The Giver

Oooh, this is a good book.  My friend Jessica recommended this one and I wish it was about 300 pages longer.  It's recommended for 12-14 year olds and it's creepy.  The Giver is set in a futuristic world where everything  is completely controlled so that there is no dissension, no emotion and no independence.  Everyone lives in an environment of closely contained sameness.  Everyone, that is, except for the Receiver.

The Receiver is an honored citizen whose task is to be a memory keeper for the community.  The Receiver alone is responsible for storing the historical knowledge of joy, pain and everything in between.  If something unprecedented happens within the Stepfordesque community, the Receiver is called upon to provide solutions to the unwanted feelings that arise.

This book is absolutely horrifying, but so gripping.  I had forgotten that children's literature is sometimes so demented.  Do you remember The Lottery by Shirley Jackson?  That one kept me up for many nights.  This one gives me the same feeling.  It's a younger version of The Handmaid's Tale or Nineteen Eighty-Four.  I want to read twelve more just like it.  It was riveting.