Jamie’s Comments (group member since Jan 15, 2012)

Jamie’s comments from the EDUC 567 Spring 2012 group.

I also really liked Despereuax but I think my other favorite was Princess Pea. I really liked the courage that the author gave her and that the author made her humble. Even though Pea was mad that Roscuro made her mother die she still forgave him and let him eat with her up in the castle. I also liked the way Pea treated Miggery Sow. She was kind and respectful no matter what.
I thought the outcome with Roscuro was going to be different. When the author first started talking about Roscuro's obsession with the light I thought he and Despereaux were going to become friends because they both really liked the light and were different. But of course Roscuro had to become evil and be the antagonist of the story. I felt bad for him at first after he fell into the soup but I lost all sympathy when he became evil and wanted to plot against Princess Pea.

The giver was a book that I had never previously read and was different than what I thought. Many different parts of the book stuck out to me as I was reading.

For instance:

"Once, back in the time of the memories, everything had a shape and size, the way things still do, but they also had a quality called color." (94)

Up until this part of the book I was imagining that the people saw like I saw. I fit the differences of the book into my stereotype of the world. I was a little shocked that the characters were unable to see color and it was a detail that I would not have thought mattered until after it was presented. This showed how controlled and "sameness" the society really was that something such as color was taken out. It also was weird that Jonas was the only one who could see "flashes" of color before the Giver gave it to him permanently.

Another part that really stood out to me was near the end when The Giver said that his daughter was the one that was supposed to replace him. While, I had grasped the fondness that he had for the girl, Rosemary, I did not think that it was his daughter but after that revelation it made perfect sense. It made the fact that she was released that much more sad and difficult to bear.

I guessed through the book that the "release" was going to be something similar to what it turned out to be. I knew there was no way the people of this community would let someone out into the world by themselves because that might destroy the perfect world they have created. However, if I had been a middle schooler reading this book I do not know if I would have grasped that and I might have thought the same way that Jonas did until showed differently. I was astonished though that they would kill babies just because they didn't fit into the predescribed mold. It is very different from the individualism that our world has.

One part of the book that really bothered me was the fact that Jonas took to the memories so quickly and quickly changed his whole view on life. Based on his age and the way he was raised I would have thought that the memories would have confused him more and he would not have adapted to the way of life as seen in the memories so quickly. But I guess that is the point of "selecting" a new receiver because he is meant to be special and therefore not fit into the "typical" stereotypes.

The end of the book was something that raised many questions for me because it was the same as his memories. It made me wonder if the Giver had really planned the whole escape long before Jonas came along but didn't want Jonas to feel scared. The fact that Elsewhere was the same as the memories and in present time was odd and made me wonder about that fact. If the Giver really did know what was there and had indeed planned it then he played it off well and did a good job letting Jonas discover it for himself. If the Giver did not know then how did he get such recent memories? It is a question that can only be speculated but I think that the Giver started planning everything after the release of his daughter and he realized how difficult everything was to bear alone.

Overall the Giver was a strange yet enticing book that challenges the comfortable world that we are all so used to. In a middle school classroom this book could easily raise some important questions that could make the students think about their life. At the same time, the concepts in this book could be difficult for some to grasp and could leave them disliking the book rather than think about the questions it raises.