The Giver

Lowry, Lois. The Giver. Houghton Mifflin, 1993.  Tr. $17.00, ISBN 978-0395645666

What’s it about?

Jonas’s world seems like a utopia at first glance—no war, no poverty, no unemployment—but when he is assigned the role of the Receiver of Memories, he begins to learn that the sameness his society strives for has an ugly side. 

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Jonas’s world is free of pain and miseries like hunger and poverty. People are considerate, orderly, and daily life holds no surprises. Anything that disrupts the Sameness is a threat, and people who disrupt the Sameness are Released. Release is what happens when a member of society cannot meet the standards of the Community. Perhaps they’ve broken too many rules. Perhaps they are Old. Maybe they are infants that haven’t thrived. What happens when people are released is vague.  They are said to go Elsewhere.  The Community is so orderly that every person is assigned their role in the community in an important ceremony at the age of 12. Some, like Jonas’s father are Nurturers, given the task of caring for the newchildren. Some are Laborers, Birthmothers, Architects—and one, Jonas, is assigned the incredible and difficult role of Receiver of Memories. His assignment is so special that he is the first in 10 years to be assigned this role. There is only one other Receiver of Memories, and now that Jonas has been selected for this role, he is the Giver. Through his training with the Giver, Jonas learns of a time when terrible things like pain and war existed. He also learns that when these terrible things existed, there were also wonderful things, such as love, perception of color, animals, grandparents, weather and more aspects of a rich and varied existence. He begins to long for the type of life people had before the Sameness, but he is conflicted about this wish. Isn’t everything perfect? There is no suffering, after all.  His opinion gradually begins to change, but the real turning point is when he witnesses the release of a baby twin, chosen because he was the smaller of the two by 6 ounces.

The Giver is a very disturbing book. It’s been banned and challenged countless times for its disturbing themes as well as references to sexuality (“stirrings”). The fact that it has the power to disturb us means it is hitting uncomfortably close to home. If this society had no resemblance to us, we would not treat this book seriously. There are references to infanticide of children who fail to thrive, which calls to mind people’s decisions to abort babies with genetic abnormalities.  There are references to euthanasia. To executing criminals (people who break the Community’s rules three times). What is amazing about the people in this society is that everyone is so complacent. They are content with Sameness, and threatened by anything that deviates, such as pilots who make errors, children who cry at night and identical twins.  No one misses love or other deep emotions because they know nothing about them. Only the Receiver of memories knows, and it is his burden to protect the Community from all these confusing feelings and memories. Lowry writes with heavy allegory, and the precise nature of how the Community has arrived at this state of Sameness is unclear. Lowry’s prose is simple, almost naïve sounding, which is fitting since the Community’s knowledge is so limited. The Giver and eventually Jonas have much greater experience and knowledge because of the memories they hold. Lowry conveys Jonas’s increased emotional awareness by introducing more complex descriptions about what Jonas experiences and thinks. The one complaint I’ve heard from people who love this book is ends with a bit of a cliffhanger. What really happened to Jonas and Gabe? Did they survive? Only readers who continue the trilogy and read the Messenger (the third book) find out what happened to them.  Lowry intentionally left their fates uncertain and said there is no correct interpretation about what happened to them, that how we interpret it depend on our own belief system.

Genre label: Dystopian Science Fiction

Reading level: 6^th grade

Interest level: Grades 5-10

Read-alikes:

Roth’s Divergent

Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

L’Engle A Wrinkle in Time

Huxley’s Brave New World

Subjects: Dystopian society, conformity, totalitarianism, euthanasia, infanticide, emotional depth, choice, memories, knowledge

Awards:

Newbery Medal (1994)

A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book                

Series information:

Gathering Blue

The Messenger 

Hunger Games

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic press, 2008. Tr. $17.99, ISBN 978-0439023481.  

What’s it about?

The corrupt Capitol of Panem hosts an annual televised fight to the death, and its participants are 24 children from surrounding districts. When Katniss Everdeen’s little sister Prim is one of the unlucky ones chosen in the annual lottery, Katniss volunteers to take her place, knowing she must out-wit and out-maneuver the game’s creators in order to survive.

