Messenger (The Giver, #3)

by Lois Lowry

“Yes. Father always welcomed new ones. It was the most wonderful part of Father, how he cared for everyone and tried to help them learn. But now . . .”

“It was so important to him, and he made it important to me: poetry, and language, and how we use it to remind ourselves of how our lives should be lived . . .” Then her tone changed and became embittered. “Now he talks of nothing but Stocktender’s widow, and of closing Village to new ones. What has happened to my father?”

He could see, too, that she was accustomed to her stick and twisted leg. A lifetime of walking in that way had made it, as she had pointed out, part of her. It was who she was. To become a fast-striding Kira with two straight legs would have been to become a different person. This was not a journey Matty could undertake with a stranger.