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Son (The Giver Quartet #4)

3.96 of 5 stars 3.96 · rating details · 8,702 ratings · 1,961 reviews

They called her Water Claire. When she washed up on their shore, no one knew that she came from a society where emotions and colors didn’t exist. That she had become a Vessel at age thirteen. That she had carried a Product at age fourteen. That it had been stolen from her body. Claire had a son. But what became of him she never knew. What was his name? Was he even alive? S...more

Hardcover, 393 pages

Published October 2nd 2012 by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children

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Feb 07, 2013 Joe rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed-library, young-adult

no no no no no no no No No No No NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NONONONONONONONONONONONONONO NO , Lois Lowry! NO.

No.

This cannot be how you chose to end the quartet.

I am flabbergasted and bereft and... cheated. I feel cheated.

In the same way Suzanne Collins ruined The Hunger Games trilogy in its crummy final act, so too has Lowry with Son.

Despite being weaker efforts, Gathering Blue and Messenger felt like stepping stones toward an ending that would seamlessly combine disparate storylines. Ins...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Jenny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: middle-grades

I'm struggling with this review. I love Lowry and I love the Giver. The Giver is one of the most poignant stories written for middle grades. I think it lends itself to such great discussion about what it means to be a human being, a community. I also love the companion books: Gathering Blue and Messenger. I especially love the Messenger and the profound message of what it takes to overcome evil. When I got an advance copy of Son, I was thrilled. I have been anticipating this for months. The char...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Katy Jane rated it 5 of 5 stars

Was this book awesome? Heck yes.
Did I still have questions at the end? Yes.
1. If there were Birthmothers then they needed sperm from males who didn't take the pill. Where were these guys?
2. What happened to the original community when Jonas, Gabe, and Claire left?
3. Did Lame Einar heal from the destroying of the Trademaster, too?
4. Did Einar heal and then climb out to find Claire?
5. Did Claire and Einar get married?
6. Did Gabe and Deirdre get married?
7. What happened on the boat ride that made...more

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Oct 22, 2012 Donna Ludovico rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book did everything I wanted it to do. It wrapped up three other books into one story. Book one, The Giver, was suggested to me for reading by my son after he was required to read it for middle school language arts class. I enjoyed the book and the book discussion with my son. He was certain that Jonas and Gabe died at the end and the vision of a cozy, happy world was a dying dream since no two such different worlds could have existed in the same time period. This led to a discussion of the...more

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Nov 15, 2012 Jessa rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was really excited to read this and it didn't disappoint, loved how it tied all the other books and characters together and was very pleased with the ending. If I had it my way I would have tweaked the ending just a little, but overall such a great series with a satisfying ending!

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May 10, 2013 Rhea-Amalia rated it 1 of 5 stars

Son is made up of three parts: Before, Between, and Beyond. If I were to name them, I would gather them into one book and name is Boring.

WHY THE HELL WAS THIS NOVEL 400 PAGES LONG!?! Dude, the previous three were about 200 pages. If you delete the double spaces, this book would be 300 pages, and from there, pointless descriptions and subplots would be easily cut down to 200 pages. Yes, I'm serious.

I mean, we spend 140 pages with Claire JUST TRAINING TO CLIMB THE F*CKING CLIFF!!! I DON'T GIVE A S...more

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Nov 25, 2012 Michale rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: child-s-play, ladies-first

Spoiler alert!!! I have such mixed feelings about this series and book. The Giver was wonderful, but it was clear to me that the boys died at the end - old handed down memories of a sled in the snow do not lead to real redemption from freezing and starvation. Then I enjoyed Gathering Blue even more, except that it seemed that Lowry believed that her characters from the first book had survived, and were living in some sort of utopian village. Then, in The Messenger , she had a beloved characte...more

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Feb 01, 2013 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, ya, dystopia

Son brings us back to the original community we read about in The Giver, and tells us the story from the perspective of Water Claire and ties up the questions about the place where Jonas and Gabe were born.

