Essential Modern Classics - The Giver [Paperback]

“Lowry is once again in top form – raising many questions while answering few, and unwinding a tale fit for the most adventurous readers."
Publishers Weekly,15 February. 1993: 240

"The Giver, a powerful and provocative novel, is sure to keep older children reading and thinking." New York Times, 31 Oct. 1993: 26.

Simply and beautifully written, The Giver is a thought-provoking look at utopian society.

It's a perfect world, where everything looks right. But ugly truths lie beneath the surface…

It is the future. There is no war, no hunger, no pain. No one in The Community wants for anything. Everyone is provided for. Each Family Unit is entitled to one female and male child. Each member of The Community has their profession carefully chosen for them by the Committee of Elders, and they never make a mistake.

Jonas, a sensitive twelve-year-old boy, had never thought there was anything wrong with his Community, until one day. From the moment Jonas is selected as the Receiver of Memory at The Ceremony, his life is never the same. Jonas discovers that The Community is not as perfect as it seems. Although they appear to have everything, they are missing something of great importance. It is up to Jonas, with the help of the Giver, to find what long ago had been lost. And so Jonas embarks on an adventure to save the world as he knows it.

Simply and beautifully written, The Giver is sure to touch the heart of every reader. Lois Lowry deals with issues of everyday life that are so often taken for granted. Through the noble character of Jonas, she presents a glimpse of what could be the future. As the tension in the novel mounts, so does the number of questions that Lowry confronts the reader with. The Giver is a book of courage and adventure, and most importantly, one of deep thought. Once readers make contact with Lowry's treasure, they may never see things exactly quite the same. Lowry presents a forceful novel that demands to be heard and philosophically dealt with.

Jonas lives safely within the Community, a place where there is no war, no hunger and no pain. But when he is selected as the Receiver of Memory, he starts to discover dark secrets that lie beneath the surface of his perfect world, secrets that will leads him to undertake an incredible journey...

Lois Lowry, author of over twenty novels and twice winner of the Newbery Medal (for The Giver and Number the Stars), was born on 20 March 1937 in Hawaii. Her father was an Army dentist and the family lived all over the world. Now divorced, she lives in West Cambridge with her dog, Bandit, and spends weekends in her nineteenth-century farmhouse in New Hampshire.