The Giver

The world described in The Giver is a Utopia where the inhabitants see only in black & white, marriage partners are chosen for you and, at the age of 12, children are assigned the working role they will follow all their life. There is no imagination because nobody needs it. Choice, doubt and fear and hunger have ceased to exist. Everything is warm, comfortable, carefully controlled and free of anxiety.

And only one individual, The Giver, knows anything of what happened anywhere else in the past.

I don’t want to say any more because a great deal of this short book’s power lies in the reader slowly discovering – at the same time as its 12-year-old protagonist – what’s really going on in his world. (Which, as unrealistic as it may be by the way, Lois Lowry makes you believe in absolutely 100%) And what’s happening is apparently the reason why so many people have been called for it be banned. As far as I can tell, not too successfully, because The Giver is still out there and still being read. Although obviously not by people who might just possibly, with a little imagination, see themselves in some of the characters portrayed.

And by way of ending this, I’m going to quote what the author herself had to say on the subject.

‘I think banning books is a very, very dangerous thing. It takes away an important freedom. Any time there is an attempt to ban a book, you should fight it as hard as you can. It’s okay for a parent to say, ‘I don’t want my child to read this book.’ But it is not okay for anyone to try to make that decision for other people. The world portrayed in The Giver is a world where choice has been taken away. It is a frightening world. Let’s work hard to keep it from truly happening.’