Everyone in the community is assigned a ‘job’ at the age of 13. Claire was given the job of Vessel. ‘Vessels’ carried ‘Products’ (um, babies) and at 14 Claire produced her one and only product in the form of a Son. There was an issue with the birth and she was relieved of her vessel duties, bu...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Jen Blackham rated it 5 of 5 stars

I think my rating is a bit of an emotional one, rather than strictly rational. If I stop and think/critique SON, there are things I didn't understand or care for ... but as soon as I picked up the book, I was immediately captivated and couldn't put it down. And as I finished it, I think back on it fondly *Ü*

The book is divided into three parts .. Before, Between and Beyond. Part 1 takes you right back to The Giver. Back to the community, with Jonas. You get to see the same things from another pe...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Kerri rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, fiction, young-adult, a-life-aquatic

Preface: I was weary to begin this book knowing full well it was the official end of a new-found and much beloved series. But begin I did, and then proceeded to swim tirelessly through it, only stopping to sleep and even then, reluctantly so and really only because Matt reminded me the pathogens plaguing so many, the ones I've been narrowly avoiding for weeks now, are still just waiting patiently for my immune system to stumble. It's beautiful, is my overall point, and I could have happily read...more

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Dec 26, 2012 Ananya rated it 4 of 5 stars

So I read "The Giver" but not "Gathering Blue" or "Messenger," which wasn't very brilliant on my part but I had no issues understanding this whatsoever. I really, really enjoyed it and felt that it helped to know who characters such as Kira were, and I knew because I had an idea of the basic outline of "Gathering Blue." Knowing exactly what Kira went through might have been useful, but I don't think it's required because quite a bit does get explained by itself. Reading "The Giver" is entirely n...more

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May 02, 2013 Bethany rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: juvenilefiction, youngadultfiction, book-club

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful story! A wonderful conclusion to this great collection of books. Lowry takes us full-circl in the lives of the characters from The Giver, Gathering Blue, and Messenger. I want to start reading The Giver again. The collection can definitely be read over and over again from any starting point.

In "Son" we follow the story of Claire, who births a son that is taken away from her immediately after birth. Claire is different from the other people in her community, and sh...more

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Jan 23, 2013 E.B. rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, sci-fi-and-fantasy, young-adult

Disappointing.

Such a wonderful premise. So much could have been done. Too many gaps in the story, too many gaps in time, I stopped caring about the characters.

I love The Giver .

Lowry's Messenger is great too.

The other two companion books, however, lack depth in character. Had Claire's story been told differently (perhaps with a little more cohesion?), it would have been absolutely riveting. As it is...disappointing.

It's worth the read, though, if you seek closure for The Giver , Gathering...more

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Nov 24, 2012 Mary added it

Shelves: 2012-kids-ya

Given the decades and years between books, this series was over for me; I had no plans/time to read the fourth book. Then I listened to Kathy J's booktalk to the Young Critics Club and was driven to read SON. What a mind Lois Lowry has. Brava! to her.

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May 17, 2013 Edith rated it 5 of 5 stars

Just finished this. Wow, what a ride.
I read The Giver for the first time when I was 9 or so. Now at 21 I finally get to finish the journey.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*
This really was a remarkable read, the way all the books tied together was impeccable.
Of course, in this story I found myself near tears at many occasions when certain things were mentioned, such as Matty's grave. But I also teared up at the fact that Jonas and Kira were married and had two children, Mathew and Annabelle (and I cried when I r...more

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May 15, 2013 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was so excited to read this book. I love The Giver series, and I knew Lois Lowry would not disappoint. It did not. I thought this book answered so many questions. I thought it tied all three of the previous books together in a great way. Did it leave me with questions? Yes, but I feel all good books do. Why? Because I enter their world. They leave me wondering what happened to all the characters (main and minor). They leave me wondering what happened in the other communities. They leave me wan...more

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May 04, 2013 Carissa Norris rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have read all the other books in The Giver quartet. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, though The Giver is mainly strength. Lowry is a unique author, especially for a young adult author, because she focuses little on action. This series is not meant to excite one with action but to make one think about the inner man. Lowry looks inside her characters far more than outside.

