Anyone remember reading this in middle school? While still figuring out whether to love or to condemn this brief, quickly-read, little jewel of a novel, I have figured out what it is about The Giver written by Lois Lowry which fascinates readers so much.
It's the old guy on the cover. That dude's face, whoever he is, will haunt me to the day I die. Kudos to whoever designed that book cover! I can feel him standing behind me pressing his hands into my back and transmitting memories...creepazoidal.
Other than that, what is so endlessly fascinating about this little jewel of a novel is its moral dilemmas. That's right. Wheel out that old wheelbarrow and heap it full of good ol' moral fiber out of the compost heap in the back. Then spread it prodigiously throughout.
The Giver is a book fundamentally about society and, hence, morals. Our role as an individual in that society. And how we are shaped by and how we can reshape that role. It's actually a great topic for middle-graders and young adults (the primary audience for this book). Think back to your own days in middle school and recall the daily pressures of other people all around you. Pressures to conform. Worries about where you'll end up career-wise (maybe more of a high school or a college worry...). The physiological stresses of puberty. The plumbing of broader society's rules and mores and norms. It's all there, ladies and gentlemen, in The Giver.
All in all, the story comes down on the side of individuality, as the hero endeavors to escape his old society consumed with rules, ignorance, painlessness, safety and security, and find a new society—whatever, wherever that might be. He chooses the unknown over the known. He chooses to rebel instead of conform. He chooses to, possibly, die rather than live in what he can no longer even recognize as a truly human life. Because human life must have pain, mustn't it?
Anyways, read the little book over once again on a plane ride and you'll be amazed how all this heavy stuff is stuffed into this little book for kids. And you'll wonder how alike you've become, as an adult, to the normative forces of our own society.
(My spouse ordered me a copy off of thriftbooks.com and look what I found inside the front cover...)
Score 1 for Thrift Stores! :D