The Giver and Messenger Comparisons

The Giver and Messenger connected in many ways. In The Giver Jonas had the power to "See Beyond". He was the only citizen of his community that could see color. In Messenger Matty has a power just like Jonas. Matty's power is that he can heal life. In Messenger he finds out his power with an animal, but in The Giver, Jonas first "Saw Beyond" in the apple. Also in The Giver, everyone in the community receives a job/name. Jonas is given the job/name, The Receiver. Also in Messenger, everyone in their community is given a name. Matty doesn't actually get his name because he dies but Leader gave him his name, Healer. In The Giver the community is a Utopian community, which means it is a perfect community. In Messenger, it is the total opposite. In Village, it is not perfect. In Messenger there is a man named Leader and he is the Leader of Village. Even though it doesn't say it, I think Leader is Jonas. He acts, talks, and says stuff related to Jonas.

IT'S OVER!!!!!

The Giver is over!!!! I thought that The Giver was a okay book. A lot of it was exciting, but a few were not so exciting, but i think over all I liked it. My favorite part of the book was when Jonas was forcing himself through the harsh snow, at the end, and when he got to the top, he found the sled waiting for him. I really think Lois Lowry did a good job on the ending. It really stumped me and I bet it stumped a lot of others. I thought Lois Lowry's Messenger wasn't one of my favorite books. I didn't really like it because I felt like there was no meaning to it and there was only one big event that happened. I really liked the ending but the beginning of the book was just boring to me. Thanks for reading my Blog!!!!

Chapters 20-23

In chapter 20, Jonas won't go home after the days work because of what he saw on the screen early that day of the release. As a result of this, The Giver arranges for Jonas to stay over night in the Annex Room. That night Jonas thought that it was worthless to stay in the community any longer and live the boring life that he had lived for so long, so The Giver and himself, thought of a escape plan. Jonas kept edging on The Giver to come with him, but he said he had to stay there and help the community with their problems. They talked through the plan and thought it was actually going to work. Then Jonas tried one more time to ask The Giver to come and his response was:

"But I have another place to go. When my work here is finished, I want to be with my daughter."

Jonas never knew that The Giver had a daughter. Jonas then saw happiness within him for the first time and he replied.

"Her name was Rosemary," The Giver said

In chapter 21 of The Giver, it is the night of the escape and Jonas has to go out of his dwelling late at night around midnight and that is against the rules but he does make it to the place that he wants to go to, the bridge that would take him out of the community. In the escape he rode on his bicycle. Before the escape, at the evening meal, his father had said that Gabe was going to be released the very next morning, and so when Jonas was escaping he took Gabe along with him on the journey. When he had crossed the bridge, he had to circle around all the other communities and it took a lot out of him and was tiring. Everyday of the journey, planes would fly over head of Jonas and Gabe, looking for them, and the way the found people was from heat identification. So when they heard the engines come, Jonas gave the memory of the coldest thing he knew to Gabe and both him and Jonas became cold and the planes could not see them. After a few days he no longer saw them because he thought they wouldn't come out this far.

In chapter 22, Jonas came upon a different landscape the landscape was a landscape of more trees, animals, flowers, and the road that he was traveling had changed as well. One day Gabe called out "Plane, Plane!", and when they hid in the underbrush, Jonas noticed that it wasn't a plane, and that it was birds flying above. Now after long days of traveling they had eaten all of their food and they were becoming starving. Now Jonas thinks he can't make it.

In chapter 23, Jonas and Gabe are freezing and are traveling in the bitter cold snow. Jonas tries to gave warmth off through the memories. Every step they take Jonas feels that he is getting really close to Elsewhere where there is food and warmth. Then up ahead there was this huge steep hill. It would of been a hard working ride, but with the snow it was an even more demanding ride, an almost impossible ride. Jonas and Gabe got colder by the second. They battled the snow and the hill. Jonas couldn't take any longer, but he got some warmth memories and received the will to survive. They both trudged up the hill ever so slightly. Then finally, which seemed for ever, the hill became slightly flat and more flat. When Jonas got to the top he recognized the scene and waiting for him at the top was the sled. He mounted the sled and started his decent down to where he knew was light and warmth. Then as he was going faster and faster, he heard music and he knew it was the place.

