To fully understand Lois Lowry’s The Giver, you must make connections. For example, the community in which Jonas, the main character, lives, is in the future. The people of this community have never seen color, living animals, or even hills. Everything is the same and a person’s life is dictated by numerous rules and regulations. When a person is an adult, they can apply for a spouse or a child, but don’t have a choice on who they get. If babies aren’t strong enough or weigh a certain amount, they are released, because the council members of the community want everyone to be the same. Jonas doesn’t realize that this isn’t how it always was, he just does what he is told and has faith for his parents (who aren’t really his parents) and the council. That is, until the annual Ceremony of Twelve’s, in which Jonas and his other kids who were former Eleven’s get assigned their jobs.

Jonas is singled out for last, and is given a very special job: the Receiver. He has to train away from the other Twelve’s and isn’t allowed to talk about his training. On the first day of Receiver training, Jonas meets the man who is teaching him: The Giver. Jonas finds out that his job is to keep all the memories that the Giver passes to him so that the sameness of his community will always stay the same. However, Jonas learns the terrible secrets that the council of Elders has been hiding: for one, that when a person gets “released,” it means that they are killed. Jonas makes a life-altering decision, but you’ll have to read the book to find out what he does and its outcome.