Summary

The Giver

The Giver is a book about a boy named Jonas who lives in a futuristic society where everything is controlled. People living in the community (it doesn’t have a name) don’t know anything about things like love, fear, pain, or color. In this community, a “family unit” can have exactly two children, a boy and a girl, and the parents are matched together by the government based on how compatible it thinks they are. The government even picks what job someone gets and when someone retires.

Jonas’s best friend’s name is Asher, who got in trouble a lot. You might think, “Wow, I wonder what he did.” In their society, kids got punished for things like saying, “I’m starving” when they’re not literally starving.

When the book starts, Jonas is trying to think of the right word to describe his emotion. This may seem pointless to us, but every night at dinner, each family talks about what their feelings were throughout the day. Every house has an intercom through which the government listens to make sure nothing unusual is happening.

Jonas’s father is a Nurturer (he cares for babies) and has grown attached to a baby boy named Gabe. Gabe has trouble sleeping at night, so Jonas’s family is allowed to take him home every night.

When December comes, all the twelve year-olds are assigned their jobs in a special ceremony. Jonas is assigned the job of Receiver, the first one in years. The Receiver’s job is to receive memories from the Giver. Jonas receives memories of things like snow, war, pain, and sunshine, things that no one in his world knew anything about. Jonas’s job is very painful, and he doesn't see why he is the only one that has to deal with it.

Jonas and the Giver make a plan for Jonas to escape. When he escapes, all of his memories that he received will be released to everyone in the community and the Giver will help them deal with it.

The Giver saves up most of his food for months and sends it with Jonas to take on his journey. In the middle of the night, Jonas takes Gabe with him on his bike, and they ride out of the city. They have a lot of problems along the way. It’s freezing cold, they are out of food, and Jonas is getting very tired from pedaling the bike. Occasionally, Jonas gives Gabe memories of things like warmth, sunshine, and happiness when they get too cold. After days of travelling, Jonas sees a hill with a sled on top of it. They climb the hill and see that there’s a house at the bottom of it. Jonas puts Gabe on his lap, and they sled down the hill towards the house.

For the most part, I liked this book, but I hated the ending. You don’t find out what happens to any of the other characters, and no one really knows if Jonas and Gabe lived or died.