. You make the world, and things happen. And in this case, she did make a perfect world. I hate puns so much!!!!!! I mean, she so fully created that world where everything that happens is plausible.
Just read the damn book, then call me. Or, call me after like, Chapter 13, then after 18 and Lines that almost make me cry Jul 11, James Carroll rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: anyone. Shelves: fiction. This book is perhaps the best refutation that I have seen in some time of a common philosophy of pain that is sometimes found in the popular media and in some versions of Buddhism.
According to this philosophy, pain is the ultimate evil, and so, to eliminate pain and suffering we must give up desire, and individuality. Self is an illusion, and leads to pain; desire and agency are dangerous, so we should give them up and join the cosmic oneness "enlightenment" to find a utopia without pain. As Ge This book is perhaps the best refutation that I have seen in some time of a common philosophy of pain that is sometimes found in the popular media and in some versions of Buddhism.
As George Lucas unfortunately has Yoda say to Anakin, "you must give up all that you fear to lose. Choice, agency, adversity, love, desire, and real pleasure are dangerous, they can lead to pain, but without them life has no purpose.
Love could lead to the loss of that which we love, but life without love is empty. Purpose comes from choosing. Purpose comes from overcoming adversity. Yes, you could choose poorly, and that could lead to pain, choice is dangerous, but without it, life has no meaning, it is colorless.
Greatness in life is found by overcoming adversity, not by the absence of adversity. Without opposition, there is nothing to overcome, and thus there may be no bad, but there is also no good, there may be no pain, but there is also no joy. Although some later books answer some of these questions, at the end of this book we are left to wonder: Did he die? Did he live? All we really know is that he was made free, and he made a choice Did it lead to happiness for him?
Did it lead to happiness for the community who will now have his memories? Will they destroy themselves, or will the Giver be able to help them find true purpose and happiness in life? We don't know, because that is the way of all choices.
We can't always know the outcomes of our decisions, and therein lies the danger, but the risk is well worth the rewards.
View all 81 comments. Apr 12, Miranda Reads rated it really liked it Shelves: audiobook. Stuck at home? Got some time on your hands? Want to start a long series? But you don't want a dud? Then I have some suggestions for you! Check out this booktube video all about which series are worth your time and which ones aren't!
Thanks for watching and happy reading! Check Out the Written Review! Man oh man, for a children's book Lowry certainly didn't pull any punches.
Jonas lives in a perfectly perfect world. Every family has one mother, one father, one girl and one boy. Famili Stuck at home? Families always get along, the parents never disagree, no one has any secrets. Everyone contributes to society equally.
No one is ever outraged, angry, sad. The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past. However what appears perfect on the surface hides a far darker truth. There isn't any negativity in their world but also, there isn't any true happiness or love. All emotions are suppressed, children are taken from "birth mothers," and defected individuals are "released. Jonas is ready to undergo the ceremony of twelves during which are children born in the same year 'age' to the next level.
He will be assigned his role in society but when he is supposed to accept his new job, he's given the title of Receiver. Something he's never even heard of. No one really knows what the Receiver does other than the Giver.
Soon Jonas learns that the Giver holds the collected memories of the societies long since past and passes it along to the next generation. Jonas is faced with startling realities that he would've never considered - how beautiful color is, how heartbreaking loss is, and how incredibly wonderful love can make a person feel.
The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared. And soon, he comes to a decision. One that would irrevocably shift his small world.
Of course they needed to care. It was the meaning of everything. I first read this one in fifth grade and whew. It was a doozie. Reread it this year and I'm starting to wonder if kids would like English class a lot more if any of the books were a bit more cheerful That being said, reading this one as an adult completely changed my perspective. I remember liking it, in a slightly apathetic way, in fifth grade. Now, I'm wholly invested in the plot, the characters and the world.
What an incredible dystopia! Audiobook Comments Very well-read by Ron Rifkin. He wasn't a stunning narrator but definitely an enjoyable one. Though, it was a bit disconcerting to hear a grown man's voice for year-old Jonas.
