Lowry, Lois, 1993. The Giver. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0395645662
ANNOTATION
Newberry Medal Winner 1994
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
ALA Notable Book for Children
Winner of the Regina Medal
Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book
A Booklist Editor's Choice
School Library Journal Best Book of the Year.
SUMMARY
Lois Lowry’s The Giver, is a 180-page science-fiction book for student ages 12-15. Lois Lowry is the author of over twenty books for young adults. The only art is the jacket cover featuring a photograph of The Giver with a forest inset.
The Giver, written in third person, introduces Jonas, an eleven-year-old boy, who is awaiting the December Ceremony. Since Jonas is an Eleven, he will be assigned his life-long career at the Ceremony of Twelve.
His is a nameless, futuristic, utopian community, where everything appears to be perfect. There is no disease, no hunger, no pollution, and no teenage rebellions. There are rules against bragging, rules for the play-area, and rules regarding nudity. Precision of language is practiced. Adolescent “stirrings” are suppressed by pill.
Each family consists of a matched mother, father, male child and female child. Mother holds a prominent position at the Department of Justice. Father is a Nurturer to “newchildren”. Jonas and his sister Lily attend school. Each morning the family discusses their dreams and each evening they discuss their feelings.
Father is nurturing a newchild who is not thriving. Hoping to avoid a release, Father brings the child, Gabriel, home every evening for extra care.
Children are classified by age. Threes can share dreams. Fours, Fives, and Sixes wear jackets that fasten in back. Sevens have large buttons in the front of their jackets. Nines receive bicycles.
In later life, the elderly enter the “House of the Old” and are eventually released.
Jonas’ Ceremony of Twelve is traumatic as they pass over his position of twenty-three. At the end of the ceremony, he is selected to be the “Receiver of Memory”. Jonas begins instruction with “The Giver”. Through this instruction he learns the true meaning of release. The story ends with Jonas and Gabriel escaping the community. The ambiguous finale allows the reader to choose their own ending.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Lowry’s compelling novel is very well written, thought provoking, and appropriate to read together as a class. Although it is written in a futuristic setting, it's a great opportunity for students to think about "what if." The book does deal with adolescence (the stirrings), but also includes themes of friendship, survival, and hope. Lowry causes the reader to examine many themes including sameness, conformity, security, freedom, choice, language usage, infanticide and euthanasia. Although not pure science fiction there is a mix of fantasy. The novel is appropriate for older children, teenagers, and adults. The vocabulary is also age appropriate. The Giver is very well-written with a descriptive setting, a smooth reading pace, and no plot contradictions.
Lowry imagines a future without conflict, where everything, even fear and pain, are nonexistent. Utopian-like in feel, this future world offers its inhabitants no choices, and even assigns them roles in the community --- roles to which they are consigned for a lifetime. When the main protagonist Jonas, reaches the age of 12, he is chosen by the Committee of Elders to receive special training. As jobs are assigned Jonas waits in anguish until the last number has been called and wonders what his fate will be. Fortunately Jonas doesn’t have to wait long; the Elder calls him up to the stage to announce that Jonas has not been assigned a job, but instead has been selected for the highest honor of all—he is to become the new Receiver of Memory. Completely bewildered, Jonas doesn’t know whether to be proud of his new position or run in terror at the prospect of holding the entire memories of his community and beyond.
As the Receiver, Jonas will be infused by the Giver with all of the memories of present, and past. In his sessions with The Giver, a man he grows to love, Jonas soon learns his society's horrible secrets. Unable to come to terms with the secrets, new feelings, colors and ideas of true love and pain, Jonas and the Giver try to devise a plan so that they are not the sole bearers of all the horrors and pleasures of the world.
The Giver is a gripping exploration of the meaning of life, and is convincingly plotted and rich with contemplation. The ending in the novel is a bit ambiguous, which may frustrate some readers, but I believe it represents closure of coming "full circle."
