The Giver

Kontos,James
Book Review#1
English Peiod 4

The Giver

Lois Lawry

Fiction

225 pages

Newborn Award honor

Kontos,James

October 23,2016

English per 4

                                                               THE GIVER

     The novel , by Lois Lowry is about a boy named Jonas who is about to  be 12 years old.In the beginning, the author talks about Jonas’ family .  Jonas’  parents both work.  Jonas’ father’s job is called the nurturer.  He nurtures small children, until it is time to give them to families.  Jonas’ mother has a job at the Department of Justice.  Th Elders chose their jobs.  They choose everyone’s jobs in the Community. No one has free choice..

When children turn 12, they attend a special ceremony and are given the job that the elders choose for them .  These are jobs  for the rest of their life. Jonas  was given a  special job to be a receiver. The receiver’s job is to keep every ones 

memories. Being the receiver is very hard because it takes a lot of training. It is lonely because it is very secretive and you can’t talk to anyone about it.

     Jonas’ dad brings a baby home to hopefully help it. The baby always cries and does not meet the rules for it to be given to a family.  If he does not do better, he will be released..  Now that he is the receiver,  Jonas finds out what release means.  It means to kill.

Jonas finds out that they are going to release the baby so he decides to run away from the

  community.  The next morning Jonas took his fathers bike. He took his bike because there was

a basket for the baby, Gabe to go in. They woke up early and left for many of days.

There where search crews looking for them.Planes with heat detectors were even looking for them.  Jonas gave Gabe and himself memories of snow to keep their body temperature down so they would not be detected.  They finally reached a land that every thing was normal and people stopped searching for them.

The only part I really liked was the ending of the book because, baby Gabe was saved from being killed.  On page 225 of the book it says “ Suddenly he was aware with certainty and joy that below, ahead, they were waiting for him.”  He thought he heard music too..

I didn’t like that they would release people because they didn’t fit in with the community. If someone was too old, or twins were born,they would be released as well!  On page 183, the author talks about release.  It explains how the person is made comfortable, and then injected with something.  This kills them.   I liked the end of the book a lot because  Gabe would not die. Jonas saved him from getting the injection that would have killed him.  Jonas took Gabe and ran away from the community.  The people in the community would get Jonas’ memories because he no longer lived with them.  This is explained on page 180 of the book.  I would recommend this book to other readers.  This book is unusual.    It is a different way of thinking.  The community wants to help people from making wrong choices.  This is why the elders pick everything for them. The people see no colors.  Flesh color is all the same.  they don’t want everyone to be burdened and pained. That is why they have a memory keeper.  This is a very different way of thinking.