Reading Without Colour

I first came across The Giver in the sixth grade, when I was first exposed to novels with covers that don't have every colour in the spectrum. I read the book and didn't think much about it, because it didn't strike a chord with me. I didn't realize how important the novel was until I leafed through it recently in my senior year of university! 

Lois Lowry created a world that was half-idealistic and half-apocalyptic. The inhabitants of her little town are unaware of the outside world, and no one has dared to venture out of it. It is a town that Marx would be proud of, because everything is regulated to the point of people's sexual habits. Whenever youths begin to show signs of sexual stimulation or arousal, they are administered pills that control their "stirrings," thus preventing things such as physical desire and romance. The town (which doesn't have a name, to the best of my recollection) also controls its inhabitants to what they see: that its; no one can see colour, thus eliminating differentiation between people and races. The equality people receive in the fictional town is truly admirable, but definitely creepy at the same time. The protagonist of the novel, a child by the name of Jonas, learns that he is to be the town's "Giver", the one who is allowed to keep the memories of the time before black-and-white and strict austerity of lifestyle in case a need for the them would arise. Honestly, the story is really fascinating and although it is marketed as a kids' book, I believe that adults would be even more interested than children in reading it.

The Giver wasn't that fascinating to an eleven-year-old Emma as much as it was to a nineteen-year-old me. Even now, I realize that the book's ability to draw in the reader to the point where I got excited at the first time Jonas saw the colour red really makes me want to look more into Lowry's work. One major disappointment, however, was that there is no sequel to the book. It really lacks completion, and when I once taught the book to an eighth grade class three years ago, I had them write up an alternative ending to the novel. There was one in particular that stood out to me, and although it wasn't really the happily-ever-after everyone goes for, it was strong. That's what The Giver lacks: a strong close. Still, read it, but you will probably be frustrated at the end.