BOOK REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
Publishers Weekly
In the "ideal" world into which Jonas was born, everybody has sensibly agreed that well-matched married couples will raise exactly two offspring, one boy and one girl. These children's adolescent sexual impulses will be stifled with specially prescribed drugs; at age 12 they will receive an appropriate career assignment, sensibly chosen by the community's Elders. This is a world in which the old live in group homes and are "released"--to great celebration--at the proper time; the few infants who do not develop according to schedule are also "released," but with no fanfare. Lowry's development of this civilization is so deft that her readers, like the community's citizens, will be easily seduced by the chimera of this ordered, pain-free society. Until the time that Jonah begins training for his job assignment--the rigorous and prestigious position of Receiver of Memory--he, too, is a complacent model citizen. But as his near-mystical training progresses, and he is weighed down and enriched with society's collective memories of a world as stimulating as it was flawed, Jonas grows increasingly aware of the hypocrisy that rules his world. ..
School Library Journal
Grade 6-9-- In a complete departure from her other novels, Lowry has written an intriguing story set in a society that is uniformly run by a Committee of Elders. Twelve-year-old Jonas's confidence in his comfortable "normal" existence as a member of this well-ordered community is shaken when he is assigned his life's work as the Receiver. The Giver, who passes on to Jonas the burden of being the holder for the community of all memory "back and back and back," teaches him the cost of living in an environment that is "without color, pain, or past." The tension leading up to the Ceremony, in which children are promoted not to another grade but to another stage in their life, and the drama and responsibility of the sessions with The Giver are gripping. The final flight for survival is as riveting as it is inevitable...
Connection
The Giver has many excellent reading guides which will enhance the teaching of this novel. All guides can be ordered from www.amazon.com
A Guide for Using the Giver in the Classroom—Koogler and Foell
A Reading Guide to the Giver—Sanderson
The Giver: A Teaching Guide—Podhaizer
The Giver Study Guide—Clauson
The Giver: A Unit Plan—Linde
Cliffs Notes on Lowry’s The Giver
Lois Lowry is vague about the physical placement of the community. Display on your overhead projector a copy of the map of Jonas’ community which is on pages 32-33 of Cliffs Notes. Discuss the location of the buildings. Have the students draw a copy for their personal reference while reading The Giver.
Pre-reading Activities:
As the teacher introduces each chapter, discuss new characters joining the story. Example—Chapter 1—Jonas, Lily, Asher, Father, Mother,
As the teacher introduces each chapter, develop a vocabulary list with definitions.
Example—Chapters 1 and 2 dwelling, ironic, palpable, hatchery, tunic, wheedle, usages, supplementary.
As the teacher introduces each chapter, develop a vocabulary list with definitions to acquaint the students with vocabulary unique to The Giver.
Example—Chapters 1 and 2
Food Delivery People, Speaker, Salmon Hatchery, animals, newchildren, December Ceremony, Hall of Open Records, comfort objects
Post-reading Activities
To clarify comprehension, have the students complete a short quiz at the end of each chapter. Sparknotes www.sparknotes.com/lit/giver/quiz.html has excellent quiz questions.
Examples:
Why does Jonas decide that “apprehensive” is a better word for his feeling than “frightened”?
a. He wants to use more sophisticated vocabulary, since he is turning twelve soon.
b. He thinks it expresses more precisely how he feels.
c. He likes words that begin with vowels.
d. His mother once used the word “apprehensive” and he admires her.
“Releasing” is a theme throughout The Giver. Jonas witnesses a releasing near the end of the book. If appropriate for your class, gently discuss infanticide and euthanasia.
In the nineteenth century, utopian communities were established in the United States. In small groups, research one of these communities: Brook Farm, New Harmony, Oneida and Shaker settlements. Prepare a short presentation comparing it to Jonas’ community.
Perkins, Lynne Rae. 2005. Criss Cross. New York: Greenwillow Books. ISBN 0060092726
ANNOTATION
John Newbery Medal winner (2006),
SUMMARY
Lynn Rae Perkins’ Criss Cross, is a 337-page character study for students in Grades 6-9. Criss Cross is the sequel to Perkins’ All Alone in the Universe.