Chapters 18-19

In chapter 18, Jonas asks The Giver about release and what The Giver thinks about it. He says that it was set as a rule, that The Receiver may not apply for a release, because of the failure from the last Receiver. Then The Giver tells Jonas about the last Receiver. He says that she was a little like Jonas and that she sat in the same chair as he did the first day of training and asked the questions like Jonas did. Then The Giver said her name was Rosemary. Then The Giver said that he had loved this girl. When the training had started, all The Giver gave her was happy and joyful memories, and for him to give her painful memories just broke his heart. Then The Giver said that he had to give her painful memories and when he did, she didn't have the laughter and the happiness in her eyes anymore. Then one day after her training, she said goodbye and didn't go back to her dwelling, but instead The Giver had heard that she had went straight to the Chief Elders and asked for release. The rule was not made that she couldn't apply for release, so she did. Then The Giver had not seen her ever again. The Giver told Jonas that when they loose a Receiver the memories that they have received, go to the people of the community.

Don't you think it would be scary if everyone in that community had the memories that Jonas received?

In chapter 19 of The Giver, Jonas is at another day of training when he says to himself

"I wish I could watch,"

When he says, I wish I could watch, he means watch his father do the release that he did had to do early that morning. When he says that, The Giver replies with:

"You can watch,"

When Jonas hears it, he thinks The Giver is joking, but he isn't. The Giver explained to Jonas that when you are The Receiver, you have access to everything. Then Jonas agreed to watch
and the "ceremony" started. His father is in a windowless room and takes the two twins near a scale. Then he weighs them both. During this is showing, Jonas is excited to see his father on a television screen and makes remarks throughout the video. The Giver says be quiet every time he makes a remark. When Jonas's father weighs the babies he finds out that one that weighs less. That is the one that is released. They took the bigger baby away and left the smaller one in the room. Then Jonas's father gave the baby and shot, with a white liquid in it, and put it into the babies forehead.

Now he cleans him up and makes him comfy, Jonas said to himself, aware that The Giver didn't want to talk during the ceremony.
As he continued to watch, the newchild, no longer crying, moved his arms and legs in a jerking motion. Then he went limp. His head fell to the side, his eyes half open. Then he was still. With an odd, shocked feeling, Jonas recognized the gestures and posture and expression. They were familiar. He had seen them before. But he couldn't remember where.
Jonas stared at the screen, waiting for something to happen. But nothing did. The little twin lay motionless. His father was putting things away. Folding the blanket. Closing the cupboard.
Once again, as he had on the playing field, he felt the chocking sensation. Once again he saw the face of the light-haired, bloodied soldier as life left his eyes. The memory cam back
He killed it! My father killed it! Jonas said to himself, stunned at what he was realizing. He continued to stare at the screen numbly.

This was the process of release. All the adults and the Old kept the secret of the real release concept from all of the children and now when Jonas had saw it, he was terrorized.

How do you feel about Lois Lowry choosing to keep the real method of release, till this chapter. Did it stun you, what the real meaning of release means?

Chapter 17

In chapter 17 of The Giver, Jonas and everyone in the community are scheduled with an unscheduled holiday. A unscheduled holiday in this community meant that it was a day off for everyone in the community. It happened so rarely. Jonas was really happy and so he rode his bicycle down to the park and saw his friends playing a game of "good guys v.s bad guys". The imagined fake weapons and shot at each other and faked being killed. He used to play this game with them, but with all of his training, and about The Giver's memory of warfare he found that playing this game meant that you were imitating the concept of warfare and Jonas didn't find warfare amusing. When Jonas walked into the playing field of the game of warfare, Asher, one of Jonas's friends got up and "shot" Jonas.

"You're hit, Jonas!" Asher yelled from behind the tree. "Pow! You're hit again!"

When Jonas heard his friend say that, he just stood in the center of the field, not going along with the game. Asher yelled at Jonas and said that he ruined the game and while Jonas and Asher were sort of fighting, everyone that was playing the game left, including Asher. When Jonas went home to his dwelling, his family talked about their holiday. Then they talked about the knew twins that are coming in, and that one is going to go to elsewhere, and one is going to stay in this community. Also Jonas's father said that he has to do the release tomorrow.

