The Giver or Gathering Blue... Which One Won?

Which book did you like better...The Giver or Gathering Blue? I liked The Giver better because it had more action and more meaning. Gathering Blue was boring and confusing. Nothing exciting happened in it at all. What did you think about the two books? Which one did you like better? Why?

The Giver vs Gathering Blue

In the two books, there have been some similarities and some differences. Right away, we discover that the main character in each of the books is a younger child. 12 or 13. We find this out in Gathering Blue because Kira's name is 2 syllables and we find this out in The Giver since Jonas has to go to the ceremony of 12. There is a December ceremony in the Giver that they host every year. It is important because it is like a birthday for everyone and it is the day that everyone matures. In Gathering Blue, they also have an important ceremony but this one is in the fall and this one is called "The Gathering". A few obvious differences in the two books are that in The Giver, no one has any feelings or can see any color but in Gathering Blue, everyone feels their own feelings and sees color. In fact, a very important part of the book has to do with color. That is the thread that Kira is dyeing so she can work on the singer's robe. One very important similarity in the two books is that both the main characters in each of them [Jonas and Kira] seemed to have a special gift or power. Kira's was that she had a way with the thread and Jonas's was that he had the power to see beyond things. These powers are very important to each of the books. Both the characters get special jobs based on their powers.Another important similarity is that in each of the books, people are killed if they have a disability or if they broke the rules a certain amount of times. In Gathering Blue, people are taken to the "field" where they are left to die. In The Giver, people are released, which means people are killed... (but you don't find that out until towards the end. In Gathering Blue, you find out about the "field" in the very beginning.) Also, in the Giver, their are no grandparents or step parents or aunts or anything like that. We learn this because in the memory of love, Jonas learns the real meaning of family. In Gathering Blue, Kira has a grandfather and a real father. She already knew the true meaning of family. The two books have many similarities and many differences. They are 2 very different books, but they are also the same.

THE GIVER IS OVER!

Now The Giver is over. I think this was a pretty good book. It was kind of boring in some parts but it was exciting in most. It didn't have that much action but it had a lot of feeling. My favorite genre of books is romance, so this wasn't one of my favorites. The main topic of the book was love though and that is what made it good. So...tell me! Did you like the book or did you hate it? What was your favorite part? What parts surprised you and what part disappointed you! I can't wait to find out!

The Bridge to a new Life

Chapters 21-23 of The Giver

The plan started but there was a glitch. Jonas was forced to flee from the community that night. He only had little food, his bike, and Gabriel. He had Gabriel because at dinner the night before; he found out that Gabriel was going to be released the next day. Jonas could not let that happen so he brought Gabriel with him. Now Jonas is riding his bike. He is out of the community. He bikes and bikes for days and days occasionally stopping when he hears a plane. The planes are looking for him; hoping to find him; but he can not let that happen. He keeps warm by the memories he has and he keeps Gabe quiet by transporting him calm memories.
But soon, the landscape is changing and it gets colder. Jonas doesn't have enough memories and he wishes the Giver had given him more and gotten him more prepared. The searchers no longer looked for him. The only thing that flew above were the birds that he had learned about what seemed like such a long time ago. They were out of food but ate berries and tried to catch some animals that Jonas had no memories of. They were beginning to suffer. They were starving. Jonas felt a destination getting closer and closer and he did not give up no matter how hungry or cold he was. He wasn't worried about himself anymore; he was worried about Gabriel. He walks up a steep hill and starts to climb it. Suddenly all his memories surround him. Voices, laughter, safeness, security, and comfort. He pushes further and finally sees lights. A destination lay ahead. Hopefully one with love.