The art, created by Perkins, consists of sketches and photographs which appear throughout each chapter. Facing the title page is an illustration entitled “the spectrum of connectedness”. The caption reads “people move back and forth in this area like molecules in steam.” The sketches bring the book to life and pike the imagination. The jacket cover, designed by Sylvie LeFloc’h, is a color illustration of Debbie gazing into the sky. Quoted on the front cover is the first sentence of the book “She wished something would happen.”
Perkins’ narrative includes poems, prose, haiku and question-and-answer formats. Chapter 22—Wuthering Heights/Popular Mechanics—portrays an event from two different points of view.
This delightful but realistic book visits the lives of 14 year olds living in a town called Seldem sometime in the 1970s. Debbie and her friends are leaving childhood, searching for who they are and for who they will become. The story opens with Debbie wishing something good would happen—soon. Chapter 2 introduces chubby Hector who is feeling unfinished or still in process.
As more 14 year olds join Debbie and Hector, they listen to the radio show Criss Cross every Saturday evening jockeying for position in the pickup. Debbie and Patty, who have mothers who are unable to grasp current trends and ideas, change clothes on the way to school. Other events include chewing tobacco, career exploration, guitar lessons, noticing girls, noticing boys, the football player, boy and girl alone together for the first time, driving lessons, getting your own room, caretaking of an elderly neighbor, falling for the neighbor’s grandson, jump starting a car, driving without a driver’s license, Selden Days, more guitar playing, a day bus trip, pondering will anyone love me, how important is it to have a boy friend, and the disappearing and reappearing necklace.
In the end Debbie and Hector paths crossed but they missed each other.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Perkins’ Criss Cross reminds me of the Anne Tyler books that vividly describe the day-to-day experiences and feelings of her characters. The exceptional illustrations throughout the book increase the readability. The variety of writing provides opportunity for style discussions. It has few of the trappings of children's novels: no plot at all, an abundance of only slightly defined characters who are hard to tell apart or keep track of, no hero or protagonist or clear point of view, no action or suspense or mystery, just a touch of gentle humor. And yet ... it is a book with depth, insightfully attentive and wise about the little things in life that most books, children's or adult, ignore, or perhaps don't even notice.
Criss Cross could be used in literature classes and sociology classes. It would also be a very good free-reading book. Guidance counselors could recommend this novel for students who are struggling with the woes of adolescents.
BOOK REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
School Library Journal
Starred Review. Grade 6-9–The author of the popular All Alone in the Universe (HarperCollins, 1999) returns with another character study involving those moments that occur in everyone's life–moments when a decision is made that sends a person along one path instead of another. Debbie, who wishes that something would happen so she'll be a different person, and Hector, who feels he is unfinished, narrates most of the novel. Both are 14 years old. Hector is a fabulous character with a wry humor and an appealing sense of self-awareness. A secondary story involving Debbie's locket that goes missing in the beginning of the tale and is passed around by a number of characters emphasizes the theme of the book. The descriptive, measured writing includes poems, prose, haiku, and question-and-answer formats....The book is profusely illustrated with Perkins's amusing drawings and some photographs
Booklist
*Starred Review* Gr. 6-9. This lyrical sequel to All Alone in the Universe (1999), a Booklist Editor's Choice, begins with one of many black-and-white drawings and a caption that reads, "People move back and forth in this area like molecules in steam." As the title and caption imply, this story reads like a series of intersecting vignettes--all focused on 14-year-old Debbie and her friends as they leave childhood behind. Perkins writes with subtle, wry humor about perceptive moments that will speak directly to readers: universe-expanding crushes, which fill the world with "signs and wonder"; scornful reappraisals of childhood things (Debbie's disdain for Nancy Drew is particularly funny); urgent concerns about outfits, snappy retorts, and self-image. Perkins adds many experimental passages to her straightforward narrative, and she finds poetry in the common exchanges between teens. One section of dialogue, written entirely in haiku, reads, "Jeff White is handsome, / but his hair is so greasy. / If he would wash it--." A few cultural references set the book in the 1970s, but most readers will find their contemporaries in these characters....
