Son
The Worlds Book 4
Lois Lowry
Thomas Allen & Sons
ISBN 9780547887203
I first read the giver in a university Children's literature course in 2001. It was incredible and the ending was open to so many interpretations. I knew high school students, university students, and retirees who all read it and loved it. The book was so different from anything else I had read and the story stayed with me for a long time. As the others in the series came out, each was an amazing read but each also left some questions unanswered. In this book, that the author states is the last in the series, many of those questions get answered and yet it still leaves much to the imagination.
Son begins in the time of Jonah in his original community. But it spans many years and many miles, following a woman on a quest to be reunited with her child, a child she should never have known, but a child she loved and was willing to give all to know and see again. In a world of different communities, that live by different rules and with different levels of technology, this book ties directly to the Giver, and ties it even more closely to Gathering Blue and Messenger.
This is a story of love - the love of a mother for child, of friends who, if situations were different, would be more. It is the story of adoption, and being taken in and welcomed into a community not your own, and it is the story of journey. And also the journey to find what was lost and the journey to find who you are. It was an amazing read and I will be going back and reading the whole quartet again soon. But as a warning, some fans of the Giver will not like it because the openness to interpretation as that book ends gets wrapped up the way Lowry intends.
Books by Lois Lowry:
The Worlds:
The Giver (1993)
Gathering Blue (2000)
Messenger (2004)
Son (2012)
The Anastasia series:
Anastasia Krupnik (1979)
Anastasia Again! (1981)
Anastasia at Your Service (1982)
Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst (1984)
Anastasia on Her Own (1985)
Anastasia Has the Answers (1986)
Anastasia's Chosen Career (1987)
Anastasia at This Address (1991)
Anastasia Absolutely (1995)
The Sam series:
All About Sam (1988)
Attaboy Sam! (1992)
See You Around, Sam! (1996)
Zooman Sam (1999)
The Tates series:
The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline (1983)
Switcharound (1985)
Your Move, J.P.! (1990)
The Gooney Bird series:
Gooney Bird Greene (2002)
Gooney Bird and the Room Mother (2006)
Gooney the Fabulous (2007)
Gooney Bird Is So Absurd (2009)
Gooney Bird on the Map (2011)
Autobiographical:
Looking Back (1998)
Crow Call (2009)
Others:
A Summer to Die (1977)
Here in Kennebunkport (1978)
Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye (1978)
Autumn Street (1980)
Taking Care of Terrific (1983)
Us and Uncle Fraud (1984)
Rabble Starkey (1987)
Number the Stars (1989)
Stay! Keeper's Story (1997)
The Silent Boy (2003)
Gossamer (2006)
The Willoughbys (2008)
The Birthday Ball (2010)
Bless This Mouse (2011)
Like the Willow Tree (2011)
Crow Call
Lois Lowry (Author)
Bagram Ibatoulline (Illustrator)
Scholastic
ISBN 9780545030359
Lois Lowry is one of only two children's authors to ever win two Newbery Medals. Her Giver trilogy (Giver, Messenger and Gathering Blue) is used in school curriculums all over North America. This new story is wonderfully told and amazingly illustrated. The artwork is vivid and realistic, almost a cross between Norman Rockwell and Alex Colville. The story is that of a young girl out for the day with her father, a father she doesn't really know, for he has just returned from the war. They have gone to hunt crows that are eating the crops. The story is about parents and children getting to know each other. In that sense it is truly universal, which is the best kind of story. Lowry shares in the afterward that this is a true story; it happened to her. This is an amazing book and can be shared with many.
Lois Lowry is one of those unique authors who has won the John Newbery Medal for children’s literature twice. Once for the first book in this trilogy and once for a book about the Holocaust called Number the Stars. (Just as an aside only one other author has ever done that Madeleine L’Engle who I would also recommend highly.) I would begin by recommending any of her books; they are all worth the time and the effort. This trilogy is set in a post apocalyptic world. The first two books each focus on different community’s who have recovered from the devastation differently, both have strengths and both have weaknesses. And a young boy must heal them both and the land if either is to survive.
The Giver
Lois Lowry
Laurel-Leaf Books
ISBN:0440219078
Jonas is a young boy who lives in a community with a lot of technology and many rules about it. He has only seen an airplane twice for planes were not suppose to over fly villages, it was against the rules. Children of the same age are raised together and each December they move up a grade, when the reach the age of twelve they are selected for occupational training Jonas in talking to his friend states about selections: “Jonas Shrugged. It didn’t worry him, how could someone not fit in? The Community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made.” However all the other Twelve’s were assigned and Jonas was skipped then at the end of the ceremony it was announced that he had been selected he was chosen to become the ‘receiver of memory.’ He was to learn all the history and story of the people and become an advisor to the council that ruled the village. It only happened every so many generations and only 1 keeper of memories was installed in each village. Jonas and his family take in an infant who is not maturing and growing quickly enough. The child is given a year extension, when the child is marked to me replaced (abandoned and killed). Jonas takes the child and runs away. Through the winter Jonas knows he will not make it and pours all the memories he has learnt into the child. But can he save the child? What will happen to him and his community? Jonas thought his world was perfect, that the elders had everything under control, that there would never be war again. But also a world without choices. Till he is given the knowledge of the past the choice to save a child or let it die?
Gathering Blue
Lois Lowry
Laurel-Leaf Books
ISBN:0440229499
Kira, is an orphan and she has a twisted leg, she lives in a village with very little technology and one that casts aside those who do not contribute. The weak, injured, and helpless are abandoned. However things are starting to turn around for Kira, she has been spared by the all powerful Council of Guardians, for she has a gift she is a weaver and can die cloths in ways no other in the community can. As an artisan she is installed in the palatial Council Edifice and spends the whole year working her trade, her primary task is to care for the Robe of Remembrance that tell’s the story of this community. But with her privilege comes expectations that she will do the council biddings. She befriends a young boy and his ragged dog, Matty ‘The Fiercest of the Fierce’. Matt tells Kira about another village where people are not cast aside, where they share their food. Matt brings her a gift the color blue, and a blind man that is her father. She is torn between staying and leaving the life she knows, and the truths she can find out what will happen.
Messenger
Lois Lowry
Thomas Allen & Son
ISBN:0618404414
Matt has returned he is with Kira’s father and living in the new community from beyond yonder. This village is guided by love and compassion, and guided by the ‘Leader’ a seer arrived in this village one winter night many years ago on a sleigh with an older boy who did not survive the journey. The Seer can see the future and can often see for people what might be for his people. Matty is almost at the age where he will be named, he is hoping to be named ‘Messenger’ for he takes message both in the village and to other villages which many can not do. But things are changing, the village is becoming hostile, starting to turn people away and the woods are becoming ferial and people are dieing. Can the Leader save the village, can the world be healed, what will happen to Kira, her father and Matty?
These three books will challenge you, after reading The Giver the first time I was overwhelmed and it haunted me for a long time. I went back and have reread it many many times. All three books raise questions about community, love, friendship, and care for other people. They also show dark paths that we as a people can go down, and how it can devastate all around us when we make the wrong choices for the wrong reasons.
