When to read/discuss "The Giver"?

[cintinative]

I've seen references to this being assigned in 5th or 6th grade. I can't wrap my mind around that after reading it.  It is an easy read but thematically it is mature. 

I'm trying not to present spoilers here, so I guess I will leave it at that. My kids are 13 in a few weeks and 15 in September.

 

ETA: i am also open to just skipping it. 

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by cintinative

[Slache]

That book scarred me. High school, please.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Never?  I just don't see it as a particularly necessary book.  (But others have given you better suggestions for when to use it. ) 

[Lori D.]

Reading-level-wise it is at about a 6th grade level. However, thematically and subject-wise, I would recommend late middle school or high school, so as to be able to discuss the ideas in it. And if you have a sensitive child, or prefer to not introduce the ideas in the book to your family, then no need to ever do it. 😉

That said, I did it with DSs when they were in 9th/10th (ages 14/15) and we were doing our DIY Literature of Worldviews in Classic Sci-Fi lit. And then I did it a few years ago in my Lit. & Comp homeschool co-op class with 9th graders + advanced 8th graders (ages 13/14). So age-wise your kids are at a perfect time to do that book.

There are some huge plot holes and inconsistencies in the book which I find annoying, but students tend to skip over. The book is a "gentle" intro into dystopia (lol-- that's an oxymoron), and it made for a lot of great discussion. The book went over well with both my DSs and with the students in my class.

Unless your family has a baby, or you have a very sensitive child, my experience has been that young teens click with the character of Jonas, and while the one baby scene is awful, students tend to handle it well, and move on -- if nothing else, to find out what happens to Jonas and Gabriel. In some ways, I think that scene with the baby -- and the whole idea of the world in the way "families" are "created" --  is more shocking to us moms who have had and raised babies and who love our children dearly and can't imagine being like Jonas' mom or living in a world without strong emotions and family ties.

But I think that is part of what that book is trying to get at, and what dystopias are doing -- getting us to look at what a society might be willing to give up for the sake of peace, or financial stability, or other reason.

The Garlic Press Discovering Literature guide is quite meaty, has some useful discussion questions and info on literature topics that are worth looking while doing this book.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Lori D.

[KrissiK]

My daughter read it this year in 8th grade (Christian school). She enjoyed it and seemed to understand it. I think they start getting into the dystopian stuff at that age.

[Momto6inIN]

We usually do it at the end of 8th grade because by then we're up to modern times in the history cycle and it comes after that :)

[ScoutTN]

I'm with Jean. Skipping it altogether here.

Edited June 4, 2020 by ScoutTN

[happypamama]

The one scene with the baby made me feel physically ill when I read it, and that was as a young adult.  Just thinking about it now makes me feel icky, tbh.  I like Lowry in general a lot, but I decided I will never make my kids read that.  (Or "The Lottery" either.)  And then we lost a much wanted baby, so it got doubly nixed.

[Xahm]

I read it in eighth grade in an advanced program (though this particular class was not pushing the limits). It was a very easy read, which in a school setting was good because everyone could read it quickly enough that it actually got read and people weren't just staring at the teacher during class discussion. I think most of the class was engaged by it. The ideas were big enough that we cared but the world Jonas lives in is simplified enough that a young teen can grasp the whole thing and not get bogged down while articulating their position about the different issues presented. 

[Rosie_0801]

My daughter was assigned to read that during the summer before starting year 7. There was no way I was going to have her read that unattended, so I read it to her and felt nauseous by page 15. I have no objections to her reading it at an older age, but aged 12, particularly for a kid who actually has similar problems in real life, was really inappropriate.

[LauraBeth475]

7 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Reading-level-wise it is at about a 6th grade level. However, thematically and subject-wise, I would recommend late middle school or high school, so as to be able to discuss the ideas in it. And if you have a sensitive child, or prefer to not introduce the ideas in the book to your family, then no need to ever do it. 😉

That said, I did it with DSs when they were in 9th/10th (ages 14/15) and we were doing our DIY Literature of Worldviews in Classic Sci-Fi lit. And then I did it a few years ago in my Lit. & Comp homeschool co-op class with 9th graders + advanced 8th graders (ages 13/14). So age-wise your kids are at a perfect time to do that book.