Connection
Display an assortment of John Newberry Medal winner books for the students.
Pre-Reading Activity
Create a list of characters as they enter the story. Introduce the new characters prior to each chapter.
Most chapters contain new vocabulary words. Discuss these words and their meanings prior to reading the chapter. Students should maintain a vocabulary notebook. Chapter 2 vocabulary words are: coalesce, cinematic, enigmatic, trapezoidal chasm, inertia, moorings and rapt.
Lynne Rae Perkins’ web site www.lynneraeperkins.com has a link “Activities for Criss Cross.”
Melissa Hart has written “A Guide For Using Criss Cross in the Classroom. ISBN 1420680803. This guide can be purchased at www.amazon.com.
Post-Reading Activity
Debbie and Hector have older sisters. Have the students write a short paragraph describing their relationship with an older sibling. Those students not having older siblings may write about a relationship with someone 2-3 years older than them.
Note: Adapted from Perkins’ web site. After reading Chapter 22—Wuthering Heights/Popular Mechanics p. 200—write about an event from the point of view of two different participants in the same event. Make them the same length. Use the table feature in MS Word. Examples of events could include:
The first day of school—the teacher, the student;
The 1812 Overture and fireworks on July 4—the orchestra conductor, the person in charge of fire works;
A new baby—Mother, older sibling;
Super Bowl Sunday—Mother, Father.
While reading the novel, have student’s journal similar events they experience while leaving childhood and starting their teen years.
Rosoff, Meg. 2004. how i live now. New York: Wendy Lamb Books. ISBN 0385746776
ANNOTATION
Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize winner (2004)
Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature
SUMMARY
Meg Rosoff’s how I live now, is a 194-page novel for students in grades eight and higher. It is Rosoff’s first novel.
The only art, the jacket cover created by Istvan Banyai, features a black background, the title in red, lower-case letters, a full moon and Aunt Penn’s house.
Fifteen-year-old, anorexic Elizabeth, who is always called Daisy, introduces herself in the first sentence. She is headed to England to join her Aunt Penn and her four cousins. She is fleeing her very comfortable life in New York City to avoid contact with her father and her stepmother Davina the Diabolical.
Daisy finds herself immediately attracted to her older cousin Edmond. Soon after her arrival, her Aunt Penn goes to Oslo. The next day London is bombed and occupied by an unnamed enemy. Daisy and her cousins are left alone to fend for themselves. The army invades and takes over their home. The girls and boys are separated. The story follows Daisy and her cousin Piper as they endure the hardships of war.
Daisy and Piper eventually return to Aunt Penn’s home finding the carnage of war. In time, they begin to restore order to the home. They are startled by the ring of the telephone.
How do Daisy, Aunt Penn and her four children survive the ravages of war?
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Meg Rosoff’s, how i live now is a timely novel for high school and public libraries. Although there is a war it isn't exactly the focus of the story. The war is what lets everything happen the way it does. The story told in Daisy's unique, fresh, and amusing voice would not be the same if it were told from any other view. Her voice makes this story what it is: exceptional. /Now let me tell you what he looks like before I forget because it’s not exactly what you’d expect from your average age fourteen-year-old what with the CIGARETTE and hair that looked like he cut it himself with a hatchet in the dead of the night, but aside from that he’s exactly like some kind of mutt/… how I live is a coming-of-age story dealing with love, loss, and growing up in a way that is completely unique and completely wonderful. Readers may find the story sad but, not depressing, there's a bit of hope in it-readers feel emotional-maybe even cry.
How i live now has many elements which could be the main focus, but Rosoff addresses each uniquely while at the same time tying them together. Daisy’s anorexia, her forced departure to England instigated by her stepmother, and her falling in love with Edmond are all elements that could easily be used in sequels. The emotions of the characters are vividly described drawing readers in. It is definitely a book readers will not want to put down.
Studying this novel will bring a new sensitivity to our students who have never had a war fought on the homeland.
