Jonas’s story, it turns out, is one that reflects upon the power of seeing and knowing truth. His journey is one of discovery as The Giver gives him the community’s institutional memory, many of which are beautiful, many of which are very painful. For Jonas, at age 12, the committee will soon choose his job, but at the annual ceremony where all these decisions are made public, Jonas surprises everyone, including himself, by being selected for a job he did not know existed. He lives in a very restricted, but well-run community in which the committee of elders makes all decisions: who marries who, who receives children once paired with a spouse, who does what work. The two final books in this quartet stitch the stories of the first two together and reveal Lowry’s inspiring and hope-filled vision of a future constantly formed by brave, insightful young people. It took me several years to listen to the audio version of Messenger and then read Son soon thereafter. I quickly acquired Gathering Blue and was startled to find no connections (other than the dystopic style) to The Giver. I felt I knew the characters deeply within the first few pages. Lois Lowry is a powerful storyteller: her narrative is direct and clear, biting and succinct. Somehow I missed reading The Giver when I was a kid, so I picked it up a few years ago at the advice of teenager.
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