Promotional Information

The first novel in the classic science-fiction fantasy adventure series for kids

About the Author

Lois Lowry is the author of more than forty books for children and young adults, including the New York Times bestselling Giver Quartet and the popular Anastasia Krupnik series. She has received countless honors, among them the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, the California Young Reader Medal, and the Mark Twain Award. She received Newbery Medals for two of her novels, Number the Stars and The Giver.

Reviews

"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.

"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.

Gr 6-9-- In a complete departure from her other novels, Lowry has written an intriguing story set in a society that is uniformly run by a Committee of Elders. Twelve-year-old Jonas's confidence in his comfortable ``normal'' existence as a member of this well-ordered community is shaken when he is assigned his life's work as the Receiver. The Giver, who passes on to Jonas the burden of being the holder for the community of all memory ``back and back and back,'' teaches him the cost of living in an environment that is ``without color, pain, or past.'' The tension leading up to the Ceremony, in which children are promoted not to another grade but to another stage in their life, and the drama and responsibility of the sessions with The Giver are gripping. The final flight for survival is as riveting as it is inevitable. The author makes real abstract concepts, such as the meaning of a life in which there are virtually no choices to be made and no experiences with deep feelings. This tightly plotted story and its believable characters will stay with readers for a long time. --Amy Kellman, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh