The Giver

I would say that The Giver by Lois Lowry is one of the greatest young adult novels of all time. It is as perceptive and alarming as its compatriots in distopian literature, and as heartbreaking and uplifting as its fellow bildungsroman. The book works on so many levels, and has not become dated in recent years, as many once revolutionary works of YA fiction (Judy Blume comes to mind) have.

There are definitely a few scenes that I think will stay with me for the next five years (and have stayed with me for the previous 10, since I first read the novel). Firstly, the scene of the 12 year olds receiving their assignments. To know exactly what you will do for the rest of your life, decided by someone else, and be utterly happy with it is still kind of a fantasy of mine. Unfortunately, real life doesn't work that way, and I'm sure I would not be satisfied even if it did. Still, I can feel that anxiety of that scene in my bones. It is an incredible evocation.

The other, and I still remember reading this scene when I was ten years old, is when Jonas's father kills the baby twin who weighs less. I remember this, not for the horror which ensued after reading about his calm injection into the baby's forehead, but because I realized immediately that I did not hate him for what he had done. It was at that point in my life that I realized the difference between people who do not know what they are doing, and those who are accountable for their actions. Jonas's father knew physically what he was doing, and yet because of his society he is not culpable--has no real knowledge of the relative worth of life and death.

Books like The Giver impact lives, if read when one is most receptive to them. That is the greatest power of YA literature, I think--its incredible effect on the sponges that pick it up. I remember being a little sponge, my whole world rocked by every good book I picked up...and I thank Lowry for teaching me something that, at least in a small way, shaped my view of the world.