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Hunger Games takes place in an imagined future United States, known as Panem. The novel opens when the 74^th annual Hunger Games are looming. Sixteen-year-old protagonist Katniss Everdeen of District 12 (the Appalachian region) is nervous about being reaped. If her name is drawn, she becomes one of 24 tributes, and must kill . . .  or be killed. Only one tribute will survive, and the odds are against her. Wealthier districts train career tributes who usually win these televised Games. District 12 tributes are long shots. When Katniss’s little sister Prim’s name is drawn, Katniss volunteers to take her place. To her horror, the other tribute is a fellow student, Peeta, a baker’s son who gave her bread when her family was facing starvation. In order to survive, Katniss will have to kill him and 22 others—unless she is able to outwit the game’s creators with the help of her clever, self-destructive mentor Haymitch, who knows how to survive the Games.

The power of Hunger Games stays with the reader hours, days, weeks, months, and years after reading. This is the kind of book people keep re-reading. This is the kind of book that opens the mouths of normally reticent individuals, who eagerly tell strangers to devour this disquieting dystopian novel. The plot is wonderfully crafted, and the arena is horrifyingly imagined. The characters, particularly the main characters Katniss, Haymith and Peeta are extremely well-drawn, flawed and believable, as are many of the secondary characters such as Gale and Rue. Critics mention the similarities of Collins’s plot to other books and series, particularly Battle Royale, but Collins takes the premise of a corrupt, totalitarian government using citizens harming citizens to keep its people in line and creates a powerful work that strays far from the bloated, over-written Battle Royale. Collins’s world-building and writing skills were apparent from her earlier Overlander Chronicles, so it comes as little surprise that she would turn out such a masterful twist on the dystopian plot staple of individuals versus a corrupt government.  

Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, Survivalist/Adventure

Reading level: 5^th grade

Interest level: Grades 6-12, adults

Subjects: Government Corruption, Reality Shows, Person vs. Society, Survival, Brutality

Awards:

Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of the Year (2008)

New York Times Notable Children’s Book of 2008

 Cybil Winner (2008)

On School Library Journal’s Best Books of 2008 list

Booklist Editor’s Choice (2008)

California Young Reader Medal (2011)

Read-alikes:

Grant’s Gone series

Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy

Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It trilogy

Roth’s Divergent

Orwell’s 1984

Huxley’s Brave New World

Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

Battle Royale (not recommended; very poor execution)

Series information:

Catching Fire (2009)

Mockingjay (2010)

View my book trailer for Hunger Games

A Wrinkle in Time

L’Engle, Madeline. A Wrinkle in Time. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1962.  Tr. $17.00, ISBN-10  0-374-38613-7

What’s it about?

The stubborn secret math whiz Meg Murry, her extraordinary little brother Charles Wallace, and their neighbor, the kind, athletic and intelligent Calvin O’Keefe band together to time-travel with three other-worldly beings, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which to  find Meg and Charles’ father Mr. Murray, a physicist who has been missing for nearly two years.  Will they find Mr. Murray, or will their dangerous journeys destroy them?

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Meg Murry is an underdog, ridiculed at school and dismissed by her teachers. She bitterly misses her father, a physicist, for almost two years, when he disappeared while working on a secret project. Her brother, Charles Wallace, is rumored to be sub-normal, since he didn’t begin to talk until he was four, but he is actually a genius with an uncanny ability to read people. The unusual boy has been making some unusual friends: mysterious old women (Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which) who have taken up in the haunted house in the woods. Charles takes Meg to meet them, and the siblings encounter a boy, Calvin O’Keefe, who felt inexplicably compelled to come to the haunted house.  Calvin instantly feels connected to the Murrays, and the three band together with the ancient (try billions of years old) Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which to find Mr. Murray. The travel, of course, involves a tesseract, a wrinkle in time. Their journeys lead them to fantastic and frightening planets and beings—some that threaten to destroy them.   

