Rating: 
Summary: The Giver, by Louis Lowery, is an excellent book.
Review: Jonas is going through many changes in his life. He and his friends, Asher and Fiona, have recieved their "assignments" and most are happy. Jonas, however, has been picked as the Reciever of Memory. With this assignment he must receive all the memories of the past, because in his "perfect" society, no one else can handle them. This is a story about his struggle with himself and many others
Rating: 
Summary: A good book for a quick read
Review: Jonas is living in a controlled community where everything seems to be perfect. Everyone is the same. There is no color, emotions, and such to separate them from one another. Beginning and ending in December, every child born within that year is in a group together in which they all progress at the same pace. The newborn children are placed in a nurturing center until the next December comes along. Then they are each distributed to a family unit that has applied for a child after being cared for by The Nurturers. Family units have two children, a boy and a girl. Every year a ceremony in December is held that advances all children born in the same year up to the next age. In the Ceremony of One children receive names, Ceremony of Nine children receive Bicycles, Ceremony of Twelve children receive jobs, and so on. Jonas is nearing the 'Ceremony of Twelve' at which he and his group of Twelves will be receiving their assignments. After being presented to the community as The Receiver, the highest position of honor, he is to begin receiving his training from The Giver, who will give him memories of life's pain and pleasure. Jonas soon discovers that the community is not as perfect as he had once thought. I enjoyed reading The Giver and gaining an idea of how cruel one would have to be in order to support perfection. The situations of our lives in this imperfect world that could not be prevented and the ways in which those situations were attended to in the controlled community were interesting to think about. I believe that The Giver is a genuinely entertaining book for all ages.
Rating:
Summary: The Giver-makes you think about life
Review: Jonas is the twelve-year-old protagonist of this novel. He is living in a world without colours, pain and love. In the Ceremony of Twelve he receives his asseignment: He is the one who is chosen to be the new "Receiver of Memory". When he meets The Giver, who gives him these memories of pain, love and the ability to see colours, his life changes.The journey to the realization that this system is not the right way to achieve peace and silence, is suspense-packed. At first,the daily life of the members of the community is described so lively that you think it is almost real. Every detail that the author mentions helps to create the apparent harmony and this "clean" atmosphere.
When Jonas realizes that there must be a change, the dark secrets of the system come out and the action is rising. The suspense is even growing untill the end, which is open(I dislike this!).You can describe the developpment as a chain reaction- everything Jonas believed in becomes a lie. I think, that Lois Lowry has created a world like this to show us that our life- with all its positive and negative sides- is better than living in an utopia without the thing that made us human-beings human-beings: Humanity
Rating:
Summary: A thrilling fiction book with an adventurous twist!
Review: Jonas is very "apprehensive" as the Ceremony of
Twelve approaches. When the Ceremony arrives,
he is very shocked when his assignment is
"Receiver of Memory". He knows that his assignment
is undescribeable, and that no one in the community can describe it either. His training
proceeds, but he learns that there is things that
happen behind closed doors that are unimanageable.
This is a must-read book! Another title from the author is "Number the Stars"
Rating:
Summary: A Profoundly Thoughtful Read
Review: Jonas lives in a "perfect" world where war, disease, and suffering have all been eradicated. Everything is in order; everything is under control. The people have no worries or cares. The Community strives for "sameness," in which everyone and everything are the same and equal. To help the Community function as a cohesive unit, each member is assigned a position in society. When Jonas turns twelve, the Community selects him to be the new "Receiver of Memories." Only the "Giver" knows the truth and memories of the past, and now he must pass these memories on to Jonas.
The Giver is a wonderful book. Lois Lowry skillfully crafted an intriguing and profoundly thoughtful story. She subtly creates an uneasy feeling that something is wrong with this "perfect world." The Community's advisors intend to establish security within utopian society, but they really establish a stifling dystopia. To protect people from the risks of making poor or wrong decisions in life, the advisors plan and dictate the lives of the people. In effect, the citizens have no freedom of choice; they do not choose their job or even their spouse. Moreover, the advisors inhibit the people's ability to feel because they want to spare them from the hardships and pain of life. For instance, individuals must take a pill everyday, which suppresses passionate feelings. The citizens do not know or experience true emotions like love. One of the goals of the Community is to achieve "sameness" so that no one feels embarrassed or gets excluded for being different. However, this limits individuality and freedom of expression because everyone conforms to a certain desired image. Finally, to relieve the population of the horrors and devastation of the world and the past, the advisors isolate the Community from the rest of the world (also known as "Elsewhere) and give the burden of holding the memories of the past to a single member of society: the "Receiver." Therefore, the Community lives only in the present, and the people have a narrow perspective of life because they only know their community and way of life. They are naive; they do not gain knowledge or wisdom from the memories. While receiving the memories, Jonas learns a different and better way to live and realizes what he and the Community have been missing. He decides that something must be done to change the current conditions and enlighten his community. Although it is a Newbery Award Winner, The Giver is a controversial book that has been challenged and even banned. After parents complained that the violent and sexual passages were inappropriate for children, the Bonita Unified School District in California temporarily banned the novel from classes. The Giver has been challenged in other school districts around the country for its "mature themes" of euthanasia, infanticide, and suicide. I do not agree with banning and challenging of this novel. It is a great book, and part of what makes it so great is the incorporation of these controversial issues. They force readers to wrestle with their own thoughts and figure out their stance on the issues. Good literature makes readers think. Banning this book takes away the freedom of speech, the freedom to read, and the freedom to learn and explore. The banning of The Giver is ironically similar to the actions of the Community that lead the Community to its suppressive and stifling state. A powerful story, The Giver keeps readers in suspense, touches them, and stays with them for a long time. I love this book, and I encourage everyone to read it.