Chapters 18-20 of The Giver

In Chapter 18, Jonas learns about the last person that was assigned the job of The Receiver. Her name was Rosemary and she had been in training for 5 weeks when she decided it was too much for her and she asked to be released. That was the failed attempt at a new receiver that happened 10 years ago. Jonas asks the Giver about release. He asks the Giver what would happen if he were to die. Where would all the memories go? The Giver tells him that the memories would be released into the community and that the community would suffer from all the pain. So, nothing could happen to either one of them; Jonas or the Giver.
Jonas tells the Giver that his father had to release a twin this morning and he wondered how it went. The Giver told him that if Jonas wanted to , they could get the videotape and watch his father doing the release ceremony. This surprises Jonas and scares him; at last he got to see what a release was like. They get the tape and watch as Jonas's father weighs both the twins. His secretary takes the heavier twin away and Jonas watches as his father injects a shot into the temple in the newchild's brain...
His father had just killed the child.
Jonas is overwhelmed with feelings. He can not believe that release means to be killed. The Giver tells him that he watched Rosemary's release. Or at least part of it. Rosemary asked to inject the shot herself, and the Giver didn't dare watch that part.
Jonas does not wan to go home to see his lying father so the Giver lets him spend the night with himself, in the Annex. They decided that the way their community is living, is no way to live. It is not right, not being able to feel anything or love each other. They make a plan.
Jonas was going to leave at midnight and get all the food remains that people left out. Jonas will go into the Annex. He will have left a note for his parents that he went out for a morning bicycle ride. Jonas will get in the trunk of a vehicle the next morning and he would be taken to Elsewhere. The community would soon discover that he is gone and they would grieve him. The Giver would stay behind to help everyone through all the pain. Jonas is upset by this because he doesn't want to live without the Giver; the one person he loves. The Giver tells him that he feels the same way for Jonas and that he had felt that way when he lost his daughter; Rosemary ten years ago. The Receiver had been his daughter! The one that couldn't take the pressure so she signed up for release was the Giver's child.

Chapter 16-17 of The Giver

Jonas did not want to continue to receive memories but he knew he had to so he kept going. One day, Jonas asks the Giver to give him his favorite memory, so the Giver does. It is of a family on Christmas Day. They are all warm and happy and they have gifts. They are a family. On this day, Jonas learns the word love. He wonders why his community doesn't know the word love. How could that word be dangerous? He goes home and asks his parents if they love him. They tell him that that is a meaningless word. He disagrees with them but doesn't tell them that. He is sad that his friends and family don't get to experience the feeling of love.
The next day is an unscheduled holiday so Jonas gets the day off. Jonas goes to see his friends. His friends are outside playing a game that they had always played. They were shooting each other and pretending to die.; They were pretending to be in war. Right away Jonas is upset because he knows the real experience of death and he knows it is not right that his friends are laughing about it. Right away he asks them to stop and all his friends leave him; annoyed with him for ruining their game.
Jonas's dad shares at dinner, that twins are being born but that one of them will have to be released because they can't have 2 of the same people in the community. Jonas's father will have to do the release ceremony the next day. Jonas wanders what it will be like. What were you expecting it to be like?

Chapters 14-15 of The Giver

Th pain memory that The Giver gives him starts out the same as the first memory he ever got, the sledding memory. But in this memory, Jonas crashed and experiences the pain of a bone fracture, vomit, and blood.
Jonas learns what he will be used for once he is officially the only Receiver. He learns that the community will come to him in advice and that he would have to make some pretty strong decisions that the community depended on.
The newchild sleeps in Jonas's room one night and when Gabriel wakes up crying, Jonas decides to transport a calming memory into him. Right away, the newchild calmed down. I don't think this was a good idea, for Jonas to give him a memory, because right away Gabriel is becoming different from everyone in his community. If he continues to receive memories, he will no longer belong there. Did you think it was a good idea for Jonas to do that?
Jonas went to the Giver one day and right away saw that he should leave since the Giver was in pain. But then, he decides to ask the Giver if it would help to take some of the pain. Jonas lays on the bed and the Giver gives him the memory. Jonas is not acquainted with war. The pain is too much for Jonas to take and he is overwhelmed. Jonas did not want to go back but he knew he had to, so he did.