That said, I find the strength of Son in the first two parts of the novel. The novel follows Claire, a young woman...more I have read all the other books in The Giver quartet. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, though The Giver is mainly strength. Lowry is a unique author, especially for a young adult author, because she focuses little on action. This series is not meant to excite one with action but to make one think about the inner man. Lowry looks inside her characters far more than outside.

That said, I find the strength of Son in the first two parts of the novel. The novel follows Claire, a young woman selected to be a conduit for birthing an infant. She is not to keep it, just to grow it and birth it. Of course, Claire finds she struggles to forget this infant. She longs for her son. This to me was the best part of the novel--following Claire. When I first read The Giver, I was younger--now I'm an adult and a mother. I understand Claire. The first two parts of the book are an exploration of a mother's intense love, a love I never really knew until I had my own child. I identified with Claire and cried at various points because Lowry tells this part so well. Lowry herself knows the pain of longing for a son. If you are not aware of it, Lowry has dedicated this final novel in the series to her own son who passed away years ago.

*Slight Spoilers in Rest of This Review* The last part of the novel is, unfortunately, not as strong as the first two. To me it felt rushed and not as well planned out. It switches protagonists and I think it would have been better if Lowry had stayed with Claire. That would, of course, had to change some of the story, but the switch felt forced. I understood that she was looking at the other side--a child's love for his mother. I liked that juxtaposition. Still, the exploration of this theme was not as strong or as well told as the first.

The final confrontation between the second protagonist and his antagonist was a bit disconnected. It veered (no pun intended) away from the other themes almost entirely (if Lowry meant for the term veering to imply this change of theme as well, then I confess I am utterly impressed, but I don't think that was so). There was a small connection between the themes, but I felt it was forced. I suppose you could imagine a larger connection, I can think of how, but it still feels convoluted and weak. It was trite in the "evil is bad, we have to defeat it with our greater inner selves" theme.

How the novel actually ended I found lacking. It felt like Lowry needed at least one more paragraph. To spend the entire novel discussing the longing of two characters and then not getting to see the moment the longing is fulfilled, I felt let down. The novel, and thus the series, didn't feel gracefully closed, it just ended.(less)

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Apr 21, 2013 Kristy Feltenberger Gillespie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Lois Lowry, Newberry Award winning author of The Giver quartet, didn’t start writing professionally until she was in her mid- 30s, which gives me hope considering I’m nearly 33.

Like The Giver, Gathering Blue, and Messenger, I thoroughly enjoyed Lowry’s young adult dystopian novel, Son.

One of the best reviews of Lowry’s Son that I’ve come across was written by young adult author Robin Wasserman. Lowry paved the way for young adult dystopian literature which Wasserman describes very well:

“In 1993,...more Lois Lowry, Newberry Award winning author of The Giver quartet, didn’t start writing professionally until she was in her mid- 30s, which gives me hope considering I’m nearly 33.

Like The Giver, Gathering Blue, and Messenger, I thoroughly enjoyed Lowry’s young adult dystopian novel, Son.

One of the best reviews of Lowry’s Son that I’ve come across was written by young adult author Robin Wasserman. Lowry paved the way for young adult dystopian literature which Wasserman describes very well:

“In 1993, when Lois Lowry shocked adult and child sensibilities alike with her Newbery Medal-winning novel “The Giver,” J. K. Rowling had not yet begun scribbling magic words on the back of cafe napkins and Stephenie Meyer had just graduated from her (presumably vampire-free) high school. Suzanne Collins had just sold her first teleplays for the gentle, nonviolent world of children’s television, and “dystopia” was a 50-cent SAT word unlikely to trip off the average sixth-grade tongue.” (Excerpt from The New York Times, Oct. 2012).

Son is the fourth book in The Giver quartet, and the central theme is the love between a mother and child. Fourteen-year-old Claire is given the role of “Vessel” in the communist-esque society she lives in. Her role is to give birth to three children which will be taken away from her immediately after birth and given to an assigned married couple. However, Claire’s delivery is botched, which ruins her chances of future births. In effect, Claire’s son is taken and she is reassigned to work at a fish hatchery. Claire doesn’t take the pill that the other community members do, therefore she feels emotions that they don’t; one of which is love and longing for her son. Claire manages to find and form a fragile relationship with her son, until he is stolen from the Nurturing Center by Jonas (the main character from The Giver). Claire escapes the bleak community in order to reunite with her son, Gabe. Along her journey she falls in love with a lame man, forms a mother-daughter-like relationship with a woman who saves her, makes a deal with a devil, and most importantly, reunites with her son.

