Gathering Blue By: Lois Lowry

This is a follow up to The Giver. I won't say it is a sequel because it is not. None of the same characters from the first novel are in Gathering Blue and the community at the center of the story is much different. Yet, in many important aspects the stories are very much the same. The major themes that Lowry adressed in The Giver are adressed here as well. In the village where this story takes place it is unacceptable to be weak or disabled in anyway. Those who are "of no use" are simply disgarded. They made it sound nicer in The Giver. Release seemed like a good thing. But, as you know, it was the same in the end. The hero of this story is a girl. She is an outcast. The only reason that she was not "taken to the field" when she was small was the power her mothers father had in the village. Much like Jonas,Kira slowly discovers that the community in which she lives has dark secrets and is unsafe. However, Kira chooses to deal with this knowledge in an entirely different way than Jonas. Lowry has once again developed a realistic and believable world. A world that is foreign from the one in which we live but, we think, could exist under the right circumstances. Lowry has once again led us into the very darkest parts of humanity and shown us that even in the darkest night there are sparks of light.