Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

1994 Newbery Medal Winner

Ratings Explanation

Violence: A “discipline wand” is used to reprimand the young and the old. The Giver transfers painful memories to Jonas including killing an elephant, breaking a leg, hunger and warfare. Jonas’s father “releases” a newborn by administering a lethal injection into it’s forehead.

Sexual Content: Jonas and Fiona go to the House of the Old to bathe them. That night Jonas dreams he wants his friend Fiona to take off her clothes and get in a tub so he can bathe her.  The strongest emotion of the dream is the wanting that he feels all through his body. Once these “stirrings” begin in an adolescent, they must take a pill every day to stop the stirrings. Jonas describes the stirrings as pleasurable and he wants to feel them again. Later he stops taking the pills and has “pleasurable dreams.”

Adult Themes: Each person is assigned a job in the community. Lilly expresses a desire to be a birth mother and her mother responds sharply, “There is little honor in that Assignment.” Birth mothers enjoy three years of pampering while they bear three children, but then spend the rest of their adult lives as laborers. When Jonas learns what “release” in the community actually means, he is angry at his father for “releasing” newborns. When Rosemary applies for release she asks to give herself the injection. Gabriel, a baby who comes to live with Jonas’s family for a time, is scheduled for release. Jonas must run away with him in order to save Gabriel’s life. They are completely alone and suffer hunger and fatigue.

Synopsis

Jonas is an Eleven in his community and is anxiously awaiting the ceremony where he will become a Twelve and receive his Assignment. Some Twelves will become caregivers for the old, some will become doctors and others will be laborers, but when Jonas is given the Assignment of Receiver of Memories, he is filled with both pride and fear.

As Jonas begins his training as Receiver, he learns that the world has not always been as it is now. Jonas has never experienced real pain, sadness or hunger, nor has he experienced snow, a rainbow, or love. As he begins to understand what a tremendous responsibility it is to carry the memories for the Community, he begins to see the hypocrisy of his society and bravely refuses to contribute to it.

The Giver is a compelling story told with eerie undertones. Their world, which is devoid of real feelings and sensations, is completely orderly and controlled. Definitely a worthwhile read and ripe with discussion topics. Read this one along with your child and have a book club discussion over ice cream.

While this book is recommended for anywhere between 4th and 8th grade, I would stick with the upper end of that spectrum.

©2010 The Literate Mother