Son can be read as a stand alone but I highly recommend that you take the time and read the series from the beginning; it’s too amazing not to.(less)

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Apr 20, 2013 Diletta Atelier di una Lettrice Compulsiva rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

RECENSIONE A CURA DI GENNY BIAGIONI
http://atelierdiunalettricecompulsiva...

Il figlio è il quarto e ultimo romanzo della serie iniziata da Lois Lowry con The Giver – il donatore: l'ultimo e il primo a chiudere un cerchio perfetto che ci ha dipinto un mondo assurdo e crudele, sterile e spaventoso dove le malattie non esistono e le pulsioni vengono represse. Ho amato questa saga sin dall'inizio, ritenendo il primo volume un autentico capolavoro letterario e gli altri due una conferma di un grande...more

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Apr 15, 2013 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars

This quartet had the potential to come to a great and unified end--finally opening up the sequestered ignorance of the many lives and communities together, finally tying together the disparate plots. Instead you get a simple, childish attempt to vanquish corporeal Evil through the efforts of an individual character. The thoughts provoked by Giver and poignantly revoked in this final volume are left wondering, not hoping for answers, but given really nothing to satisfy. "They" are never identifie...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Deborah Takahashi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: tween-fiction

This story is about Claire. After being given the assignment of "Birthmother," Claire became a vessel for the good of the community; girls, ages 13-14, are inseminated and are essential parts of the society since the give birth to future generations. After nine months of not knowing what to expect, Claire goes into labor and is forced to have a Cesarian section. When all is done, Claire is wondering if every birth mother has this kind of procedure. According to other girls, this is not the norm....more This story is about Claire. After being given the assignment of "Birthmother," Claire became a vessel for the good of the community; girls, ages 13-14, are inseminated and are essential parts of the society since the give birth to future generations. After nine months of not knowing what to expect, Claire goes into labor and is forced to have a Cesarian section. When all is done, Claire is wondering if every birth mother has this kind of procedure. According to other girls, this is not the norm. Not knowing what to think, Claire is reassigned to the Hatchery and she is not given any information as to what happened to her baby and why she has a new job. Luckily, her new group mates have been very nice towards her and are bot aware of how she was reassigned and is content. However, while running an errand, she comes across the Nurturing Center and realized that her baby is there. After fighting with her conscience, because she was about lie as to why she was at the Center, she walked in asking if her childhood friend, Sophia, worked there and if she could see her. When Sophia met with Claire, she asked Sophia if she could get a tour of the facility and Sophia granted her request. Not only did Claire learn about the facility, she learned that caring for an infant was a lot of work. When she finally found, Baby 36, Claire remembered that her baby was classified as 36. The moment she saw her son, Claire had fallen in love. In this world, there is no such thing as love, colors, and desire; children weren't fawned over, nor were they given back to their biological parents. In this society, adults had to apply for spouses and children. The leaders of the community selected these matches and children were assigned roles based on their abilities. If babies don't show early signs that convey they are developing properly, their fates were uncertain . For Claire, her baby was doomed from the moment he was extracted from Claire's womb. However, her baby's nurturer, a nice man with children of his own, did his utmost to make sure her baby gets caught and he even gave her baby a name--Abe. Although it's against regulations to assign a child a name without consent, the baby responded to it. As time passed, Claire struggled with her feelings for her baby. Not only is she starting to have thoughts of keeping her baby, she wants to steal him from the Center. Little does she know, someone forgot to put her on her her pill regiment, which suppress any feeling or emotion. After witnessing the effects of these pills, Claire refused to take her medication. Is Claire willing to risk everything to be with her child or will she be obedient to the community. Furthermore, does she have the strength to survive the journey ahead of her.