Chapter 16

In chapter 16, Jonas asks The Giver about his favorite memory. Then The Giver gives it to Jonas. The memory was about Christmas and love in a family. It took place at a present day house, and in the house there was a Christmas tree and lots of family and friends. Jonas could feel the joy at first sight. He knew that the family structure was different. The Old were living together in the same house unlike their community where the Old were kept in the House of Old. After he got out of the memory, he asked The Giver what the word for the whole memory was and The Giver told him that it was love. Jonas didn't know what it meant, but he thought it felt great.

"To bad no one else knew what the feeling of love meant" Jonas thought to himself.

Jonas wanted his community to be like the one in the memory. He really wanted there to be love within everyone.
Do u think everyone should be loved and that everyone should have love within them?

When he got home that evening, he asked his parents if they loved him. Of course no one in the community knew what the word love meant, except for The Giver and himself, and they said no and told him to use precise language. His parents were not very found of him using the word love because they thought that it wasn't a word.

What do you think about or feel when you think about love?

Chaters 12-15

In chapter 12, Jonas rides his bike to the Annex Room with Fiona, but when Fiona goes to her job, Jonas notices the thing that he thinks is Seeing Beyond. He looks at her and he sees her hair change. Her hair changes just for a moment and then it goes back to normal. Then he goes into the Annex Room and asks The Giver about him Seeing Beyond. The Giver said that he saw that Jonas had the capacity to do what he explained happened. The Giver said that, to confirm that Jonas is Seeing Beyond, he must go back to the sled and snow memory and look down at the sled. In the memory Jonas looked down and he saw the same thing that he he saw with the apple, crowd, and Fiona's hair. Then Jonas awakened and he said that he saw it with the sled and The Giver told him that he was seeing the color red. Jonas didn't know what the concept red or the concept of color was. Then The Giver gave Jonas the memory of a rainbow.
In chapter 13, Jonas explains that it is not fair that there are no colors in the community. Then they perceived that it was a good idea not to have everyone have color in their lives. Then they had a lengthy talk about if Jonas would have a spouse one day. Some of the days The Giver would tell Jonas to go because he is in pain and one day Jonas asked The Giver about the pain that The Giver had been in. Then The Giver told Jonas to lie down on his back and started to give him a memory. The memory that The Giver gave Jonas was a memory of shooting of animals and Jonas could not stand it. Now Jonas knew what The Giver had said about pain.
In chapter 14, Jonas is in the same memory as the sled and the snow. When the sled starts to go downhill on the sled, he hits a bump and he falls off his sled and lands awkwardly on his leg and hears a crack. He was experiencing the memory of pain. He sat there for a while and was in excruciating pain. He got up and was able to get out of the memory and come back into the Annex Room and was perfectly fine. He hated that memory. That was sort of the same pain as what the memory of shooting was but that was mental pain and this was physical pain and they both hurt. After this memory, Jonas asked The Giver for pain-relief medicine, but The Giver said no because it was in the rules that Jonas should never take any medicine that would help anything related to his job. Then Jonas asked why they should keep the memories of pain and The Giver told him wisdom, and he told him everything he could about it. When Jonas goes home to his dwelling he finds out that Gabe is doing just fine and they might not have to release him. Then his father says that there is going to be twins that are coming and on is going to go to Elsewhere and the other is going to stay within the community. Then when he goes to bed that night with Gabe at his side in his crib, he starts to cry, and Jonas accidentally gives off one of his peaceful memories to Gabe and he falls quietly to sleep.
In chapter 15, Jonas goes to the Annex Room and in it The Giver says to Jonas:

"Please," he gasped, "take some of the pain."

As instructed Jonas falls into the memory of The Giver and learns what the word warfare means. Jonas thought warfare was one of the worst things to do.

Do you agree with Jonas or do u have your own feelings about warfare?

