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Summary: This is a great book for young adults
Review: This is a book which I use in my high school and middle school reading classes. It is easy to read and it deals with the leaders of a futuristic society that try to make a better society for their people through the loss of freedoms and increased controls. Jonas finds that this order of control does not work for him and he tries to leave.
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Summary: For Adults and Older Kids Only
Review: This is a brilliant but incredibly grim book. The perfect world that young Jonas lives in is really a nightmare and the situations that are described here might be too much for a younger or sensitive child.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful story
Review: This is a classic. Powerful, compelling, original. If you're like me, and love to read, you'll love it. If you're not like me, and hate read, you'll love it too.
Rating:
Summary: Completely Original
Review: This is a completly original story that hasn't been though from a writer in ages. Lois created a utopia in the life of perfect. But, is the life of perfect worth many sacrifices? Without pleasure or serious pain, is life really life? With this, Lois played the role of God, made a world, and slowly observe from one character to add life slowly into life. Five stars for him!
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Summary: A brilliant dystopian novel
Review: This is a complex, beautiful book that offers a look into a futuristic dystopia in which there is no color, no aberation, no hot or cold, and no personal choices. Drugs are taken to repress sexual urges and even out temprament, and careers are chosen for children based on their aptitude. Children are raised in prearranged family units. There is no privacy and no personal choice, but is this really a bad thing if people have no concept of those things? There is no hunger, emotional pain, violence, crime, war, or sadness.Growing up in this world is Jonas, a bright 12 year old who is about to receive his career assignment. He is given the important but extremely rare job of "Reciever": the keeper of "memories" of what life was like before the creation of his utopian world. Slowly, he begins to see color, to learn what love, hate, death, and heartbreak are like. He begins to understand that some of the "happy" things around him maybe aren't so happy. The brilliance of this book is that the world unfolds gradually. Lowry does not hit us over the head with an up-front description: in fact, the place starts out sounding fairly normal if a bit Montesori. Slowly, though, the reader realizes quite how foreign this world is. Lowry is a deft writer with an excellent sense of subtlety. Ultimately, this book is about the importance of cultural memory. The idea of cultural memory is probably a new one for kids, and some of the concepts of death and destruction might be a little disturbing, so I recomend that parents read this book too so that they can discuss it with their children. This in no way means that I think that it is innapropriate for kids: I just think that it is an amazing starting point for discussion about what makes us human. Please read my review of "A Wrinkle in Time" (also made today) for my thoughts on how these two books are related. This is a moving, thought-provoking book that is a great read for adults as well as kids. Adults might find it interesting that the idea of a drugged-to-make-them-"normal" population where everyone is encouraged to analyze and discuss every aspect of their lives sounds eerily familiar...
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Summary: Highly Recomended!
Review: This is a fabulous book! When this book first came out, I read the reviews and decided that I needed to read this one, even though I am an adult. It was very good! I couldn't wait for my daughter to become old enough to read it as well, she was in the 3rd grade at the time. Well, my daughter read the book this last year and she now lidts it as one of her favorite books as well, right up there with "The Phantom Tollboth", "A Wrinkle in Time" and the Harry Potter books! What makes this book so wonderful, is that it makes you think beyond the black and whites in life. It helps put importance on memories of pain and sadness as a necessary part of hapiness. I would strongly recomend this book to anyone from the 5th grade and up!
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Summary: "Truly a work of art, and will keep you spellbound! : )
Review: This is a fantastic book about a boy who lives in the future, where there is no color, no war, no choices, everything is perfect, untill Jonah is assigned to be the "Reciever of Memories." This important job leads Jonah to see things in a different way, and to realize that there is more to the world than what he thinks.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: This is a fasinating and wonderful book that should be read and loved by everyone. I read quite a few of the reviews, and was appaled! To think that someone could say that one should save their money and read a classic is HORRIFIC. This book by some is considered a classic. This book leaves a lasting but good impression. This book was an insight to another culture, real or not, and that is very valuable. I am in 8th grade and just read __The Giver__for the second time( I read it in 4th grade and have been meaning to read it ever since.) This time, though I understood it the first time, I really grasped it the second time around and picked up little things that I didn't the first which changed the whole picture only slightly, but made the book seem different, and if possible--even better. I could probaly read this book fifty times and still discover new things, as I probably will.
Rating: 
Summary: Greative and generally thought provoking
Review: This is a great book about a set-up society. This is how it works: marriages are arranged; the parents don't have their own kids (those come from "birthmothers"), and there are endless rules. It reminded me of "1984" and "Brazil." At certain ages you recieve things; at 1, a family unit; at 9 a bicycle. Each family has a mom, a dad, a daughter, and a son. I don't think animals are evn mentioned in this book, aside from when the Giver gives Jonas the memorey of elephants. Jonas, the son, is assigned reciever of memory-the most honored job in the community. He is the only person in the community (aside from the Giver) who has felt "snow." I really don't want to give anything away (that's why I didn't tell you who or what the Giver was), but read it. 1800 people can't be wrong. ...
Rating:
Summary: The Giver
Review: This is a great book for young adults. This book is about a world that has certain rules to abide by and is unnone to our type of people. This world is not allowed to feel any type of emotions. They don't know what love or pain is. This world is very restricted. There is a boy named Jonus who is the main character of the story. At the age of 12 the kids in the community get their life jobs. This is a great book for young adults.
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