reading The Giver

Last week Gabby finished up her final diarama for The Giver series. During the month of January she read all three books by Lois Lowry: The Giver, Gathering Blue, and The Messenger. For each book she had to create a diarama of an important scene and create a key, noting symbolic elements.

If you have never read The Giver, it is a story of a boy, Jonas, growing up in a futuristic community in which most diversity has been genetically engineered-out and many of life's most important choices are made for you. There, life is peaceful and easy. True feelings - anger, love, passion - have all but disappeared. The novel is about Jonas' discovery that there might be more to life than what he's lived. It won the Newbery medal in 1994.

It is not a series in that one must read the books sequentially or even that the stories depend on one another in any way. Each is its own story. However, the major characters in the third book, The Messenger, come from the other two -- The Giver and Gathering Blue. A final installment, Son, will be released in October. I can't wait.

I loved reading The Giver with Gabby. We discussed things we liked about the community and things that made us sad. When we read about the community's "climate control", Gabby said, "My favorite season is winter!" We tried to imagine what it would be like to never know snow or cold or Christmas. We talked about how we felt when we learned what it meant to be "released."

We didn't discuss as much about Gathering Blue or The Messenger, although both books have worthy themes. I just let her discover them on her own. The Messenger has a beautiful Christian message buried within it. Gabby's diarama shows the scene of Matt's atonement within the forest.

Here are her completed works:
The final scene in The Giver

Jonas and Gabriel

from Gathering Blue

Khira appearing before the council

Matt in the forest, The Messenger