The Giver

'The Giver' by Lois Lowry is a dystopian novel that explores what happens when a community gives up its memories, the positive and the negative.

The novel was published in 1993 and is one of the most successful young adult novels of all time. It focuses on a 12-year-old schoolboy named Jones whose world is altered after learning he’s been chosen to become the next Reciever of Memory. His perception of his reality, everything from the community’s rules to the color of his own eyes, changes.

Key Facts about The Giver

  • Title: The Giver
  • When/where written: Early 1990s in Maine, United States
  • Published: April 16, 1993
  • Literary Period: Contemporary
  • Genre: Dystopian
  • Point-of-View: Third-person limited
  • Setting: A confined community sometime in the future, cut off from the outside world.
  • Climax: Jonas decides to leave the community.
  • Antagonist: The community and Sameness

Lois Lowry and The Giver

While Lowry has written more than 40 books for kids and young adults, The Giver remains her most popular. It details a seemingly utopian world in which no one has to remember anything bad or confusing. When asked to speak about the inspiration behind the novel, Lowry cited memories of her aging father. He was losing pieces of his memory, she explained. One particularly moving moment occurred when she had to explain the death of her sister, his daughter, to him, something that he’d forgotten. This triggered her to start considering what a world without this kind of sorrow would be like.

The Giver Digital Art
Artistic Repreentation of The Giver

Books Related to The Giver

The Giver is one of the best-loved novels of the dystopian genre today. The genre is incredibly popular, with origins reaching back to George Orwell’s 1984 and We by Yevgeny Zamyatin(the latter is commonly considered the first dystopian novel ever written). Lowry likely drew inspiration from those who came before her and the work done to popularize the genre. Unlike some of the novels in this genre, The Giver is often read by young readers. Although it is certainly not only a young adult novel, it appeals to middle school age students due to the protagonist and his peers’ age.

Over the decades, since We and Jack London’s Iron Heel were written, the dystopian genre has expanded, becoming one of the most popular amongst readers and writers. Today, there are numerous contemporary examples of novels and short stories that can be categorized this way. Some of these include The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Stand by Stephen King, The Power by Naomi Alderman, The Hunger Games by Susan Collins, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

The Lasting Impact of The Giver

Lois Lowry is an accomplished author, having explored young adult literature as few other writers have. She’s written about familial loss, the Holocaust, preteen troubles, and, of course, Jonas’s fictional community in The Giver. Since its publication, the book that many consider Lowry’s masterpiece has sold 12 million copies. It is required reading in schools all over the United States, for those in or just entering middle school. It’s been adapted into a film, play, musical, and opera.

When reading The Giver, one is reminded of the past’s importance, a lesson that humanity continually returns to. Through the eyes of Jonas, a young man who sees the world just a little bit differently, readers can step back from their role as members of a society and see it from the outside as Jonas learns to. In the end, readers leave the novel with a new sense of why memory, free will, and human emotions (the positive and the negative) are so crucial to living a full life.

The Giver Review ⭐

‘The Giver’ was published in 1994 and has since become a staple of many classrooms around the world.

The Giver Historical Context 📖

‘The Giver’ was written in 1993 and won the Newbery Medal the following year, the second of these awards that Lowry was awarded within the decade.

The Giver Plot Summary 📖

‘The Giver’ is a Newbery Prize-winning novel by Lois Lowry and tells the story of Jonas, a young, eleven-year-old boy raised in a futuristic walled community.

The Giver Quotes 💬

‘The Giver’ is filled with memorable lines that touch on a variety of themes, including unity, pain/isolation, as well as change, and choice.

The Giver Character List 📖

The characters in ‘The Giver’ are a complex group of men, women, and children who are, at their heart, seeing out what they think is best for themselves and those around them.