In this beautifully crafted sequel, readers are given another point of view of this compelling story. This time, Gabe's mother, Claire, chronicles her story from life in the Community and the journey she takes to find her child. I did not know what to expect in this story and when Lowry started intertwining The Giver and Gathering Blue, my excitement level went through the roof. I could not put this book down because I wanted to know if Claire would find her baby and if we would ever hear from Jonas again. As we get to know Claire, we learn that she is different from everyone in the Community; we all know that she is feeling and that she shouldn't be. In this world, every citizen takes a pill to remain complacent in order to prevent unrest. In other words, the people are being controlled by the government and someone in the government forgot to medicate Claire. Claire now realizes what's going on and says she would rather die then give up her love for her son. As the story develops, we learn how strong Claire really is. Not only does she survive a shipwreck, and climb a dangerous mountain, she tries to put the pieces of her past together in order to find her son. What she doesn't realize is that her son is in the care of Jonas who has vowed to take care of the boy who was marked for death. These two characters go through incredible feats out of love for this child so readers are anticipating that their paths were cross. What's even more exciting, Lowry brings back other beloved characters such as Matty and Kira that weave the history of their village, beautifully. As for the ending, Lowry shows us just how awesome she is because we are left feeling hopeful and happy that everyone finally gets the happily ever after they deserve. Bravo to everyone for a fight well worth fighting and we hope nothing but blessings for their future. I loved loved this book!(less)

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Apr 11, 2013 Sally rated it 4 of 5 stars

I finally got around to reading this last book in The Giver series. Despite what others said about Jonas and Gabe at the end of The Giver, I felt in my heart that they had rode that sled into something better. With this book I was happy to see that this was true. Lois Lowry brings the reader full circle with this book and we find ourself back in the science fiction community where The Giver lived. This community seemed modern with electricity and a well organized society. Too well organized. Now...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Danielle rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ls-583

Son
Name: Danielle Autumn Shur
Lowry, L. (2012). Son. New York, NY: Houghton Mufflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Genre: Science Fiction
Format: Print book
Selection Process: NoveList
Review:
Claire was not suppose to get attached to her baby but no one remembered to tell her to take the pill that would devoid her of her emotions and the love she has for the child she bore. When she learns that her baby was taken from the colony, Claire sets out on an adventure that takes her to distant places. Over ma...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Crisadmaiora rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've read different sci-fi and fantasy and YA books before this Lois Lowry quartet but really, none of them has left me with such incredible emotions making me repeat wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!!!!! Son has been published almost 20 years after the first of this series, The Giver, but it is the perfect wrapping up of the story and I can't believe how many genres one can find on this book... We return in the dystopic community of the giver which sounds even more shocking, but we also visit a...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Alaisse Amehana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

DA: http://labellaeilcavaliere.blogspot.i...

Con questo libro la Lowry torna alle origini della prima Comunità, quella in cui era cresciuto Jonas all’inizio della saga, e da cui era poi fuggito portando con sé il piccolo Gabe. Ne Il Figlio, si parla proprio di Gabriel, o meglio di sua madre Claire e della disperata ricerca che la porta ad affrontare mille difficoltà per ricongiungersi col figlio.
Claire era stata designata come Partoriente durante la Cerimonia dei Dodici, il rito attraverso cui tu...more DA: http://labellaeilcavaliere.blogspot.i...

