The Giver: The Giver

Lois Lowry's magnificent novel of the distant future, The Giver, is set in a highly technical and emotionally repressed society. This eagerly awaited companion volume, by contrast, takes place in a village with only the most rudimentary technology, where anger, greed, envy, and casual cruelty make ordinary people's lives short and brutish. This society, like the one portrayed in The Giver, is controlled by merciless authorities with their own complex agendas and secrets. And at the centre of both stories there is a young person who is given the responsibility of preserving the memory of the culture--and who finds the vision to transform it. Kira, newly orphaned and lame from birth, is taken from the turmoil of the village to live in the grand Council Edifice because of her skill at embroidery. There she is given the task of restoring the historical pictures sewn on the robe worn at the annual Ruin Song Gathering, a solemn day-long performance of the story of their world's past. Down the hall lives Thomas the Carver, a young boy who works on the intricate symbols carved on the Singer's staff, and a tiny girl who is being trained as the next Singer. Over the three artists hovers the menace of authority, seemingly kind but suffocating to their creativity, and the dark secret at the heart of the Ruin Song. With the help of a cheerful waif called Matt and his little dog, Kira at last finds the way to the plant that will allow her to create the missing colour--blue--and, symbolically, to find the courage to shape the future by following her art wherever it may lead. With astonishing originality, Lowry has again created a vivid and unforgettable setting for this thrilling story that raises profound questions about the mystery of art, the importance of memory, and the centrality of love.

Since Matty arrived in the village six years ago, he has grown from an impetuous little boy to a dependable young man. Guided by the blind Seer's visions, Matty carries messages through the surrounding Forest. He alone can pass through its deadly snares unharmed, and he hopes that he will earn the name Messenger.
When a sinister force seeps into Village, discord and anger poison its contented residents and its open borders are closed to the outside world. Matty must again brave Forest to find Seer's daughter, Kira, and bring her safely home.
But Village isn't the only place that has changed. Though Matty once traveled through Forest uncontested, he now finds it a threatening and unforgiving place where he, too, is vulnerable. Seer taught him well, but it will take more than an old man's wisdom to keep himself and Kira alive. He must harness the strange new power building within him, one he can neither explain nor deny. And his mysterious gift may be their only hope.

When the young girl washed up on the shore, no one knew she had been a Vessel. That she had carried a Product. That it had been carved from her belly. Stolen.
Claire had had a son. She was supposed to forget him, but that was impossible. When he was taken from their community, she knew she had to follow.
And so her journey began.
But here in this wind-battered village Claire is welcomed as one of their own. In the security of her new home, she is free and loved. She grows stronger.
As tempted as she is by the warmth of more human kindness than she has ever known, she cannot stay. Her son is out there; a young boy by now.
Claire will stop at nothing to find her child...even if it means trading her own life.
With Son, the two-time Newbery Medal-winning Lois Lowry has spun another mesmerizing tale in this thrilling and long-awaited conclusion to The Giver.

In a rigidly structured society where weaklings, dissenters and the aged are removed, and stirrings of individuality are nullified with drugs, children undergo special ceremonies annually until, after eleven years, they face the Ceremony of Twelve, when the Community of Elders assigns them the tasks which will take them through their adult life. When Jonas is selected to be the Receiver of Memory, he discovers that the honour of selection is nothing compared to the loneliness and physical pain he must endure as he searches for a way to free his community from the spiritless life it has developed for its members.

Hidden away in the record department of the sprawling Ministry of truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow worker, Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal.

In a world struggling back from the brink of apocalypse, life is harsh. But for Elspeth Gordie, born with enhanced mental abilities that would see her sterilised or burned if discovered, it is also dangerous. There is only survival by secrecy, and so she determines never to use her forbidden powers. But it is as if they have their own imperative, and their use inevitably brings her to the attention of the totalitarian Council that rules the Land.

Sent to the remote mountian institution of Obernewtyn where escape is impossible, she must throw off her safe clock of concealment and pit herself against those who would resurrect the terrible forces of the apocolypse.

Only then will she learn most truly who and what she is...

An unnamed father and his young son journey across a grim post-apocalyptic landscape, some years after an unspecified apocalypse has destroyed civilization and most life on Earth. The land is filled with ash and devoid of living animals and vegetation. Many of the remaining human survivors have resorted to cannibalism, scavenging the detritus of city and country alike for flesh. The boy's mother, pregnant with him at the time of the disaster, gave up hope and committed suicide some time before the story began, despite the father's pleas.
Realizing they cannot survive the oncoming winter where they are, the father takes the boy south, along empty roads towards the sea, carrying their meager possessions in their knapsacks and in a supermarket cart. The man coughs blood from time to time and eventually realizes he is dying, yet still struggles to protect his son from the constant threats of attack, exposure, and starvation.

In a dark vision of the near future, a terrifying reality TV show is taking place. Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live event called the Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed.
When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her sister's place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.

Fin has a seemingly normal day at school not knowing that on the other side of the world nuclear missiles are being detonated. When he wakes up the next morning, it's dark, bitterly cold and snow is falling. There is no internet, no TV, no power and no parents. Fin and his younger brother Max must find a way to survive... all on their own. When things are at their most desperate, where can you go for help?

The island republic has emerged from a ruined world. . Its citizens are safe but not free. They live in complete isolation from the outside world. Appraoching planes are gunned down, refugees shot on sight. Until a man named Adam Forde rescues a girl from the sea.

Ann Burden, the lone survivor of a nuclear holocaust, is threatened by the arrival in her valley of an unknown intruder. Might he be a friend and ally, or have the horrors he has witnessed turned him into something more sinister?