Chapter 11

In chapter 11, Jonas experiences the Receiver's memory of snow, a sled, a downhill, and runners. When Jonas first "arrives" in the memory, he feels the air get cold and his body suddenly get cold. Also the hands of The Giver (the Receiver wants Jonas to call him) seem to disappear. Then he spots some sort of crystals in the air. He sticks his tongue out and catches some of them. He likes the sensation. Then he realized that he was high up in white furry stuff, that he thought The Giver had told him, was snow. He was also sitting on a hard flat object. Next the thing under him (he thought it was the sled), began to move and just then he knew he was going downhill. As he was going through the frigid air he knew that he was being propelled on runners. Then the hill began to flatten out and he slowed down to a stop. After he sat there for a moment he opened his regular eyes. The Giver and Jonas talked about the memory. After Jonas and The Giver talked about the memory, Jonas lied back down on the bed and The Giver began to rub his hands on Jonas's bare back and started his next memory. Instead of being cold the setting became warm. He started feeling the warmth all over and when he licked his lips he felt the hot and heavy air. Then he figured a word for it, sunshine. He woke up and told The Giver, sunshine. Then Jonas asked why the job was going to be so painful. He thought that the memories are pleasureful and fun. The Giver said that he started off with the pleasured ones first. Then since he asked the question he made Jonas lie down once more and gave him one more memory for the day. This dream was a dream of sunburn and how sunburn can hurt. Then the Giver told Jonas to go home and that was it for that day.

Chapters 9-10

In chapter 9, Jonas rides on his bike back to his dwelling. He and his parents talked about how greatly honored Jonas his. They also talked about another Receiver that was picked and failed. After they discussed Jonas's new job as the Receiver of Memory, Jonas took out the folder that everyone got that told the instructions and other things of what the job was about. Jonas saw as he was riding home that the other folders of the other Twelves', had been thick and filled with papers about their new topic. But when Jonas took out his folder and looked inside of it, all he had in it was a single sheet of paper. On the paper was the following.

Jonas

Receiver of Memory

1. Go immediately at the end of school hours each day to the Annex entrance behind the House of the Old and present yourself to the attendant.
2. Go immediately to your dwelling at the conclusion of Training Hours each day.
3. From this moment you are exempted from rules governing rudeness. You may ask any question of any citizen and you will receive answers.
4. Do not discuss your training with any other member of the community, including parents and Elders.
5. From this moment you are prohibited from dream-telling.
6. Except for illness or injury unrelated to your training, do not apply for any medication.
7. You are not permitted to apply for release.
8. You may lie.

This is what the single sheet of paper in his folder read. After he read the list of rules, he thought about each one and compared it to his past life and saw if it changed him. The one that he did have to change from was the last one. You may lie.

In chapter 10, Jonas has his first day of training for the Receiver of Memory. He rides with Fiona, a good friend, and then goes to the Annex entrance like his instructions told him to do. When he got into the entrance an attendant was waiting for him at a desk. She welcomed Jonas and told him where to go. Then Jonas walked into a furnished living room. There was on thing weird about the room and it was the books. In every dwelling there are the three same books and no one every thought there were any more, but in this room there were books piled high on bookcases that lined the room. Then he introduced himself to a man that was sitting in a chair at a desk. The man sitting at the desk was the current Receiver of Memory. Jonas noticed that he looked very old and the Receiver said that the job had aged him and that he isn't actually as old as he looks. The Receiver said that his job is to transmit all his memories he has of the past. Jonas thought he said of his childhood, but when the Receiver said it was from the whole world back and back generations he was stunned. Jonas thought that there was only this generation and just this community. The Receiver said that there was memories from Elsewhere (the place where people would go after they are released). Then the Receiver told Jonas to take off his tunic and lie down on the bed.

"Close your eyes. Relax. This will not be painful."

Jonas remembered that he was allowed, that he had even been encouraged, to ask questions. "What are you going to do, sir?" he asked, hoping that his voice didn't betray his nervousness.

"I am going to transmit the memory of snow," the old man said, and placed his hands on Jonas's bare back.

Chapters 6-8

In chapter 6, Lois Lowry talks about all the different ceremonies and what happens to all of the children at the ceremonies. In each of the ceremonies you usually loose and gain something. Jonas sat through all of the ceremonies and was bored through most of them since he had gone through all of them in his past years.