Chapters 11-13 of The Giver

Jonas gets his first memory in this Chapter. The memory is of sledding down a snowy hill. Jonas learns new words and feelings just from receiving this one memory. He learned the words hill, snow, and sled. He learned about climate and he asked the Giver why they didn't have climate. The Giver said it was because that made things unpredictable and they wouldn't be able to depend on growing food and things like that.
Jonas decided to tell The Giver about what happened to him with the apple and The Giver told him that he was beginning to see color. Can you imagine? Their whole world had no color. Some people, who are color blind, have this problem in real life.
Weeks went by and Jonas learned more and more. Jonas starts to ask his friends and his family if they really can't see color. He is beginning to not remember what life was like without it. It is still amazing to him though.
Jonas told The Giver that when he got this job, they told him that he would experience pain, but he hadn't yet to experience pain so he asked The Giver to give him a pain memory.

Chapters 9-10 of The Giver

In Chapter 9 Jonas starts to feel separate from every one else. He starts to think his friends will act differently around him and he doesn't want that to happen. He reads his rules and he is appalled. He no longer has to share his dreams, he is allowed to ask anyone anything, and he no longer has to worry about being rude. His rules are totally different from anyone else in the community! And the most amazing rule was that he was allowed to lie.
In Chapter 10 Jonas goes to his first day of training. He meets The Giver and learns what he is going to have to do. He has to hold memories of the whole world for his whole community. What does this mean? No one in his community has any memories or any strong feelings because the community thinks it is too dangerous. One person has to hold all the memories or else they will all be released.
The Giver is going to give Jonas all his memories. He does this by putting his hands on Jonas's back and thinking about the memory. It is then transmitted to Jonas and Jonas learns new feelings and new words.

Chapters 6-8 of The Giver

The first day of the Ceremony is finally here and Jonas is even more excited then before. The author takes us through each age group and the special gifts they get. Then the day is over and Jonas and Asher start talking about what would happen if they hated their Assignments.

"Anyway," Jonas pointed out, "have you ever once known of anyone-I mean really known for sure, Asher, not just heard a story about it-who joined another community?"
"No," Asher admitted reluctantly. "But you can. It says so in the rules. If you don't fit in, you can apply for Elsewhere and be
released."

Jonas decided that he wouldn't apply for Elsewhere even if he hated his Assignment. He was certain that the Committee of Elders would make the right decision for him.

The day for the Twelves finally comes. When they are on stage, Jonas gets very nervous. They call them in order from there birth numbers. Jonas is nineteen. Asher gets called and is assigned Assistant Director of Recreation. Soon they are all the way up to eighteen; Fiona. Fiona is assigned Caretaker of the Old. It is Jonas's turn now.

"Number twenty." calls the Chief Elder.
She skipped Jonas! Everyone in the audience was confused as was Jonas. Why had she skipped Jonas? Had he done something wrong? They continued to the end and then finally called Jonas up...
She explains that Jonas has not been assigned, but selected. Selected to be the Receiver.
The Receiver is the most important job in the community. It requires extreme pain. Jonas hears all this and starts to get very scared. Why him? Why couldn't he have been assigned a normal job? He had no idea what the Receiver was supposed to do. He was told he had the ability to see beyond. What does that mean? he thought. Then finally he realized that that must have been what happened with the apple!
Jonas goes home with his new rules, honored, but very scared.

