In Jonas’s community, everyday life is organized for its members: their needs are provided for, and the Committee of Elders selects each person’s profession at the age of twelve. Jonas has never questioned this arrangement until he is chosen as the Receiver of Memory, a role that gives him a new way to understand his world.

What the community has lost

As Jonas learns from the Giver, he encounters what has been lost from the community’s life. The story brings his growing knowledge into contact with the question of what is right, while leaving the choices ahead of him unresolved.

A dystopian adventure

Lois Lowry’s novel places a young protagonist in a society that promises security while assigning its members’ futures in advance. Its dystopian premise gives shape to an adventure centered on Jonas’s courage and the consequences of discovering that his community is not as perfect as he once believed.