Rating: 
Summary: Gathering Blue
Review: This was one of the most meaningful books I have ever read. I really love it when a book gets me thinking, or inspires me. This book did both.
Crippled since birth, Kira's mother fought to keep her alive. But when her mother dies, her enemy campains to build a tyke pen where her cott (house) used to be. If she does not win her trial, she dies. Luckily, she is spared and given a new, all important role: to repair the singers robe and to stitch the future. But she finds out much more than she intends to about her past and her future.
This book is amazing. I never thought a book could get me thinking and learning like this one did. For anyone likes beautiful, emotional novels, this book is for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as The Giver
Review: This book is a companion to The Giver, which won a Newbery Medal. It is set in a world that has "regressed instead of leaping forward technologically as the world of The Giver has," as stated by Louis Lowry in the back. It is about an orphan girl, Kira, who was about to be cast into the "Field of Leaving" after her mother's death because of her twisted leg. Luckily, she was rescued by the ruling Council of Guardians thanks to her talent in weaving and embroidering, and then given the important task of embroidering the Singer's Robe. There, she meets two other children who share a similar task - Thomas, the Carver who makes the Singer's staff, and Jo, the future Singer. Kira discovers that there are many things in her world that do not make sense, and she is determined to find out the truth, which leads her to the forgotten technology of dying blue threads, her father, and her destiny. Unfortunately, this book was not as good as The Giver. The characters, although highly interesting and with great potential, are not developed enough. By the end of the book, they are still slightly distant, which makes the crucial choices presented at the end seem not as crucial as they should be. This is a book of lower action level than The Giver, but the story is well-constructed and does not go into excessive details. Reportedly, this is going to be the second book in a potential The Giver trilogy. The third book will combine aspects of both The Giver and Gathering Blue, so it might be important to read this book. Overall, this book was maybe written for a lower reading level; a sixth grader would enjoy this more than an eighth grader.
Rating:
Summary: Gathering Blue
Review: Gathering Blue Walter Lorraine, 2000, 215 pages, $15.00
Lois Lowry ISBN0-618-05581-9 Kira is a fairly young girl. She has never hurt anyone and is very kind. Kira has a gift, a gift of threading. She was never taught, but it comes to her like "magic". There is something that is a burden to Kira, her leg, it is twisted. She is never considered useful in her village and is wanted gone. Kira's talent comes into effect and it saves her life. As a threader she also needs to dye her own threads, she does so, but has no blue. Now it is up to Kira to find the truth about why her and two others, to whom which she grows really close, are brought together. Read this book and enjoy the adventure, the danger, the sadness as Kira and her friends are Gathering Blue. I would recommend this book to anyone with an imagination and who loves a discovery full of secrets. I started reading this book and wasn't able to put it down. Once you start reading it neither will you! Lois Lowry really brings fantasy into your heart and allows you to imagine a new and different world. I will definately give it a 10 out of 10, two thumbs up!!
Rating: 
Summary: Mixed Opinions
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed The Giver by Lois Lowry, which is why I continued on to read Gathering Blue, expecting it to be like the original. Wow, did I get a surprise! To summarize--the story revolves around a young orphan girl named Kira, who was born with a twisted leg, leaving her handicapped. She lives in a time and place when people are cruel, greedy, selfish, uneducated and tend to scorn the weak. Like The Giver, the village is ruled by a strong committee of high, authoritative figures who strictly control everyone's lives and actions. In the beginning of the story, Kira's mother dies of illness (supposedly her father was killed before she was born) and the women in the village turn on her. But before long, the Council of Guardians learn of her phenomenal gift of embroidery and threading cloth and take her in to live in the Council Edifice. At first, Kira feels blessed to be living in such high quarters, but soon she finds clues of disturbance in the Council. During the entire story, her journey of finding the lost color of blue is never-ending. Because she has been assigned to thread the Singer's ancient robes, she feels it's her duty to also thread it with blue. But during the ages, the color has diminished into the past ... or has it? I felt that Lois Lowry used good writing skills to create and "thread" this story, but the story itself wasn't constructed well enough for the reader to really understand the world Kira was living in. This novel was very halting, and often times I got confused because there weren't enough in-depth details. But overall I enjoyed this story of courage, curiosity and how humans deal with trying times. I would advise people who like books that leave a lot of imagination to the reader and don't have a lot of construction to consider this book.
Rating:
Summary: A pretty good read
Review: After reading "The Giver" by Lowry I thought I might give this book a try. In Blue we are presented with a society in which there is no technology and the cripples are done away with in many cases. Kira, the main character,is an exception because she shows exceptional apptitude for weaving. After her mother dies she is taken to a palace like area where she is provided with all types of weaving materials. She's also given a task of weaving the singers robe. Through a round about way Kira discovers that there are other societies where cripples are welcomed. There is more to the story than what I've described here, but not much. It seems like some of the substance didn't exist like it did in "The Giver". A good book, but not quite a good as "The Giver". I'll be curious to see how the 3rd book in this series turns out.
Rating:
Summary: Good...but could have been better.
Review: Gathering Blue is a companion book to "The Giver." Lois Lowry really disappointed me. The writing was so dull. The end was very abrupt; few details. The end left the reader confused.
The whole story overall is not too bad though. In other words Story = good. Writing = bad.
Rating: 
Summary: Gathering Blue
Review: This book was an awful book. I don't understand why this book is supposed to be so good. I would rather read some Barney book than this. The ending of the book was really confusing. I don't recomend it to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Awe Inspiring*
Review: Lois Lowry hits a high note with her fantastic book, Gathering Blue. I loved it! It wasn't very adventerous, but it was extremely descriptive. I could picture the whole thing in my mind, like a move. The book is about a girl named Kira, who has exraordinary weaving skills. When her mother dies, the towns people want to throw her to the beasts, because of her twisted leg. But, the Council of Elders saves her from a very brutal death. Now Kira has a special task. However, this task is very difficult without the color blue, which is very rare in her village. Will Kira ever find the blue that is so mystical to her?
Rating:
Summary: Touching and quite imaginative
Review: I have often thought about the various futures of this world, and in gathering blue we find one outcome that is strangely real, and although it lays in the future, it resembles life of centuries forgotten. This novel is a sequel to "The Giver", which I read after and loved as well. It stands strongly by itself and I urge anyone to read it. :)
Rating:
Summary: More Like The Giver
Review: I thought this book was an okay book. I read it mainly because I had read the Giver and loved that book. This is the sequel to it and I wanted it to be something like the Giver was, the same kind of village and a reminiscent struggle between the main character and everyone else. But this had a new setting almost, with different town rules. There were different jobs and many new events. The two books have no characters that are the same. The only thing that I can see a connection between the two books is the style of writing, where they leave it very mysterious. I also thought that the story got better near the end, but did not have an ending I liked. It had a lot of momentum, and then it just stopped dead in its tracks. The story is about a girl named Kira, who has a crippled leg, whose mother just died and now she is all alone. Her home is burned to the ground and now she has to start all over on her own. Vandara, a bitter village leader, wants Kira to be killed because she is worthless with her crippled leg and can't do the jobs a regular women would do. But she has an unusual talent. She is a incredibly gifted weaver of threads. With this talent, she plans to fight her way through the trial that stands before her. I thought it was an overall good book.
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