Rating:
Summary: The Giver
Review: Jonas lives in a "perfect world". No violence, no crime, no love. But he is given the assignment of Reciever of Memories, when he is twelve. Reciever of Memories is, recieving memories from the past, when the world was not perfect. Memories of war and lonelyness. Pain and sadness. This book interprets the fact that there is no perfect world. Jonas is not alloud to share the memories or his feelings with his friends or family. This book was the best book I have read in a long time!
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful, thoughtful read
Review: Jonas lives in a "perfect" world where war, disease, and suffering have all been eradicated. Everything is in order; everything is under control. The people have no worries or cares. The Community strives for "sameness," in which everyone and everything are the same and equal. To help the Community function as a cohesive unit, each member is assigned a position in society. When Jonas turns twelve, the Community selects him to be the new "Receiver of Memories." Only the "Giver" knows the truth and memories of the past, and now he must pass these memories on to Jonas.
The Giver is a wonderful book. Lois Lowry skillfully crafted an intriguing and profoundly thoughtful story. She subtly creates an uneasy feeling that something is wrong with this "perfect world." The Community's advisors intend to establish security within utopian society, but they really establish a stifling dystopia. To protect people from the risks of making poor or wrong decisions in life, the advisors plan and dictate the lives of the people. In effect, the citizens have no freedom of choice; they do not choose their job or even their spouse. Moreover, the advisors inhibit the people's ability to feel because they want to spare them from the hardships and pain of life. For instance, individuals must take a pill everyday, which suppresses passionate feelings. The citizens do not know or experience true emotions like love. One of the goals of the Community is to achieve "sameness" so that no one feels embarrassed or gets excluded for being different. However, this limits individuality and freedom of expression because everyone conforms to a certain desired image. Finally, to relieve the population of the horrors and devastation of the world and the past, the advisors isolate the Community from the rest of the world (also known as "Elsewhere) and give the burden of holding the memories of the past to a single member of society: the "Receiver." Therefore, the Community lives only in the present, and the people have a narrow perspective of life because they only know their community and way of life. They are naive; they do not gain knowledge or wisdom from the memories. While receiving the memories, Jonas learns a different and better way to live and realizes what he and the Community have been missing. He decides that something must be done to change the current conditions and enlighten his community. Although it is a Newbery Award Winner, The Giver is a controversial book that has been challenged and even banned. After parents complained that the violent and sexual passages were inappropriate for children, the Bonita Unified School District in California temporarily banned the novel from classes. The Giver has been challenged in other school districts around the country for its "mature themes" of euthanasia, infanticide, and suicide. I do not agree with banning and challenging of this novel. It is a great book, and part of what makes it so great is the incorporation of these controversial issues. They force readers to wrestle with their own thoughts and figure out their stance on the issues. Good literature makes readers think. Banning this book takes away the freedom of speech, the freedom to read, and the freedom to learn and explore. The banning of The Giver is ironically similar to the actions of the Community that lead the Community to its suppressive and stifling state. A powerful story, The Giver keeps readers in suspense, touches them, and stays with them for a long time. I love this book, and I encourage everyone to read it.
Rating:
Summary: A thoroughly gripping read and beautifully written
Review: Jonas lives in a community that appears, on first acquaintance, to be perfect. It's a world without crime, and with no unemployment--and therefore no poverty--nobody has to suffer hunger pangs, never mind the torment of starvation and homelessness. All members of a family unit share the experiences and "feelings" of their day each evening and nobody lies. Or so Jonas believes. Only when he learns that his lifetime job is to be the Receiver (taking on all the memories of both pain and joy that have been banished from his society, and being given permission to lie) does he realise the community's creators have banished even more good than evil from his society. Jonas and his tutor, the previous Receiver, to whom he gives the title the Giver, decide that the cost of their stable society is too high ... Jonas's community clearly doesn't cover the whole world in which it's set, and one doesn't even have to travel over water to reach "Elsewhere", of which there are hints relatively early in the book. Most members of the community clearly believe that this is where people who are "released" go. Young readers possibly might not guess the truth here but I'm sure adult readers will. For a book with such a complex set-up The Giver is amazingly short at less than 200 pages. If it had been a novel for adults I think it would have contained a lot more detail on how this utopian society was set up, because it does leave you asking questions about it. Lowry does, however, give enough detail for the purpose of her story and she handles it deftly, never getting in the way of the forward motion of the plot and therefore taking the risk of boring young readers. I was amazed to hear that The Giver was on the list of "most challenged" books for 2000, on the grounds of "being sexually explicit, having occult themes, violence". I didn't see anything in it that wasn't appropriate to its audience of young adults. It's a thoroughly gripping read and beautifully written.
Rating:
Summary: The Giver
Review: Jonas lives in a perfect community, no disease, no worries, no pain,and no war. I liked this book because it's full of mystery and excitement. Jonas is an ordinary boy in his ordinary household. Miraculously he is singled out, selected, to be the new reciever. Why him? Read and find out!
Rating:
Summary: The greatest novel
Review: Jonas lives in a perfect society. No pain, no color, and nolove. Jonas has to worry about turning twelve. When he finally does,he is chosen to perform a specific role in his "Community". Jonas has been selected to be Receiver of Memory. The Giver, the previous Receiver of Memory, has to pass on the memories of the whole world to Jonas. The Giver has enlightened me. Lois Lowry has taken true life and has molded it with fiction, to create the greatest story about utopia that I have ever read. She used descriptive characters and a great story line. This story will most likely stay with me for long time.
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