The Giver

Jonas lives in a carefully ordered community where families are assigned, jobs are chosen by the Elders, and painful choices have been removed from daily life. There is no hunger, no war and no unkindness, and almost no one questions the rules. At the Ceremony of Twelve, when his classmates receive their life assignments, Jonas is singled out for an unusual role: he will train with an old man known as the Giver, the only person who holds the community's memories of the world as it once was. As those memories pass to him, Jonas begins to understand what his people gave up in exchange for safety and sameness. Lois Lowry's Newbery Medal winner is a short, quietly powerful novel that raises big questions about freedom, feeling and the cost of a life without pain, and it remains a common choice for middle and high school reading and discussion.