In chapter 7, Jonas's group is brought up to the auditorium and the almost Twelves get ready for the Ceremony of Twelve. The Chief Elders bring up a child one by one by their number. Their number is chosen when they are born. If they are born first then their number is 1. If they are born second then their number is 2. If they are born third in that year then their number is 3, and so on. Jonas is number 19. The numbers started being called and the giving of Assignments began. The Assignments were given all the way up to 18. Now it was Jonas's turn.

"Twenty," he heard her voice say clearly. "Pierre."
She skipped me, Jonas thought, stunned. Had he heard wrong? No. There was a sudden hush in the crowd, and he knew that the entire community realized that the Chief Elder had moved from Eighteen to Twenty, leaving a gap. On his right, Pierre, with a startled look, rose from his seat and moved to the stage.
A mistake. She mad a mistake. But Jonas knew, even as he had the thought, that she hadn't. The Chief Elder made no mistakes. Not at the Ceremony of Twelve.

This is when the Chief Elder makes a "mistake" and forgets to call number 19, Jonas. The Chief Elder finishes all the Assignments and only Jonas is left.



In chapter 8 she says that she has not made a mistake and has done it on purpose. She also said that Jonas was chosen and called him up to the stand. She apologized to the audience and to Jonas that she had done what she had done to them all. Then she says that Jonas is selected. She says he has been selected to be the Receiver of Memory.

"Such a selection is very, very rare," the Chief Elder told the audience. "Our community has only one Receiver. It is he who trains his successor.

Then she talks about the current Receiver. After she talks about that she explains why the Committee has chosen Jonas for the following job. She explains that they have watched him closely through his childhood and that he has the following qualities for a Receiver: intelligence, integrity, courage, and wisdom. But then she said that he has something that can't be described but only named. She also said that no one will understand what it is and the current Receiver said it is called Capacity to See Beyond. Everyone stared at Jonas and he felt scared and thought he should say sorry you have the wrong person, but then he looked into the crowd and then before his eyes he saw the crowd change. The crowd changed just like the apple changed at the Recreation Area back when he was having a catch with Asher. He blinked and then it was gone. He said he might have this and that he might have seen Beyond. Then the Chief Elder said thank you and left the stage. Then the audience.

Then louder, faster. "JONAS. JONAS. JONAS."

Chapters 4-5

In chapter 4, Jonas spends some volunteer hours at the bathing room. When he gets to the bathing room, two of his friends were there, Fiona and Asher. Fiona and Asher are already bathing an old, which is what you do in the bathing room, and so Jonas goes over to the other Olds waiting for a turn and starts the water in the tub so he can bath one of them. While Jonas is bathing the lady, she tells about a man that was just released that morning. She explains how it is a wonderful ceremony and how Jonas would love to be there.

In chapter 5, Jonas and his family talks about each of their dreams, if they have one. Jonas usually doesn't have a dream, but this morning he did have one.

"I did dream last night," Jonas told them. He shifted in his chair, frowning.
"The details aren't clear, really," Jonas explained, trying to recreate the odd dream in his mind. "I think I was in the bathing room at the House of Old."
"That's where you were yesterday," Father pointed out.
Jonas nodded. "But it wasn't really the same. There was a tub, in the dream. But only one. And the real bathing room has rows and rows of them. But the room in the dream was warm and damp. And I had taken off my tunic, but hadn't put on the smock, so my chest was bare. I was perspiring, because it was so warm. And Fiona was there, the was she was yesterday."
Asher Too?" Mother asked.
Jonas shook his head. "No. It was only me and Fiona, alone in the room, standing beside the tub. She was laughing. But I wasn't. I was almost a little angry at her, in the dream, because she wasn't taking me seriously."
"Seriously about what?" Lily asked.
Jonas looked at his plate. For some reason that he didn't understand, he felt slightly embarrassed. "I think I was trying to convince her that she should get into the tub of water.
"I wanted her to take off her clothes and get into the tub," he explained quickly. "I wanted to bathe her. I had the sponge in my hand. But she wouldn't. She kept laughing and saying no."


This was the dream that Jonas shared to his family at the morning ritual of dream-telling. Lily went to school and Jonas stayed with his parents and talked about the dreams in more detail. His mother told him that this dream was his first Stirrings. Jonas said that he had heard this being stated on an announcement. His mother also said that a lot of people get the Stirrings at about his age, 12. In the community everyone that had a Stirring will take pills every single day. Jonas had started the same day of his dream-telling with his parents.

