Gathering Blue
Kira, an orphan with a twisted leg, lives in a world where the weak are cast aside. She fears for her future until she is spared by the all-powerful Council of Guardians. Kira is a gifted weaver and is given a task that no other community member can do.
While her talent keeps her alive and brings certain privileges, Kira soon realizes she is surrounded by many mysteries and secrets. No one must know of her plans to uncover the truth about her world and see what places exist beyond.
Unlike the technologically advanced but emotionally repressed society presented in Lowry's highly-acclaimed novel 'The Giver,' Kira's people have access to only the most rudimentary technology. Her world is one where anger, greed, envy, and casual cruelty make ordinary people's lives short and brutish. But this society, like the one portrayed in 'The Giver,' is controlled by merciless authorities with their own complex agendas and secrets.
Massachusetts Book Award Nominee for Young Adult Literature (2001); Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award Nominee (2003)
About the Giver Quartet Series
Reading age: 10+ years
This series should be read in order.
In a world with no poverty, no crime, no sickness and no unemployment, and where every family is happy, 12-year-old Jonas is chosen to be the community's Receiver of Memories. Under the tutelage of the Elders and an old man known as the Giver, he discovers the disturbing truth about his seemingly-utopian world and struggles against the weight of its hypocrisy. With echoes of 'Brave New World,' in this 1994 Newbery Medal winner, Lowry examines the idea that people might freely choose to give up their humanity in order to create a more stable society. Gradually Jonas learns just how costly this ordered and pain-free society can be, and boldly decides he cannot pay the price.
This vibrant work of dystopian fiction has become a benchmark in the genre, and has been echoed by numerous authors in recent time, including Veronica Roth ('Divergent' series) and Scott Westerfeld ('Uglies' series). 'The Giver' is a good introduction to the dystopian genre, and one which examines issues of conformity and obedience to authority without the gratuitous violence of some other series aimed at older teens.