The Giver

By Lois Lowry (1993)
A Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book
A Booklist Editors' Choice

The Giver is a novel that invokes such a great amount of thought that it is difficult to know where to begin when you would like to discuss it. I guess the easiest way to begin is to say that a completely enjoyed the novel... after I had finished it. At first I was turned off by the dialog choices of the author. To me, it seemed that no children would ever speak the way that Jonas and his little sister spoke in the early chapters. As I read on, I kept seeing the phrase "precision of language" mentioned over and over again. I came to realize that this is how children would speak in such a community where the art of language is not valued, but a need to be precise so that there are no misunderstandings, no literal geniuses, no difference; only Sameness. I began to think more and more about the Sameness, and how the world would be different if it was like this. Before I knew it there were dominoes smashing together in my mind: if this was like that, then this would be this way, and so on and so forth. I begin to realize that there would be a never ending string of consequences, effectively changing the world so incredibly that it would be unrecognizable when compared to the world that I live in.

It is through these consequences that I think this book could be very valuable in the classroom. Besides being a stand out literary work, the book itself is one big social studies lesson. I believe that students in upper elementary and certainly middle school could read this book and go through a similar thought process that I myself went through; especially if you were asking them the right questions. However, a book like The Giver could be read over and over again, and I believe you would always be making new connections and insights. This spurred another idea in my mind; wouldn't it be neat if students read a book like The Giver in 5th or 6th grade, being sure to take notes and perhaps write a reflections after finishing the novel. A couple of years later they could re-visit the novel, first reading through their previous notes and reflection. A couple of years after that they could repeat the process. I believe that an exercise like this would be a great metaphysical learning opportunity for the students in seeing how they have grown as readers and interpretors of literature. The kicker is you would have to make sure the novel you chose to do this with was good enough that students wouldn't get bored with it; I think The Giver is that good.