Con questo libro la Lowry torna alle origini della prima Comunità, quella in cui era cresciuto Jonas all’inizio della saga, e da cui era poi fuggito portando con sé il piccolo Gabe. Ne Il Figlio, si parla proprio di Gabriel, o meglio di sua madre Claire e della disperata ricerca che la porta ad affrontare mille difficoltà per ricongiungersi col figlio.
Claire era stata designata come Partoriente durante la Cerimonia dei Dodici, il rito attraverso cui tutti i bambini che hanno compiuto dodici anni ricevono quello che sarà il loro lavoro per il resto della vita. Claire deve mettere al mondo i nuovi componenti della Comunità, i Prodotti. Ma la prima volta qualcosa va storto e lei viene riassegnata al Vivaio Ittico. Si dimenticano però una cosa importante, fondamentale nella Comunità. Non le vengono più prescritte le pillole, quelle che tutti prendono e che soffocano i sentimenti delle persone, l’amore e il desiderio.
Così Claire comincia a sentire, a provare uno struggente bisogno di essere di nuovo con suo figlio. Il suo viaggio inizia nello stesso momento di quello di Jonas e Gabe. Quando il ragazzo decide di lasciare la Comunità per salvare il piccolo, anche Claire fugge nel tentativo di ritrovare suo figlio. La sorte la porta però in un villaggio ai piedi di una scogliera invalicabile, priva di memoria dopo un naufragio.
È proprio qui che inizia la parte più difficile. Una volta recuperata la memoria, Claire decide di scalare la scogliera per andare in cerca di Gabe. Iniziano lunghi anni di allenamento durante i quali viene aiutata da persone gentili ma deve anche superare le chiacchiere sul suo conto e la diffidenza di alcuni.
Nell’ultima parte del libro si ritrovano tutti personaggi dei primi tre, e mi sono un po’ commossa a scoprire cosa era successo a tutti gli abitanti del Villaggio dove vivono ora Jonas e Gabe. Ritroviamo Kira, la protagonista de La Rivincita e il Mentore, già trovato ne Il Messaggero.
Quello che mi è piaciuto molto di quest’ultimo libro è proprio come ogni tassello presente nei primi abbia trovato il suo posto e il messaggio che viene lasciato alla fine è semplice ma importante.
Il pregio della Lowry secondo me è proprio il suo stile semplice, diretto, che parla di cose molto più profonde di quello che si può pensare all’inizio. In questa serie non ci sono storie di amori o battaglie epiche, ma tante piccole cose che sono molto più importanti.
È una serie che consiglio a lettori di tutte l’età perché ha la leggerezza di una favola per bambini, ma la profondità di un libro da adulti e non è facile trovare queste due caratteristiche unite insieme. (less)

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Apr 03, 2013 Mary Wagner rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: oh-sequels

I love The Giver. I count it as one of my favorite books of all time. It was the book that inspired me to read and made me want to write.

And I should have stopped at The Giver. My ratings of the books in the series have gotten progressively worse. I liked Gathering Blue, wish I didn't read The Messenger, and now wish I could take back time with The Son. I spent money on it, and I want it back. Sort of. I do love Lois Lowry.

But this is a great example of how to set rules and not break them. The...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Andrew rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopian, miscellany, sci-fi-fantasy

This book—and truthfully all of the subsequent Giver books, too—is really only worth it to follow the fates of Jonas & Gabe after the end of The Giver quartet's first installment. Messenger, the third book in the series, is the only book that comes close to the crescendo that Lois Lowry crafts in The Giver, but even then it's just an arbitrary mission to follow Lois Lowry's quartet since The Giver will forever remain Lowry's triumphant piece of literature, at least in this series. Too much a...more

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Mar 28, 2013 Morgan Hawk rated it 3 of 5 stars

As a long-time lover of Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver, I began reading her direct sequel to the novel with full skepticism. I was more than ready to hate the novel as the ending of The Giver seemed so final. Instead I found myself immediately attached to Claire. She is the protagonist of Lowry’s novel, Son, and her surprisingly innocent and honest voice captured me from the first chapter.

Claire is placed in the community as a birthmother which is remarked to be a non-prestigious occupation in pr...more

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Mar 27, 2013 William Crosby rated it 4 of 5 stars

The beginning is the site/time of The Giver, but from a different perspective and then this book follows from that person's perspective. It is still the same inhibited/regimented community where even wondering about something is against the rules (in this sense it was similar to Agenda 21: see that review; but this book had much more than that book). Then, it explores different cultures which resulted from whatever apocalypse happened to fragment society and cause all these strange mini-cultures...more

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Mar 21, 2013 Ste80 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Mi si spezza sempre un po' il cuore quando una serie si conclude. "Il figlio" infatti è il quarto volume della tetralogia distopica "The Giver" nata dalla penna della statunitense Lois Lowry.
Questo è il quarto, e forse il più toccante dei quattro capitoli.

