On my other blog, I challenged readers to pick up a banned book they hadn’t read before and blog about it. For that blog I read Sylvester & the Magic Pebble. For this blog, I decided to read Lois Lowry’sThe Giver.
I know what you’re thinking. How could someone who is a self-professed children’s book lover who has studied the subject and everything possibly have gotten this far in her children literature life without reading either of these book?
I don’t know. But somehow it happened.
And I am slowly rectifying the situation.
While I was reading The Giver, I initially wondered why this book has been challenged so often. I posted some of the challenges for this book earlier before I had read it, so I was expecting a much more graphic and upsetting book. For instance, I’m still not sure where the sexual passages are. I suppose my shock-o-meter might be so dulled by the graphic sex scenes in some modern teen books, that a perfectly obvious sexual passages passed me by. Perhaps I would have noticed it 20 years ago. Then, again, I might not.
I also did not find the book as violent as I had expected. There was an extremely poignant scene from WWI, and the disturbing scene where the main character discovers exactly what being “released” means. But there wasn’t the violent wholesale slaughter that you see in, say, a Darren Shan book. Again, perhaps I have been culturally desensitized. But maybe not.
The book does make many interesting points — like how we must know the past or we are doomed to repeat it. At the same time, remembering the past comes with an emotional reaction. It’s hard to read the WWI scene and not feel anything. But in a culture where feeling have basically been bred out, memories are either useless or too hard for the average citizen
Also, like in the book 1984, there are issues concerning language. The community strives so hard to speak only literally, that they remove all nuance and effectively shrink many words from their vocabulary. For instance, the word “love” has no meaning anymore according to the main character’s, Jonas’s, parents. It is too vague a term for them to associate it with any kind of meaning.
And finally, the book tackles euthenasia. Any child, elderly person, or non-conformist is removed from the society. The children believe that this means the people leave for some other physical place, but even the adults who know the truth have no emotional reaction to the matter. They have been told to lie, and they have been taught to follow directions unconditionally. Having it be such a non-issue for them makes it even more shocking for Jonas.
It saddens me that people still wish to ban books that discuss difficult issues. Today we still grapple with the issue of euthenasia whether it is in the form of mercy killing sick individuals, capital punishment, or putting down animals. To keep a child from reading a book like The Giver limits opportunities for invaluable discussions.
Madeline
Meghan
peterwesley