The Giver Controversy

     This book is about a boy names Jonas. Jonas lives in a futuristic society where there is no pain, fear, war, and hatred. There is also no prejudice, since everyone looks and acts basically the same, there is very little competition. They have also eliminated choice.

According to the American Library Association (ALA), young adult novels are challenged with the best intentions. In most cases a parent will read a book that their child might be reading in class to find out if the book is hazardous to their child’s well-being. If the novel seems problematic, the parent then challenges the book. Even though the purpose of challenging a novel is to keep children from reading about issues that may not be seen as appropriate for their age group, censoring children from difficult subject matter is not always the solution. There is always controversy when difficult issues arise in adolescent geared novels. Even though there are many concerns with Lois Lowry’s The Giver,

The story is about a boy named Jonas. Jonas lives in a community where everything is perfect, everything is the same and no one is allowed to brake the rules imposed by the Elders. The Elders are in charge of creating all the rules and basically ruled everyone’s lives.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry is about a young boy named Jonas who is growing up in a utopian society. In The Giver they have no memories of anything that has pain even involved which meant that the community had to get rid of some joyful things also. Jonas, the receiver, and The Giver himself are the only two that know the memories. The author, Lois Lowry, was given the Newbery medal in 1994. In her acceptance speech of the medal she stated things in her life that influenced her book, The Giver. Many of the events in Lois Lowry’s life had really influenced many of the big events in The Giver.

The novel, The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is an everlasting story that shows the importance of individuality. This novel is about a young boy named Jonas who was elected as the Receiver of Memories, a person who is given the memories from the world that existed before their current society, Sameness. In this society there is no individualism. People can not choose who to marry, or what they want to do for a living. Over time Jonas becomes more and more wise, and realizes that the supposedly perfect community actually has some very dark and negative aspects. The author, Lois Lowry is a 76-year-old writer who focuses her writing on helping struggling teenagers become individuals. Lowry had a very tragic childhood. After both of her parents were

The giver by Lois Lowry was an interesting book to say the least. In the beginning you are lead to believe these are normal kids and characters, possibly in the future, but in pretty much the same state of mind as our definition of “human” today. As the book goes on, you are slowly let in on details, like the characters can not see color, and that the parents are not biological parents, and everything is organized and decided for the characters in the book. The author did a great job of slowly bringing us into the world of sameness quite the same way the giver slowly brought Jonas into the world of memories. I believe the subject of the book is the Importance of the Individual. As corny as it sounds, we spend much of our life trying to be just like everyone else. I think Lois Lowry wrote this entire novel just to show how horrible it would be if everyone was the same as everyone else.

Some parent’s argue that the book should be banned but their argument can be overturned. Parents continue to argue about the violence that the book has, but they soon are going to have to notice that the world is filled with violence and if you’re going to ban a book because of the PG-13 violence in the book you should think about what revolves around you every day. The opposition also argues that the book causes nightmares but without evidence that the book was the thing that cause the child to have the nightmare or was it something that your child seen on TV before bed or thought about we will never no because there’s no evidence the book caused the nightmare. Parents in the situation seem as if they want the best for child and try to avoid and hide their child from the violence but as they grow older there are going to be more harsh violence around them in the real world and the book I think is preparing and maturing them for the

Books have been challenged and banned from schools and libraries for countless years. “To Kill a Mockingbird”, “Catcher in the Rye” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” are two of the most challenged books of their time. Many parents and faculty member in schools and libraries see these books and others like them as “inappropriate” and “wrong.” (Doyle). Books have been banned throughout history for their takes on issues such as race, damaging lifestyles, Sexual content, violence, and even their political angles (“Banned Books: Reasons for Banning Books.”).

Many parents and teachers believe that the novel has too much adult content that children are not prepared for and do not need to know about. Topics such as racism, the profanity found in the novel and equality have parents on both sides of color feeling very uneasy.

The Giver (by Lois Lowry) has an extraordinary amount of controversy on specific regions and sector of this Sci-Fi novel;; such as whether the “community” can be classified as a utopia. We all classify a utopia as a perfect area that is completely free of any government or social negativity. In the “community”, their people are genetically enhanced and drugged to conduct an equal lifestyle and race as everyone else; they are all chosen their path where they will live their life, and they cannot alter it in anyway. To prevent war or any other negative conflicts they had to drug the people to make them unable to know/remember anything or anyone in the past and unable to feel a certain way about anything or anyone. They eventually realized that

Many resources such as books are being taken off the shelves of libraries because they contain blasphemy, sex, violence, race, satanism, witchcraft, or political bias. The Giver is a book that has been banned time and again for being not suitable for kids and violent. Even though there have been countless attempts to ban The Giver, it stills remains in the seventh-grade reading list of many schools.

The giver is a fictional novel authorised by Louis Lowry dedicated to informing readers about the devastating impact of extreme conformity on a community. As we progress throughout the book we start to realise and learn all these new things about the giver's community, such as creating and trying to maintain a perfect community, that comes beyond our abilities, while the givers society is having a huge impact on the individuality and individual choices on the members of the community. We learn that the inhabitants of the society had a hard time handling all the different memories, in a sudden event. All hints and evidence to these statements above are hidden and presented throughout the book.

Author of the book Judy Blume argues that, “students are the losers if teachers are afraid to cause controversy” (cited in Aronson, 2013, p.11). I agree with this statement, by discussing topics that are controversial creates great discussions that children can gain insight and knowledge from an alternative view that they may not have otherwise. By using literature to discuss controversial topics allow students to have natural conversations that they may value for the rest of their life. Tunnel and Jacobs (2016) states, “Avoiding the harsh and often unsavory realities of life does not make them go away. In fact, a child may be more susceptible to the effects of controversial material by being totally unprepared” (2016, pg. 217). I also agree with this statement, as I mentioned previously that discussion topics related to sex, drugs (peer pressure), and death are all topics that are apart of life that every individual will go through or experience. By not discussing these topics can leave a child unprepared for when these experiences happen to them in real life. Discussing these topics in literature first, is not only informative, but also will better prepare a child for when they may face this reality. Therefore, I believe that children should be reading books that are controversial (but appropriate to their age group) because

Teachers in public schools are well-educated and friendly individuals who love their job or career field. Therefore, they should want to teach things that have a positive and educational outcome. Sadly, many teachers have chosen a different path by allowing books with questionable material to be a way of teaching. It is very upsetting to parents because these certain books contain poor language, sexuality, and lastly violence. There are many reasons as to why they shouldn’t be permitted to teach these type of books.

The Giver by Lois Lowry, is about the Jonas, a boy growing up in small futuristic city with strict rules and regulations. Joanas is excited to grow up into the 12 age group and receive his assignment(job). But he doesn't know that his whole life is about to change when he reserves his assignment.