Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The Giver


My favorite children’s book is The Giver. This book is set in a fictional world where everything is “perfect”. In this community there is no choice, everything is given too you at a certain point in your life. When you turn 7 you get a bike and at another age you are given a child, first a boy then a later a girl. You are given a job when you turn 10 and you do that same job until you “die”, which is really when they euthanize you. At certain stages of life you receive specific items on your birthday, which everyone in the community shares if they are your age. The book is centered on one boy who is chosen to be the Giver. The man who is the current giver has all the memories that were taken away from the community. This give must transmit the memories to Jonas, the new Giver. In the end the little boy escapes to a place much like ours where he and everyone else can live freely. I like this book because it’s about a place that is very similar to ours but also very different. The author does a good job at hiding the fact that things a very different and it makes the book very interesting. I think in the classroom as we read this book I would set up some kind of “perfect” world so my students could get more of a sense of what it is like the young boy and why once he begins to receive the memories he wants to share them and not live like that any longer. I would also like to have the students to come up with a play to act out so they can become one of the characters.

1 comment:

  1. I remember reading The Giver in school and loving it as well. I had never read a book like that before, and it was very interesting! It would be a good book for kids that would push their thinking and analyzing of books. I don't reread books very often, and I have read The Giver three times!

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