A Wrinkle in Time is an intense book you’ll read with bated breath—especially when the children arrive on the planet Camazotz.  The most significant theme of the book, and one that allows the book to have a happy ending, is the power of love to vanquish the destructive nature of evil.  In A Wrinkle in Time, even beings that we think of as frightening (such as Aunt Beast) show an astonishing capacity for love. Another theme young readers will enjoy is the power of intelligence and individuality to stand against the cloying pressure to conform. L’Engle tackles these themes with breath-taking world-building, beautiful turns of phrase, and lets the events unfold through the eyes of Meg, the most ordinary character in this book—and also the bravest.

Did you know?

A side-note about this book is the difficulty L’Engle had in getting it published. She had over two dozen rejections before Farrar, Straus and Giroux agreed to publish it. The main reasons it was rejected are, interestingly, its strengths: it’s a very unique story, a complex story, a tale of fighting evil. Publishers seemed confused about whether this was a children’s book or an adult book as well.

This book is intelligent and deep, so it isn’t surprising it is on the ALA’s list of Frequently Challenged Books. Many great books end up on this list. I’m fascinated that L’Engle, who is a Christian, has had trouble with critics who, despite the positive religious and scriptural allusions (which remind me very much of C.S. Lewis’ works), think that mentioning Jesus in the same context as great artists and scientists amounts to blasphemy (even though L’Engle had Charles Wallace shout out his name first). Another reason this book has been challenged is because of references to witchcraft! This book will turn children over to the powers of darkness, just like Harry Potter! This type of “logic” makes me wonder if the critics actually bothered to read A Wrinkle in Time.  What book were they reading? Witchcraft? Witches? Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Which aren’t witches. Oh wait, Mrs. Which=Mrs. Witch. I stand corrected.

Genre: Science Fiction

Reading level: 5^th grade

Interest level: Grades 5-9

Subjects: Time travel, Extraterrestrials, Conformity, Love, Family, Good vs. Evil

Awards:

Newbery Medal (1963)

Lewis Carroll Shelf Award (1964)

Read-alikes:

Stead’s When You Reach Me

Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia

Series information:

The Time Quintet

A Wind in the Door (1973)

A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978)

Many Waters (1986)

An Acceptable Time (1989)

When You Reach Me

Stead, Rebecca. When You Reach Me. Wendy Lamb Books, 2009. Tr. $15.99, ISBN 978-0-385-73742-5.

What’s it about?

When sixth-grader Miranda’s best friend Sal gets punched by a strange kid, the unprovoked attack somehow unravels their friendship. Shortly after, Miranda receives the first of a series of mysterious notes that hint at an impending tragedy she must help prevent.  

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It’s 1978 in New York City, and two childhood friends, Sal and Miranda, know the safest route to and from school, and know to avoid the Laughing Man, who rants “bookbag, pocketshoe” and likes to sleep under a mailbox.  Miranda’s world changes forever when her friend Sal is sucker-punched by a strange boy one day. After the unprovoked attack, Sal suddenly starts to shut her out of his life. Shortly after, Miranda begins receiving strange, cryptic notes that appear to be from someone who knows things he or she couldn’t possibly know.  Miranda is terrified, especially when her mother’s emergency spare key is stolen.  In the meantime, Miranda meets the boy, Marcus, who punched Sal “just to see what would happen.” Marcus is unusual. He sees her battered copy of A Wrinkle in Time, her favorite books, and begins a head-spinning argument about time travel. Meanwhile, Miranda navigates 6^th grade friendship drama (and discovers the impact she makes through small acts of kindness) and begins to put the pieces of the mysterious notes together. When something terrible happens, everything finally makes sense.