Chapters 3-5 of The Giver

Father brings home the newborn from the nurturing center and it now more relaxed because if the newborn starts to improve in his health, then he won't have to be released. The only people that are released are people that broke the rules three times, newborns that are sick or twins, and the elderly.
Asher and Jonas are throwing an apple around at school when Jonas noticed something odd. The apple seemed to change in the air. But then when it landed in his hand, nothing was different. Not the shape or texture. What did you think changed?
Jonas goes to do community work at the House of Old and he is washing an old female who is telling him about the release of a man named Roberto. The female is telling Jonas that before anyone is released, there is a telling of there whole life. She says she can't wait to be released. Jonas starts to wonder what released is like. Where did you go?
Every morning, you have to share any dreams you had the night before with your family. Jonas doesn't usually have dreams but this one particular night he did. And for some reason, he seemed to be embarrassed to share it. I never share my dreams with my family because sometimes they are pretty weird. If i had to share this dream that Jonas had, I would be embarrassed too! He dreamed that he was in the bathing room at the House of Old with his female friend Fiona. Jonas had taken off his tunic so he was bare and he wanted Fiona to take off her clothes and get in the tub so he could wash her.
This dream was obviously indicating that Jonas was getting older and he was starting to get feelings for girls. But this couldn't be good since only birthmothers were allowed to have children, right? So, Jonas has to start taking pills to stop him from feeling like this.

Chapter 2 of The Giver

In Chapter 2, we find out what "the ceremony" is all about. We learn that each age group has it's own ceremony where they receive whatever they may need for their new age. We also learn that The Ceremony of 12 is the most important because they give you your Assignment at that age. Their Assignment is a lot like what we would call their job. But, they get assigned what job would be right for them, in the real world, we have to pick for ourselves and that can be a very difficult decision-what you want to do with the rest of your life. So, Jonas is turning 12 in December and he is going to find out what his job will be for the rest of his life-until he goes to the house of old. The jobs are assigned by the Council of Elders who watched the children their whole lives and then decide what they would be best at.
We also learn that there is a job called a "birthmother". In this job, you give birth to 3 children over a time period of 3 years and then for the rest of your life, you have to do hard labor. We learn that this is not a respected duty. No one can have a child except for a birthmother.
In Chapter 2 we also learn that Jonas's father is a nurturer. His job is to look after newborns and make sure they are healthy. One of his newborns isn't too healthy, so the father thinks about bringing it home to help the newborn get better. Families are only allowed to have 2 children-one male and one female- so it would be a special occasion to bring this newborn into the household.

Most Powerful Paragraph from The Giver

On the floor there were packages wrapped in brightly colored paper and tied with gleaming ribbons. As Jonas watched, a small child began to pick up the packages and pass them around the room: to other children, to adults who were obviously parents, and to an older, quiet couple, man and woman, who sat smiling together on a couch. While Jonas watched , the people began one by one to untie the ribbons on the packages, to unwrap the bright papers, open the boxes and reveal toys and clothing and books. There were cries of delight. They hugged one
another. The small child went and sat on the lap of the old woman, and she rocked him and rubbed her cheek against his. Jonas opened his eyes and lay contentedly on the bed, still luxuriating in the warm and comforting memory. It had been there, all the things he learned to treasure. "What did you perceive?" The Giver asked. Warmth,"Jonas replied, and happiness. And-let me thinking.
Family. That it was a celebration of some sort, a holiday. And
something else- i can't quite get the word for it."
"It will come to you."

I think this is really powerful because it is explaing the most important thing in life-love. It shows that the poeple in the community didn't have it and showed Jonas what it was like.

Chapter 1 of The Giver

To start the book, Jonas is riding home from school on his bicycle . He is thinking about his feelings for that day. He finally decides that he is feeling apprehensive for something that was happening in December, but from the way Lois Lowry writes, we didn't know what was going to happen in December. What did you except was going to happen to Jonas in December? In the first chapter we also learn that the children were taught to be careful with the way they use the word "release". We don't learn why they have to be careful with this word until the very end of the book. What did you think the word "release" meant? At first, I thought it meant to be killed, but, then when I read what they were telling Jonas, I thought it meant that someone was released from the community and let into the "Real World". Towards the end of Chapter 1, Jonas's family does the daily "sharing of feelings". I thought that was kind of corny and dumb, but it showed us their community's way of life. If you had to share your feelings for today, what would you say?