Blog Post 4 - Science Fiction - The Giver by Lois Lowry

 

Poster for the movie adaptation of The Giver.

    Science Fiction books are about imaginative and futuristic ideas. A great example of this is The Giver by Lois Lowry. This book was so well regarded it received the Newbery Medal. The Newbery Medal is awarded to an author for their literary contributions to children’s literature. 

     The Giver takes place in a futuristic world that is walled off from the outside world. In this society, all emotions, wars, and foreign concepts are taken, trying to create a perfect world. This world is free of crime, love, crying, sadness. People lived in family units with two parents and two children. The children are not the biological children of these parents because there are females whose job it is to give birth to children. Everyone in this futuristic world is assigned a job for the good of society to run. Living in this world the main character is Jonas. Jonas is an 11-year-old boy who is not aware of what it is like in the outside world until he becomes the Giver. 

    Some motivational activities we can use with this story are having the students in their writing journals create their own futuristic world. In their writing, they would describe what their world looks like, feels like, where they would live and who would live there. Another activity the children can do is write an alternative ending to the story and describe Jonas’ life as he grows up outside the futuristic world.