{"id":118,"date":"2011-03-27T17:04:41","date_gmt":"2011-03-27T21:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?post_type=worldedu_posts&p=12430"},"modified":"2016-07-01T17:44:38","modified_gmt":"2016-07-01T21:44:38","slug":"banned-books-awareness-giver-lois-lowry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/2011\/03\/27\/banned-books-awareness-giver-lois-lowry\/","title":{"rendered":"Banned Books Awareness: The Giver by Lois Lowry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Giver<\/a><\/em> (1993), by Lois Lowry, tells the story of a utopian future society where poverty, crime, sickness, and unemployment are a thing of the past. Jonas, a 12-year-old, is chosen to be the next Receiver of Memories; but Jonas soon learns that the price of this knowledge is more than he expected.<\/p>\n

Emotional depth is gone from humanity as the result of the conversion to \u201cSameness\u201d- an obvious vision of the effects conformity has on humanity as a whole. As the Receiver of Memories, it is Jonas\u2019 task to store all the memories of life before Sameness.<\/p>\n

The Giver<\/em> won the Newbery Medal in 1994 even though there was criticism among many that the book was inappropriate for young children. The book is regularly assigned at middle schools in the United States, Canada, and Australia.<\/p>\n

The reaction to The Giver<\/em> has been polarized to say the least. Some critics place it in the 100 Best Books for Children <\/em>and even the Christian Science Monitor<\/em> was quoted as saying, \u201cLowry’s powerful book, simply and directly written, offers an inspiring defense of freedom. Both adventurous and skillfully plotted, this book is recommended for young readers 8 and up.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet the American Library Association lists the trilogy of The Giver<\/a><\/em>, Gathering Blue<\/a>,<\/em> and Messenger<\/a><\/em> among the most frequently challenged books of the 1990\u2019s.<\/p>\n

During the mid-to late 90\u2019s some of the most common objections were over violent and sexual scenes, infanticide, euthanasia, and \u201csexual awakening.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1995 a parent in Franklin County, Kansas, challenged it for themes of murder, suicide, and \u201cthe degradation of motherhood and adolescence.\u201d\u00a0 The book was eventually removed from school libraries, but remained available for use at a teachers\u2019 discretion.<\/p>\n

Charges in Johnson County, Missouri were that The Giver<\/em> \u201cdesensitized children to euthanasia.\u201d<\/p>\n

A parent in Sidney, New York, publicly objected to the usage of \u201cmind control, selective breeding, and the eradication of the old and young when they are weak, feeble and of no more use.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Oklahoma a parent objected to the novel\u2019s use of the terms \u201cclairvoyance,\u201d \u201ctranscendent,\u201d and \u201cguided imagery,\u201d because these were \u00a0\u201coccult, New Age practices, that the Bible tells us to avoid.\u201d\u00a0 The review committee voted unanimously to retain the book, but agreed to prohibit its use in elementary assignments.<\/p>\n

The list of challenges this decade alone comes from Marshall University. A few of the reported incidents, in order of year, are as follows:<\/p>\n

2001- Banned for violence, \u201coccult themes\u201d, and sexually explicit material.<\/p>\n

2005- Challenged in Blue Springs, Missouri, when parents called the book \u201clewd\u201d and \u201ctwisted.\u201d They demanded the work be removed from 8th<\/sup>-grade reading lists across the district.<\/p>\n

2006- Challenged, and later retained, at the Unified School District Elementary School in Seaman, Kansas.<\/p>\n

2007- Parents in the Mt. Diablo School District in Concord, California, were offended by descriptions of pill-popping, suicide, and lethal injections given to babies and the elderly.<\/p>\n

Some have claimed that the book encourages suicide in scenes where the Nurturers \u201crelease\u201d newborns and elderly; but it\u2019s that very disregard for life that the dystopian future society imposes that should be discussed and questioned. Being indifferent and ignorant of the subject is just as bad, if not worse, than blatantly tolerating it.<\/p>\n

These are hardly new or radical themes. Science-Fiction movies have explored these themes for decades.\u00a0 1976\u2019s cult classic, Logan\u2019s Run<\/a>, depicts a hedonistic future society which controls population by requiring the death of everyone over a certain age. The event is a public spectacle called Carousel wherein the public is led to believe that it is an honor to go on to the next phase of life, when in fact they are simply and summarily eradicated.<\/p>\n

In Lois Lowry\u2019s Frequently Asked Questions section of her official website, she answers a young reader who explains that a parent at their school wants to ban The Giver, and asks for her opinion.<\/p>\n

She replied, \u201cI think banning books is a very, very dangerous thing. It takes away an important freedom. Any time there is an attempt to ban a book, you should fight it as hard as you can. It’s okay for a parent to say, \u2018I don’t want my child to read this book.\u2019 But it is not okay for anyone to try to make that decision for other people. The world portrayed in The Giver<\/em> is a world where choice has been taken away. It is a frightening world. Let\u2019s work hard to keep it from truly happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t agree more.<\/p>\n

Sources: American Library Association, Wikipedia.com, Marshall University, loislowry.com<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2011 R. Wolf Baldassarro\/Deep Forest Productions<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

*NOTE FROM AUTHOR:<\/em><\/strong> Your comments and suggestions are always welcome and appreciated. Please feel free to chime in at the end of the article! I check and reply to all comments daily. Thank you for your continued support.*<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Giver (1993), by Lois Lowry, tells the story of a utopian future society where poverty, crime, sickness, and unemployment are a thing of the past. Jonas, a 12-year-old, is chosen to be the next Receiver of Memories; but Jonas soon learns that the price of this knowledge is more […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[377,378,379,2],"tags":[438],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-banned-books","category-banned-books-awareness-and-reading-for-knowledge","category-censorship","category-social-change","tag-the-giver"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1160,"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/1160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbark.deepforestproductions.com\/column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}