BOOK REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
Publisher's Weekly
This riveting first novel paints a frighteningly realistic picture of a world war breaking out in the 21st century. Told from the point of view of 15-year-old Manhattan native Daisy, the novel follows her arrival and her stay with cousins on a remote farm in England. Soon after Daisy settles into their farmhouse, her Aunt Penn becomes stranded in Oslo and terrorists invade and occupy England. Daisy's candid, intelligent narrative draws readers into her very private world, which appears almost utopian at first with no adult supervision (especially by contrast with her home life with her widowed father and his new wife). The heroine finds herself falling in love with cousin Edmond, and the author credibly creates a world in which social taboos are temporarily erased. When soldiers usurp the farm, they send the girls off separately from the boys, and Daisy becomes determined to keep herself and her youngest cousin, Piper, alive. Like the ripple effects of paranoia and panic in society, the changes within Daisy do not occur all at once, but they have dramatic effects. In the span of a few months, she goes from a self-centered, disgruntled teen to a courageous survivor motivated by love and compassion.
School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up–Impending war, parental rejection, and anorexia are Daisy's concerns as she steps off the plane in England where she's been sent to stay with her Aunt Pen and her four cousins. The 15-year-old has landed in a chaotic but supportive country household where she is immediately intrigued by her cousin, Edmund. In this novel (Wendy Lamb Books, 2004), Meg Rosoff explores what happens when war leaves these five youngsters to fend for themselves. There are the hardships of finding food and the loss of their mother, but there is also freedom and unexpected tenderness that evolves into an intense physical relationship between Daisy and Edmund. When the two are parted, Daisy takes charge of her youngest cousin, Piper, and the two young women set off to find Edmund and his twin Isaac. What they discover is a brutal massacre but not their kin. Finally returning to the family home, the two girls spend every waking minute trying to survive until Daisy's dad forcibly extricates her from England. It's many years before all of them are reunited…..
Booklist
*Starred Review* Gr. 8-11. A 15-year-old, contemporary urbanite named Daisy, sent to England to summer with relatives, falls in love with her aunt's "oldy worldy" farm and her soulful cousins--especially Edmond, with whom she forms "the world's most inappropriate case of sexual obsession." Matters veer in a startling direction when terrorists strike while Daisy's aunt is out of the country, war erupts, and soldiers divide the cousins by gender between two guardians. Determined to rejoin Edmond, Daisy and her youngest cousin embark upon a dangerous journey that brings them face to face with horrific violence and undreamt-of deprivation. Just prior to the hopeful conclusion, Rosoff introduces a jolting leap forward in time accompanied by an evocative graphic device that will undoubtedly spark lively discussions…
Connection
To encourage students to read quality fiction, display a collection of award-winning novels.
Pre-reading activities:
Create a list of characters as they enter the story. Introduce the new characters prior to each chapter.
Most chapters contain new vocabulary words. Discuss these words and their meanings prior to reading the chapter. Students should maintain a vocabulary notebook. Vocabulary words for the first six chapters are: rapeseed p. 8, intrepid (attitude) p. 12, vivid (person) p. 15, scheming (harpy) p. 16, ruthless (whims), p. 16, futile p. 18, pious p. 19, populace p. 24, epicenter p. 25, siege p. 26, crestfallen p. 28, foraging p. 28.
Discuss war and how it affects people directly involved and people not directly involved.
Post-reading activities:
Invite a veteran to speak to your class about his/her experiences in war. Each student should prepare one question to ask the veteran. Write a class thank you note to the veteran.
Invite the family of someone who is currently involved in war to share their experiences with your class. Each student should prepare one question to ask the family. If the family indicates needs, encourage the students to help out: mow the grass, rake the leaves, shovel the side walks, provide tutoring, assist with child care. Write a class thank you note to the family.
Gently discuss step families. Should Elizabeth (Daisy) have stayed in New York with her father and step mother or should she have traveled to England to stay with her Aunt Penn and her cousins? Ask each student to submit a written response to this question.
