FreshTalkingKids

I was just rereading one of my favorite books of all time… The Giver by Lois Lowry. I have read it so many times that I’ve lost count.  But I can still remember the first time I ever read it.

I was in fourth grade when I first read The Giver. My teacher had recommended it to me, so I thought I’d try it out. In the beginning I thought it would be the kind of book I was used to: a light story with a bit of emotion. Far from it! I found The Giver to be a beautiful story with characters who were honest and believable.

I started out reading it at school, but I had to bring it home to finish it. I can still remember when I finished it. I was sitting on the couch with my mom baking muffins.  She brought a warm muffin over to give me, and found that I was crying. I had never done that with a book before! But the ending of The Giver was so beautiful, I was just overcome with emotions.  My mom looked at me, and asked, “Is everything okay, sweetie?” I had to shake my head and explain that nothing was wrong, I had just finished a really good book.

Then my mom decided that she wanted to read the book too.  She loved it, and was thrilled that I liked it so much.  We researched the author, and I found her two other books in the trilogy of The Giver… Gathering Blue, and Messenger. (And yes, I cried at the end of Messenger too… who wouldn’t?)

The Giver was the first book that really touched me.  Sure, I had read good books before,  but The Giver was the first time I was really touched by it, and crying with the characters.

The Giver is a science-fiction book, and deals with the “what if?” question.  Lois Lowry decided to explore the question… “what if there was a way to lose sad memories? What if we didn’t have to remember all the horrible things that have happened, and we could just move on like it had never existed?”  This is a very emotional book, coming to the conclusion, “We need sad memories so we can appreciate good things. Without our sadness, we cannot truly have happiness.”

The author writes in a very interesting way, which was why I loved the book so much.  Even though the book was meant for children, it includes some very mature emotions.  Lois Lowry didn’t worry that the book would be too upsetting to young children.  She just wrote.  Most parents, on the other hand, are very protective of their kids.  My mom would probably rather have me watch iCarly on TV than read about people fighting in Afghanistan, but I feel like I have a right to know about the real world.  My life is very good, but how will I appreciate that if I’m not aware of the pain others are feeling?  Children should not be protected from the world outside, but should be able to reach out and touch it if they’d like to.

Of course, I’m not saying that protecting children from the news is wrong.  There are a lot of awful things that happen, that kids don’t need to know about.  But if it will in any way concern the child, tell them! Authors  also make that mistake, putting horror stories in books.  For instance, in a book I just read called Unwind, there was some of that.  It was a great book, but the author made it overly graphic and shocking in some parts.  The best book is where the author slips in sadness as a part of the plot, and doesn’t try to make it really horrible.

That’s why The Giver was so powerful for me.  It was my first experience with real sadness in books, and it really made a big impact on me.  That was when I discovered how much emotion was woven into writing, and how that emotion was very powerful.  When used not to tell a horror story,  but simply as part of a touching book, it can make a child look at the world in a whole new way.

And someday, that’s what I’d like to do with my writing.