Chapter 3

In chapter 3 Jonas's family unit has a guest. One day Jonas's father come home with a basket with the newborn Gabriel that was mentioned in chapter 1. There was one thing weird about this newchild and it was his eyes. Practically everyone in the community has dark eyes. Jonas is one of the many few that has pale eyes, and this newchild had pale eyes as well as Jonas. Jonas's father brings home the baby and Jonas's family unit is supposed to take care of Gabriel.

Later in this chapter Jonas experiences a change. In the middle of the chapter he has sort of a flash back and thinks to himself a time that he had in a recreation period one day with his friend Asher

Jonas had causally picked up an apple from the basket where the snacks were kept, and had thrown it to his friend. Asher had thrown it back, and they had begun a simple game of catch.

While Jonas and Asher were having a catch with the apple, Jonas noticed that when the apple went into mid-air, one time, it had sort of changed. When he caught it, it was the same apple, unchanged. He asked Asher if he saw it change but he said no. It had changed in mid-air for an instant and then went back to normal. He then took the apple home, against the recreation area rules and tried to study it and see if it would happen again. However it did not change and he got caught with it out of the area.

Chapters 1-2

In chapter 1 of The Giver, Jonas, the main character, lives in a Utopian world and one day he wonders how he feels. Before he figures out how he feels he thinks he is frightened.

It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened. No. Wrong word, Jonas thought. Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen.

This was a quote from the first page of the book. He first thinks he is frightened and then he decides he is apprehensive.
Jonas lives with his little sister, his mom, and his dad. Everyone in this community is put into groups of how old they are. Jonas is 11 years old and he is in the group with other 11 year olds and that group is called the Elevens. Jonas's sister is seven years of age and so she is classed as a seven.

Every night Jonas and his family sit together and talk about their feelings. Lily, Jonas's sister, talks about being mad. She says that she is mad because today her group was at the play area, and visitors came to the same play area and they didn't obey the rules. Jonas and his family talked to Lily and decided that they might not have known the rules of the play area and they didn't mean to do the mean things the did. Jonas's father explained his feelings. He explained that there was this newborn (they call the newborn babies newborns) that he knew was going to be released and he wanted it to be kept. Jonas's mother talked next about her feelings and then it was Jonas's turn. Jonas said that he was apprehensive about the Ceremony of the Twelve. After Jonas had told his family about him feeling apprehensive, Lily went to bed and his mother and father stayed and talked to Jonas.



In chapter 2 Jonas and his parents talk in a private conversation about the ceremonies and Jonas's father's memory of the different ceremonies. His father first confesses that that afternoon he was working and decided to look at the naming list for the name of the newchild that he was nurturing and the one that he was talking about in his feelings. However, there is a rule in the community that no one is aloud to look at the naming list, but Jonas's father thought that it might be better for the newchild if he says his name while nurturing it. Jonas couldn't believe his father and was very surprised. Then Jonas's father said that he found out that the newchild's name was Gabriel. Then his father talks about how he was very impatient for the Ceremony of the Twelves. He couldn't wait for the day. He also said that the Ceremony of Twelve is most important of all the ceremonies. Everyone at the Ceremony of Twelve receives a Assignment or in other words, receives their career for the rest of their adult life. Jonas's father said that he was so sure what his Assignment was going to be because he would spend all his free time with the newchildren and all the elders knew that he loved the newchildren and the job of it. Then his father started telling about his childhood. Jonas then realizes that a lot of the fun ends at twelve and that he moves into adult life. Then Jonas thinks to himself

Though he had been reassured by the talk with his parents, he hadn't the slightest idea what his Assignment the Elders would be selecting for his future, or how he might feel about it when the day came.

What do you think his Assignment is going to be?

Welcome to my Blog

Welcome to my blog. In this blog I am going to talk about The Giver and The Messenger by Lois Lowry. I attend Wissahickon Middle School and this is a 7th grade project and I think this is going to be a great blog. I am doing this study guide to help people like you learn more about these two books and help read the book easily.