Incentrato prevalentemente su Claire, va a chiudere l'intreccio dei fili creati dalle vite dei diversi personaggi incontrati in precedenza.
Ritroviamo infatti Jonas e Kira e anche Gabriel, tre dei personaggi a cui ci siamo maggiormente affezion...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Why climb the Cliff?	15	100	Apr 23, 2013 10:01pm
YA Reads for Teac...: November 2012 - Hot Off the Press - Son by Lois Lowry	19	43	Mar 15, 2013 01:25pm
What was the point of the Trademaster?	11	38	Mar 02, 2013 07:59am
Does anyone have any info on what the plot will be about?	4	53	Dec 03, 2012 03:57pm

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About Lois Lowry

Taken from Lowry's website:
"I’ve always felt that I was fortunate to have been born the middle child of three. My older sister, Helen, was very much like our mother: gentle, family-oriented, eager to please. Little brother Jon was the only boy and had interests that he shared with Dad; together they were always working on electric trains and erector sets; and later, when Jon was older, they always...more Taken from Lowry's website:
"I’ve always felt that I was fortunate to have been born the middle child of three. My older sister, Helen, was very much like our mother: gentle, family-oriented, eager to please. Little brother Jon was the only boy and had interests that he shared with Dad; together they were always working on electric trains and erector sets; and later, when Jon was older, they always seemed to have their heads under the raised hood of a car. That left me in-between, and exactly where I wanted most to be: on my own. I was a solitary child who lived in the world of books and my own vivid imagination.

Because my father was a career military officer - an Army dentist - I lived all over the world. I was born in Hawaii, moved from there to New York, spent the years of World War II in my mother’s hometown: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and from there went to Tokyo when I was eleven. High school was back in New York City, but by the time I went to college (Brown University in Rhode Island), my family was living in Washington, D.C.

I married young. I had just turned nineteen - just finished my sophomore year in college - when I married a Naval officer and continued the odyssey that military life requires. California. Connecticut (a daughter born there). Florida (a son). South Carolina. Finally Cambridge, Massachusetts, when my husband left the service and entered Harvard Law School (another daughter; another son) and then to Maine - by now with four children under the age of five in tow. My children grew up in Maine. So did I. I returned to college at the University of Southern Maine, got my degree, went to graduate school, and finally began to write professionally, the thing I had dreamed of doing since those childhood years when I had endlessly scribbled stories and poems in notebooks.

After my marriage ended in 1977, when I was forty, I settled into the life I have lived ever since. Today I am back in Cambridge, Massachusetts, living and writing in a house dominated by a very shaggy Tibetan Terrier named Bandit. For a change of scenery Martin and I spend time in Maine, where we have an old (it was built in 1768!) farmhouse on top of a hill. In Maine I garden, feed birds, entertain friends, and read...

My books have varied in content and style. Yet it seems that all of them deal, essentially, with the same general theme: the importance of human connections. A Summer to Die, my first book, was a highly fictionalized retelling of the early death of my sister, and of the effect of such a loss on a family. Number the Stars, set in a different culture and era, tells the same story: that of the role that we humans play in the lives of our fellow beings.

The Giver - and Gathering Blue, and the newest in the trilogy: Messenger - take place against the background of very different cultures and times. Though all three are broader in scope than my earlier books, they nonetheless speak to the same concern: the vital need of people to be aware of their interdependence, not only with each other, but with the world and its environment.

My older son was a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force. His death in the cockpit of a warplane tore away a piece of my world. But it left me, too, with a wish to honor him by joining the many others trying to find a way to end conflict on this very fragile earth.
I am a grandmother now. For my own grandchildren - and for all those of their generation - I try, through writing, to convey my passionate awareness that we live intertwined on this planet and that our future depends upon our caring more, and doing more, for one another."(less)

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“And it was lonely, to yearn, all alone.” — 8 people liked it

“It be better, I think, to climb out in search of something, instead of hating, what you're leaving.” — 7 people liked it

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Son (The Giver Quartet #4)

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