View all 51 comments. Sep 15, NReads rated it really liked it. This is 4. So let's move to the story This book is about a boy called Jonas who lives in a world full of order and rules. Characters: Jonas I liked this characters because I can relate to him somehow.
Fiona What I really liked about Fiona is her rebel side. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps, it was only an echo. He glanced nervously at the speaker on the wall, reassuring himself that no one was listening.
I don't know how, but there must be some way for things to be different. There could be colors. And grandparents," he added, staring through the dimness toward the ceiling of his sleepingroom. I highly recommend it to you if you life dystopian books!
Also the movie is out now! View all 64 comments. Jan 21, Julie Ruble rated it liked it Shelves: teaching. I think I'm missing something. Everyone loves this book and I liked it too, but it wasn't amazing or anything. The Giver felt like a very sparse story to me.
First, there isn't much characterization, so I didn't form an emotional connection with any of the characters -- not even with Jonas or the Giver two central characters. Asher and Fiona particularly Fiona are introduced such that you assume they will play greater roles in the book than they do. I don't feel like I knew Mom or Dad or Lily at all. While the lack of an emotional bond with these lesser characters may be due to the nature of their community, Jonas and the Giver should really be more sympathetic, in my opinion.
Second, the description of the community itself is sparse. There is so much more that could've been described about this "utopian" community. I feel like Jonas' selection, his revelation about Release, and his eventual choice could've been built up and framed better. I feel like I got the quick campfire version. Finally, while I appreciate it's overall message about the importance of individual differences, human emotion, etc.
Jonas' initial support of his community and gradual change of heart seems intended to present both viewpoints, but doesn't succeed in my opinion. The book's agenda was clear to me from the beginning. It also doesn't present alternative possibilities such as a world without Sameness but also without war, a world without Release but also without starvation, etc. When teaching the book, I also felt it was very important for students to understand how this heavy-handed moral that most of us would agree with somewhat demonstrates Lowry's and our own privilege.
That is, the reason it's easy for us to say that Jonas' community is horrible is because of our own relatively privileged lives. If we lived in Darfur, were extremely impoverished, lived in a country where women were treated as property, etc. Despite all of this, believe it or not, I did like The Giver.
It's an enjoyable read. It had a great plot, the community was interesting, and the ending was fantastic and JUST a little ambiguous -- cool! View all 59 comments. Sep 01, Matt rated it it was ok Recommends it for: People who want to analyze how not to write sci-fi. Shelves: fantasy , science-fiction , young-adult. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. If there are no wrong answers, can we really say that something has any meaning?
It is very easy to start an interesting science fiction story. Simply begin with a mystery. Don't explain things to the reader and leave them in a state of wonder. In this way, everything will seem interesting, intriguing, and worth exploring.
This is a good plan for start If there are no wrong answers, can we really say that something has any meaning? This is a good plan for starting a science fiction story. Lots of science fiction stories begin in this way. I also thought of China, because I immediately grasped that this had to be a culture which was designed to gently crash its population. There were many clues that the world was heavily overpopulated and the primary goal of the culture so described was to crash the population without descending into society destroying anarchy - the highly regulated birthrate, which was insufficient to sustain the population.
The replacement rate for a society is about 2. Clearly, infants can't be meaningfully banished, so clearly release was euthanasia.
So I was intrigued by the story. I wanted to see what happened to Jonas and his naive family who had so poised themselves on the edge of a great family wrecking tragedy in just the first few dozen pages of the story.
I wanted to receive from the storyteller answers to the questions that the story was poising, if not some great profound message then at least some story that followed from what she began. But it was not to be. This shocked me, because in the context of the setting it was virtually impossible that he and everyone else did not know.
We know that the society is life affirming, both because we are told how pained and shocked they are by loss and by the fact that Jonas responds to scenes of death with pity and anger. No society like that can long endure.
Some technological explanation would be required to explain how the society managed to hide the truth from itself. If release took place in some conscious state of mind, then surely the dispensers of Justice, the Nurturers, the Caregivers, and the sanitation workers would all know the lie, and all suspect — as Jonas did — that they were being lied to as well.