This thoughtful, powerful novel, which is in the form of a letter addressed to the note writer, unfolds quietly until its dramatic final act. Some readers may already know what will happen, but it doesn’t make it any less painful or poignant.  The way the story is told, in a non-linear fashion, adds to the mystery. Incorporating discussion about the plot elements of the classic A Wrinkle in Time adds to richness of this book. Stead weaves numerous subplots into this slim volume, and makes them all relate to the main plot. There is no unnecessary exposition.  There is so much going on that readers will probably want to re-read the book, but this is not due to Stead creating an obscure or incomprehensible story—readers will want to revisit the story to delight in how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together, to marvel in Stead’s genius. This is a stunning, satisfying book that will appeal to a wide audience.

Genre label: Contemporary Realistic Fiction with a dash of Science-Fiction

Reading level: 4^th grade

Interest level: Grades 4-9

Subjects: Latch-key kids, Working class families, Single mothers, Time-travel, Friendship

Awards:

Newbery Medal Winner (2010)

Read-alikes:

L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time

Snyder’s The Egypt Game

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation

Bradbury, Ray. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation. Illustrated by Tim Hamilton. Hill and Wang, 2009. Paperback $16.95, ISBN 978-0-8090-5101-4.

What’s it about?

In fireman Guy Montag’s world, firemen burn books and have forgotten that firemen used to put out fires. When Guy begins to read the books he’s assigned to burn, he becomes the fire captain’s next target.

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Welcome to Guy Montag’s world, where firemen don’t put out fires, they start them. These firemen burn books, which are considered a threat to society, a threat to the government, and a threat to the status quo, where people are told what to think about by the ubiquitous TV screens. Books are the most dangerous contraband in existence.  What kind of fireman would start hiding books and secretly reading them? Guy Montag, deeply affected by a strange girl who takes walks, tastes rains and rarely watches the TV screens that cover the parlor walls, begins to re-consider his profession and asks dangerous questions. When a woman is burned alive with her books, Guy is wracked with guilt—and curiosity. “There must be something in books . . .to make a woman stay in a burning house.”  He begins to rescue books from the burnings, and hides them in his home. He reads them, and begins to ask too many questions. People are scared by this, and report him to the fire captain who comes to Guys house for a book burning. Guy, an unwilling host, lashes out in defense, killing the fire captain, and becomes a wanted man. He flees the city and finds like-minded people, who, fearing the danger physical books hold, read, memorize and burn books, becoming “bums on the outside, libraries inside.”

Ray Bradbury’s classic novel about book burning and totalitarian government was adapted into a graphic novel format a few years ago.  This is an authorized adaptation, and holds the power and beauty of the novel. Hamilton’s artwork is striking and masterful, and in sync with the text.  The wordless panels are exquisite, which show not only Hamilton’s skill but how deeply the story resonates with him. Toward the beginning of the story, when Guy meets his new neighbor, Clarisse, who helps him re-connect with the world, there is a scene where the two are talking in the rain. Clarisse explains that sometimes she just likes to tilt her head back and let the rain fall into her mouth. “It tastes like wine,” she says. Several panels later, we see Guy, in the distance, alone in the rain. Then we pan in on his head, and we see the wheels turning in his head, as he tilts his head and opens his mouth to taste the rain.

This graphic novel was marketed to older teens and adults (some reviewers guesstimate the interest level to be grades 10 and up) but I think it will resonate with many younger teens, and even some pre-teens, particularly those who enjoy dystopian science fiction.  People interested in this genre tend to question the status quo, fear the loss of privacy, personal freedom and intellectual freedom. Intellectually curious young teens will devour this amazing graphic novel, but it may take some time for it to start flying off the shelves.  So. . . if a teen walks into the library, loved Hunger Games, Divergent, The Giver—hand them Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation.  Chances are they’ll also want to check out the novel version after they’ve finished the graphic novel!

Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian

Subjects: Book burning, Totalitarianism, Dystopia, Conformity, Intellectual Freedom, Personal Freedom, Knowledge, Books

Reading level/Interest level: Grades 7 & up

Read-alikes:

Collins’ Hunger Games, Catching Fire & Mockingjay

Roth’s Divergent

Lowry’s The Giver

Orwell’s 1984

Huxley’s Brave New World