The Giver

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Newbery Medal 1994

Yes, I am man enough to admit tears did flow. I am man enough to confess to my emotional weakness, but only due to the blessed anonymity of the internet -- I doubt I will crash into any of you at Vons tomorrow and need to hide behind the banana and mango display when you announce to all "Hey, you're the guy bawling your eyes out when reading a children's book!"

Seriously, I have to rank this as a great book; the ending was not my favorite style of conclusion (the lady or the tiger?) but overall I was very impressed. I cared about the characters, the writing was clear not heavy, even during the serious parts. It does get serious, and disturbing, so 6th grade and up...

{note from an astute LTer : " I think it was the most appropriate way for The Giver to wrap up, especially because it's a YA novel--in other words, geared toward younger readers who are still learning to think and question information. A concrete ending with a single interpretation would have adversely affected their options to do so.In fact, I like the ambiguous ending so much that I have no plans to read the companion books, because of their potential to limit some of the many (often incompatible) conclusions I've drawn about The Giver's world." -- "Trismegistus" } 1/26/08