Surely all of these would suspect what their own future release would actually entail, and surely at least some of them would reject it. Surely some not inconsequential number of new children, reared to value precision of language and to affirm the value of life, would rebel at the audacity of the lie if nothing else.
Even in a society that knew nothing of love, even if only the society had as much feeling as the members of the family displayed, and even if people only valued others as much as the Community was shown to value others, surely some level of attachment would exist between people. Soma or not, the seeds of pain, tragedy, conflict and rebellion are present if ever the truth is known to anyone. Nothing about the story makes any sense. None of it bears any amount of scrutiny at all.
The more seriously you consider it, the more stupid and illogical the whole thing becomes. We are given to believe that all wild animals are unknown to the community, yet we are also given to believe that potential pest species like squirrels and birds are not in fact extinct. How do you possibly keep them out of the community if they exist in any numbers elsewhere? We are given to believe that technology exists sufficient to fill in the oceans and control the weather and replace the natural biosphere with something capable of sustaining humanity, but that technological innovation continues in primitive culture.
We are given to believe that this is a fully industrial society, yet the community at most has a few thousands of people. Surely thousands of such communities must exist to maintain an aerospace industry, to say nothing of weather controllers. Why is no thought given to the hundreds of other Receivers of Memory which must exist in their own small circles of communities in the larger Community? Surely any plan which ignores the small communities place in the larger is foredoomed to failure?
Surely the Receiver of Memory knows what a purge or a pogrom is? I can only conclude, just as I can only conclude about the illogical fact that no one knows what release is, that everything is plastic within the dictates of the plot.
Every single thing when held up to the light falls apart. There is not one page which is even as substantial as tissue paper. It is almost impossible to draw meaning from nonsense, so it is no wonder that people have wondered at the ending.
What happens? The great virtue of the story as far as modern educators are probably concerned is that there are no wrong answers. What ever you wish to imagine is true is every bit as good of answer as any other. Perhaps he lives. Perhaps he finds a community which lives in the old ways, knowing choice — and war and conflict which probably explains why the community needs anti-aircraft defenses.
But more likely from the context he dies. Perhaps he is delusional. Perhaps he gets to the bottom and lies down in the deepening snow which the runners can no longer be pushed through and he dies. Perhaps he dies and goes to heaven, maybe even the heaven of the one whose birthday is celebrated by the implied Holiday. Perhaps it is even the case that he was sent to his death by the cynical Giver, who knew his death was necessary to release the memories he contained by to the community. For my entry in the meaningless answers contest, I propose that the whole thing was just a dream.
This seems the easiest way to explain the contradictions. And the biggest clue that it is a dream is of course that Jonas sees the world in black and white, with only the occasional flashes of recognized color around important colorful things as is typical of that sort of black and white dream. Perhaps Jonas will wake up and engage in dream sharing with his family, and they will laugh at the silliness and then go to the ceremony of twelves.
Or perhaps the whole community is only a dream, and Jonas will wake up and go downstairs and open his Christmas presents with his family. I thought there was only now. It simplifies existence when a person can convince themselves of this.
No need to learn about the past, no need to think about tomorrow, they just react to what they have to do today. I insist on being a more complicated creature. What I learn about the past helps me make decisions about the present. The dreams I have for the future influence my decisions in the NOW. The past, the NOW, and the future all mingle together with very little delineation.
Reading this novel, experiencing this future society, my nerves were as jangled as if Freddy was running his metal tipped fingers down a chalkboard over and over again. He is delegated to the ancient, wise, old man called The Receiver.
He is the vault, the keeper of memories, the only person in the community that knows there was a past. Jonas is understandably confused, overwhelmed with the concept of anything other than NOW. Jonas is seeing red. In a monochrome society devoid of color, it is the equivalent of seeing a UFO or a Yeti.
Color changes everything. As The Giver lays hands on him, transferring more and more memories to Jonas, he starts to see the world as so much more. Color creates depth, not only visually, but also mentally. He wants everybody to know what he knows, but of course that is impossible, most assuredly dangerous. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them. To eliminate bad things also requires an equal measure of a loss of good things.
In making this society the holes in the strainer were just too small. Your mate is really just a partner, someone to schedule your life with. Children are assigned to you. They are nurtured by others until they are walking, and then like the stork of old they are plopped into a family unit. Two children only per couple. Women are assigned for childbearing, but only for three children, and then they are relegated as laborers for the rest of their lives. Childbearing is looked on as one of the lowest assignments a woman can be given.
No decisions necessary He needs to speed up the process of passing some of that distress to Jonas. For the first time in his life Jonas feels real discomfort. Pills in the past had always taken away any pain he felt, from a skinned knee or even a broken arm. As The Receiver he has to understand the source of the pain, and to do so he must feel it.
There was another Receiver. She had asked to be Released. A more than niggling concern to young Jonas.
Even though the rule for The Receiver, You May Lie, bothers Jonas, it becomes readily apparent the more he learns the more imperative that rule becomes. The veil has been lifted from his eyes, and it is impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.
The Giver has had to be so courageous, staying, holding memories for everyone, bearing the annoyance of only being consulted in moments of desperation, knowing so much that could be so helpful, and yet, made to feel like a dusty museum piece with the placard stating: Only Break Glass in Case of Fire.
The conclusion really bothers people, but I consider the ambiguous ending as one of my most favorite parts of the book. Pessimists and optimists seem to choose according to their natural preference for a glass half empty or a glass half full. I was struck by an odd parallel between the ending of Ethan Frome and the ending of this book. Only, being an optimist, I of course chose a very different result than the finale of Ethan Frome. If your children have read this book or are currently reading this book, do read it.
The language is by design simplistic. The concepts though are much larger, and you will enjoy your discussions with your children.
This is a perfect opportunity to slip in some of your own brainwashing by including some of your own views of our current society into the dialogue. In an attempt to make Eden they produced a Hell. I kept thinking as I read it of the culling and the brutality that had to occur to gain this much control over human beings. With all our issues, we still have choice. We have color. We have desire. We have ambition. We have a past, a future, and a present.
We are not drugged zombies well most of us, well some of us. We can choose our mate, as dicey as that seems for most people. We can have a child, if we choose, who will be The Receiver of our collective memories and in the process we gain another generation of immortality. Regardless of how everyone feels about this book, I would hope that most people come away from reading it feeling a little better about life as it is now, and also realize the importance of a remembered past and a hopeful future.
View all 62 comments. Nov 05, Emma Giordano rated it liked it Shelves: audiobooks. I read this book previously in middle school for English class and was still able to appreciate it almost a decade later. The Giver is a story that sticks with many of us as it is often a part of required reading in school. I consider it one of the most impactful academic reads from my adolescence as it was one of the first stories to feel targeted towards me.
Since then, Lowry has written more than twenty books for young adults, including the popular Anastasia series and Number the Stars, which won the Newbery Medal and the National Jewish Book Award in She was inspired to write The Giver— which won the Newbery medal—after visiting her elderly father in a nursing home. He had lost most of his long-term memory, and it occurred to Lowry that without memory there is no longer any pain.
She imagined a society where the past was deliberately forgotten, which would allow the inhabitants to live in a kind of peaceful ignorance. The flaws inherent in such a society, she realized, would show the value of individual and community memory: although a loss of memory might mean a loss of pain, it also means a loss of lasting human relationships and connections with the past. The society Lowry depicts in The Giver is a utopian society—a perfect world as envisioned by its creators.
It has eliminated fear, pain, hunger, illness, conflict, and hatred—all things that most of us would like to eliminate in our own society. But in order to maintain the peace and order of their society, the citizens of the community in The Giver have to submit to strict rules governing their behavior, their relationships, and even their language.
Individual freedom and human passions add a chaotic element to society, and in The Giver even the memory of freedom and passion, along with the pain and conflict that human choice and emotion often cause, must be suppressed. In effect, the inhabitants of the society, though they are happy and peaceful, also lack the basic freedoms and pleasures that our own society values.
In these novels, societies that might seem to be perfect because all the inhabitants are well fed or healthy or seemingly happy are revealed to be profoundly flawed because they limit the intellectual or emotional freedom of the individual.
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