There are some huge plot holes and inconsistencies in the book which I find annoying, but students tend to skip over. The book is a "gentle" intro into dystopia (lol-- that's an oxymoron), and it made for a lot of great discussion. The book went over well with both my DSs and with the students in my class.

Unless your family has a baby, or you have a very sensitive child, my experience has been that young teens click with the character of Jonas, and while the one baby scene is awful, students tend to handle it well, and move on -- if nothing else, to find out what happens to Jonas and Gabriel. In some ways, I think that scene with the baby -- and the whole idea of the world in the way "families" are "created" --  is more shocking to us moms who have had and raised babies and who love our children dearly and can't imagine being like Jonas' mom or living in a world without strong emotions and family ties.

But I think that is part of what that book is trying to get at, and what dystopias are doing -- getting us to look at what a society might be willing to give up for the sake of peace, or financial stability, or other reason.

The Garlic Press Discovering Literature guide is quite meaty, has some useful discussion questions and info on literature topics that are worth looking while doing this book.

 

I would love to see that Literature of Worldviews in Classic Sci-Fi reading list

[kristin0713]

8th grade. I thought my daughter would be traumatized by the baby but she was fine. I don’t think we could have had discussions with the same amount of depth prior to this year. 

[Lori D.]

18 minutes ago, LauraBeth475 said:

I would love to see that Literature of Worldviews in Classic Sci-Fi reading list

Frankenstein -- Gothic/Romanticism -- novel 
Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde -- Christianity --  novella
Time Machine -- Evolution/Socialism -- novella
Animal Farm - Communism/Capitalism -- short novella
The Giver - Dystopia -- YA short novel
Brave New World -- Dystopia -- novel
Fahrenheit 451 -- Loss of Literacy/Apocalyptic -- short novel
A Cantical for Leibowitz -- Church as Keeper of Civilization's Light/Post-Apocalyptic -- novel
Cosmicomics -- Existentialism -- selected short stories
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy + Restaurant at the End of the Universe -- Absurdism -- 2 novels

 

I have also twice taught "Other Worlds", a year-long Lit. & Comp. co-op class on classic fantasy, sci-fi, and speculative fiction, with some overlap in the booklists between the 2 "rounds":

FANTASY
short stories:
Farmer Giles of Ham (Tolkien)
Smith of Wootton Major (Tolkien)
YA books:
The Rumpelstiltskin Problem (Velde)
The Blue Sword (McKinley)
The Never Ending Story (Ende)
novels:
A Wizard of Earthsea (Le Guin)
Watership Down (Adams)
The Hobbit (Tolkien)

SCI-FI
short stories:
The Running of the Robots (Buckram)
There Will Come Soft Rains (Bradbury)
All Summer in a Day (Bradbury)
The Fun They Had (Asimov)
YA books:
A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle)
The Giver (Lowry)
Enchantress From the Stars (Engdahl)
novellas:
The Time Machine (Wells)
novels:
Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury)
Ender's Game (Card)

SPECULATIVE FICTION
short stories:
The Lottery (Jackson)
The Monkey's Paw (Jacobs)
Leaf By Niggle (Tolkien)
YA books:
Tuck Everlasting (Babbitt)
novellas:
Animal Farm (Orwell)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde)
The Invisible Man (Wells)
novels:
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Bradbury)
Lord of the Flies (Golding)

[wendyroo]

The Giver came out when I was 12, the same age as Jonas.

I was an intellectual misfit in a sports-crazed, mid-western middle school.  The school had little to offer me, so they scheduled me to spent hours every day in the library, where the librarian took me under her wing and kept me stocked with good books to read in my free time.  She recommended The Giver.  Looking back, it was a pivotal book in my life.  It is one of the only books I really remember the experience of reading as a child (that and Flowers in the Attic...I was a prolific, equal opportunity reader 😏).

My kids will definitely be reading The Giver; I think it is a good introduction to dystopian literature, and very worthy of the Newbery and other awards it won.  Obviously it is sad, unsettling, and distressing, but that describes a lot of outstanding, thought-provoking, challenging literature.

There is certainly a copy of The Giver on our bookshelf, and if my 11 year old, or any of my kids, picked it up, I would not censor it.  But I specifically chose not to pull it off the shelf and put it in my 5th grader's literature bin this past year.  I don't anticipate I will do it this coming year either.  I expect I will assign it in 7th or 8th.  I don't think I will wait for high school - even though the theme and some plot elements are quite mature, it is still a fairly simplistic novel, and I think a large part of my connection to the story was my being Jonas' age and being able to imagine myself in his shoes.

[bookbard]

Wow, I'm surprised at the negative feelings towards this book; it's a favourite. I think it's far too simplistic for high school and think it should be set around 12, as it's a coming of age novel where the onset of puberty is a theme. I don't remember being shocked about the euthanasia bits at all. I would say that I didn't think much of the three sequels and the movie was a bit silly. But the book itself was great - the concept of not being able to see colours until they were talked about was fascinating. 

[cintinative]

18 hours ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

Never?  I just don't see it as a particularly necessary book.  (But others have given you better suggestions for when to use it. ) 

 

To be honest, I don't either. I picked it up at a thrift store and am contemplating even using it.

18 hours ago, Slache said:

That book scarred me. High school, please.

I'm still contemplating if we will even read it, but I agree with you. I am still thinking about the book many days later and trying to sort out what I think about it. Some parts were definitely disturbing. 

Edited June 5, 2020 by cintinative

[cintinative]

Thanks everyone! You have given me a lot to think about. I do agree that this book could be quite disturbing. 

Knowing my boys, I doubt that it will bother them that much (The Lottery didn't phase them at all).  But I agree there are other dystopian works we could pick from in high school. We won't hit modern history again for a few years so that gives them time to mature.

 

[cintinative]

8 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Brave New World -- Dystopia -- novel
Fahrenheit 451 -- Loss of Literacy/Apocalyptic -- short novel
A Cantical for Leibowitz -- Church as Keeper of Civilization's Light/Post-Apocalyptic -- novel

 

I read Brave New World three decades ago. Is my memory wrong in thinking that the content is even more mature than The Giver?  I was thinking of skipping that one just because of the memories I have of it.  I believe we had to write a research paper on it.  😃

I have never heard of A Cantical for Leibowitz. What is the content like for that?

[Terabith]

I read it when I was 12.  I was a sensitive kid, but it didn’t particularly bother me, and it resonated and made me think a lot.  I loved it.  At least my oldest child read it (and all the sequels) at age 12 or 13.  It was one of their favorite books ever.  
 

I think some things bother us more viscerally as adults and mothers than as children.  

[Lori D.]

4 hours ago, cintinative said:

I read Brave New World three decades ago. Is my memory wrong in thinking that the content is even more mature than The Giver?  I was thinking of skipping that one just because of the memories I have of it.  I believe we had to write a research paper on it.  😃

I have never heard of A Cantical for Leibowitz. What is the content like for that?

re: Brave New World
Absolutely, can skip or not as you wish. No rule says you have to read this dystopia -- or ANY dystopia! Dystopia is just one of a number of sub-genres under the Sci-Fi genre, and has its own particular set of conventions, and particular themes that are developed.

Yes, Brave New World is more mature in content but also in writing style. There is s*x, but not written graphically -- in this dystopia world, it is monogamy and bearing children that are considered preserve, while orgies and random hook-ups are considered the norm, as everyone is genetically engineered to physically/mentally fit in one of 5 or 6 social/worker classes, developed in an artificial womb (bottle) and "decanted" (rather than born), and raised by the state with all thinking and education designed to affirm you in your social class. Everyone uses soma (a drug) to self-calm [can compare to screen addiction of today]. There is also the suicide of a major character. The entire dystopia has been engineered to maintain a stable economy.

A lot of people, Christian AND secular, very strongly dislike this book. As Christians, we found a lot to discuss, and found some aspects of this dystopia to be eerie prescient to our modern day culture, for a book written almost 90 years ago (it was written in 1933). You certainly don't have to do Brave New World, although BNW, along with Nineteen Eighty Four (Orwell), published in 1949, are often considered to be the 2 big early dystopias. We did Nineteen Eighty Four in late high school. It's pretty brutal, and I wanted DSs to have the maturity, and more experience with "reading deeper" into literature, to be able to unpack that one.

re: Cantical for Leibowitz
It was published in the early 1960s by a Catholic author, and follows the second rise of civilization after a devastating atomic world war, in 3 parts -- the barbaric early Middle Ages stage; a late Medieval stage of classed, feudal society on the cusp of a Renaissance; and a civilization more advanced than our current civilization -- and it's about to blow itself up again. In each part, the Catholic Church plays a key role in keeping civilization alive. The content is not graphic, but it does reference a number of things that if you're not familiar with them, you'll easily get lost. We did this one aloud together and stopped fairly often for me to explain things. This guide was helpful, as it lists most of the things that might trip you up and gives a short explanation. Here's a useful Wikipedia summary of the plot and key ideas in the book, so you can get more of a feel of what it's like. It is definitely a post-apocalyptic work, and not a dystopia.

re: other possible dystopias
House of Stairs (Sleator) is a YA book from the 1970s that might be a starting point for dystopia. It is short/fast, focuses on a single idea (Pavlovian behavior modification applied to human beings), and has many of the elements of a dystopia. See the Wikipedia summary.

If needing even more of a gentle intro to dystopia, you might check out the upper-elementary Shadow Children series (Haddix), or, City of Ember, and sequel People of Spark, the first 2 books of the quadrilogy by du Prau.

Or, you might consider the Hunger Games or the Maze Runner. I've read the Hunger Games trilogy, and there are some interesting themes and depth to the first book; books 2 & 3 got rushed and end up being all about plot and the angst over which boy does she *really* love 🙄 ... There is definitely brutal violence -- child on child violence in gladiatorial games. I have not read the Maze Runner series, but some of my high school co-op class students have enjoyed it -- don't know if there's much "meat" to it for discussing...

Or, again, don't feel you have to read ANY dystopian work! 😉 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Lori D.

[Lecka]

This sounds like The Tale Of Despereaux.  My niece loved this book in 4th grade.  She adored it.  Very meaningful to her.  Was a teacher read-aloud at her school.

I got it on cd from the library to listen to on a drive with her, she said she would like to listen to it again.

And then — wow, I thought the content was totally disturbing at numerous places.  
 

But my niece was not relating to it the same way I was.  

[vonfirmath]

8 hours ago, cintinative said:

 

I read Brave New World three decades ago. Is my memory wrong in thinking that the content is even more mature than The Giver?  I was thinking of skipping that one just because of the memories I have of it.  I believe we had to write a research paper on it.  😃

I have never heard of A Cantical for Leibowitz. What is the content like for that?

We had a dystopian/utopian unit in 7th grade English

It included Brave New World

Lord of the Flies

Fahrenheit 751

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

The book I always forget about a plane that crashed in Shangri-La.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner

ETA: And Animal Farm

And Nineteen Eighty Four  (we read it in 1985 or 1986 so we knew the date was off)

 

 

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by vonfirmath

[wendyroo]

8 hours ago, cintinative said:

I read Brave New World three decades ago. Is my memory wrong in thinking that the content is even more mature than The Giver?  I was thinking of skipping that one just because of the memories I have of it.  I believe we had to write a research paper on it.  😃

I have never heard of A Cantical for Leibowitz. What is the content like for that?

Yes, I think Brave New World is definitely intended for an older audience than The Giver.

Before I threw a student into the dystopian deep end with BNW, I would want then to have some experience with books like City of Ember, The Giver, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, etc.

[cintinative]

9 minutes ago, wendyroo said:

Yes, I think Brave New World is definitely intended for an older audience than The Giver.

Before I threw a student into the dystopian deep end with BNW, I would want then to have some experience with books like City of Ember, The Giver, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, etc.

 

I really don't think we'll do BNW to be honest. My oldest did read Animal Farm this year in his TPS class.

I am laughing at the expression "the dystopian deep end."  Some days, our present world feels like the "dystopian shallow end." LOL

[Terabith]

All right, I checked out A Canticle for Leibowitz before quarantine, and now I can't find it.  I had totally forgotten about it.  I really want to read it!  (Plus, it's a library book.)

[Gil]

When I was growing up, I remember that book being assigned in 8th grade for the "Advanced" classes. In my current school district that's assigned reading in the 6th grade for the Pre-IB kids.

 

[LinRTX]

Well I asked my youngest (recently 20) her thoughts on the best age for this book. I was surprised when she said she found it on the shelves and read it at 7. She actually loves the entire series and has read them several times. She is also 7 years younger than her closest sister, read early and quite a bit, and hated read alouds.