The Giver

The Giver is a 1993 American Young-adult fiction-Dystopian novel by Lois Lowry. It is set in a society which at first appears as a utopian society but then later revealed to be a dystopian one as the story progresses. The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the twelfth and thirteenth years of his life. The society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to "Sameness," a plan that has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. Jonas is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory, the person who stores all the past memories of the time before Sameness, as there may be times where one must draw upon the wisdom gained from history to aid the community's decision making. Jonas struggles with concepts of all of the new emotions, and things being introduced to him, and whether they are inherently good, evil, in-between, and if it's even possible to have one without the other. The Community lacks any color, memory, climate and terrain whatsoever, all in effort to preserve structure, order, and a true sense of equality beyond personal individuality.

The Giver won the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold more than 10 million copies. In Australia, Canada, and the United States, it is a part of many middle school reading lists, but it is also on many challenged book lists and appeared on the American Library Association's list of most challenged books of the 1990s.

In 2014, the film adaptation was released, starring Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep and Brenton Thwaites.

The novel forms a loose quartet with three other books set in the same future era: Gathering Blue (2000), Messenger (2004), and Son (2012).