Jonas lives in a seemingly ideal world -a world without conflict, poverty, injustice or inequality. The story begins as Jonas approaches the ceremony of twelve – where he and his peers receive their lifetime assignments. While his friends are assigned the expected career paths of caretakers, laborers and Directors of Recreation, Jonas is “selected” for a great honor. He begins working with the mysterious man known only as “The Giver”, and soon begins to sense the dark secrets that underlie the fragile perfection of their world.

The Giver was read by Elizabeth London.
Elizabeth is an actor, director and ShakespeareTeaching Artist based in New York who enjoys a long association with Vermont Stage Company, having performed in 7 of their Annual Young Playwrights Festivals, as well as A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Amadeus with the Vermont Mozart Festival. Elizabeth’s recordings include many audiobooks and audioplays for the blind.

What do you think?

Jonas has never known anything but “sameness”. Until he meets “The Giver” Jonas is content with accepting his life as it has always been. Where in the story do you think this begins to change? What drives his questioning? What makes Jonas want to be different? Does the author make you question what you accept about our society?

What do you think happens to Jonas and Gabriel at the end of the story? Write a final chapter creating your own conclusion. Compare it with a friend, how are your endings similar or different?

Jonas is shocked to see the books in “The Giver’s” office. He can’t imagine what they contain. If you met Jonas, what would you tell him about books and which ones would you tell him to read first? Imagine your life without books. How would it be different? Describe ways in which you would be affected.

Online Adventures Where should you go from here?

Lois Lowry would like to invite her readers into her kitchen for a cup of tea. Since that is not possible, you may visit with her and read a biography, look over a list of her books and catch up on some FAQs about this popular author who “aside from photography, never wanted to do anything but write”.

You can read (or listen to) a message from Lois Lowry. Lowry says she gets many requests from readers for a more specific ending to The Giver and she explains why she is reluctant to provide one.

For additional activities based on The Giver, try visiting the Global Book Club. You can debate with a group or do an art project on your own.

Lois Lowry has written over 20 books for young adults! She received the Newbery medal for her novel Number the Stars (Laureleaf, 1998). You will find a list of her other books and awards at her website.

Grace Greene from The Vermont Department of Libraries suggests you take a look at…

Bawden, Nina. Off the Road. Clarion, 1998.
In 2040, eleven-year-old Tom follows his grandfather through the Wall and into the forbidden Wild, where they seek to find his grandfather’s boyhood home.

Christopher, John. The White Mountains. Macmillan, 1967.
The first volume of the author’s trilogy entitled The Tripods. Young Will Parker and his companions make a perilous journey toward an outpost of freedom where they hope to escape from the ruling Tripods, who capture mature human beings and make them docile, obedient servants.

Dickinson, Peter. Eva. Delacorte, 1989.
In the overcrowded world of the future, 13-year-old Eva wakes up in the hospital after a car accident, and finds that her mind has been transferred to the body of a chimp.

Haddix, Margaret Peterson. Among the Hidden. Simon & Schuster, 1998.
In a future where the Population Police enforce the law limiting a family to only two children, Luke has lived all his twelve years in isolation and fear on his family’s farm, until another “third” convinces him that the government is wrong.


Philbrick, W. R. (W. Rodman). The Last Book in the Universe. Blue Sky, 2000.
After an earthquake has destroyed much of the planet, an epileptic teenager nicknamed Spaz begins the heroic fight to bring human intelligence back to the Earth of a distant future.