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."