[SPOILER ALERT: This whole review pretty gives away every plot point in both the book and film versions of The Giver.  Abandon ship all ye who wish to remain surprised.]

On Sunday night I had an extraordinary experience.  I was sitting in a theater, just about to watch Guardians of the Galaxy, and seeing what had to be the lamest run of movie trailers I have ever experienced.  I’m talking horrible stuff.  The Annie trailer (which ends with a prostitute joke), the Alexander and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day trailer (which may rival the Paddington film for Worst Trailer of the Year), and others that made my brain shut down.  However it was the last trailer that was particularly interesting to me.  It was for the film adaptation of Lois Lowry’s The Giver.  For the first time in my life, I was watching a trailer in a theater for a film I had already seen.  Since Guardians of the Galaxy is a mighty popular film these days, you may find yourself seeing the same trailer.  Don’t believe it, though.  The movie, believe it or not, is MUCH better than its preview.  Much.

Because I’m currently on maternity leave with a small baby boy I was fairly certain I wouldn’t be able to see an early screening of the film.  Fortunately Walden Media was accommodating and so, a week or two ago, I sat down with two buddies and a 10-week old child to see the onscreen adaptation of Lois Lowry’s Newbery Award winning book.  And let me tell you, if you had to pick a movie to watch while holding a baby, this probably wouldn’t be your first choice.

I had reason to be skeptical, by the way.  When children’s novels make the transition to the big screen they have a tendency to go a bit wonky.  Remember Madeleine L’Engle’s straight to DVD Wrinkle in Time (NOT to be confused with the recently announced version)?  Or what happened to Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising?  And yes, I knew that Ms. Lowry had not only put her stamp of approval on this film but had been actively promoting it, but what did that really mean?  So when I sat down and watched it I noted that one of my compatriots had read the original book as an adult when it published and the other had never read the book at all.  Their insights proved invaluable.

The thing to remember when you watch The Giver is how long this book has been in the making.  Jeff Bridges wanted to do it so long ago that he cast his father, Lloyd Bridges, in the title role with Bud Cort on narration.  With the book originally publishing in 1993, this was middle grade dystopian long before Hunger Games came around.  As such, a lot of the tropes you’ll find in the film won’t remind you of the current wave of YA dystopias as much as it will dystopias of the past.  I’m talkin’ Planet of the Apes / 1984 / Soylent Green / Zardoz stuff (well . . . maybe not Zardoz). The kind where people aren’t quite certain how to use conjunctions anymore.  I suspect we may see some reviews of this film that say it’s derivative of the current dystopias, but can you really be derivative if you came first?

The film begins with what looks like a slightly cleaner gated community than you’d usually find.  Perfect lawns.  Lots of circles.  The occasional drone.  And zero sexy clothes.  We meet Jonas, our hero, and his two bestest buddies Fiona (ten years ago she would have been played by Kristen Stewart) and Asher (one of my compatriots pointed out that he was essentially Rolfe from The Sound of Music).  They’re all white.  Heck, all the major characters in this film are white.  You might chalk that up to flaws in the dystopia, but I dunno.  Seems like they could have had Jonas’s mom or dad be of color (after all, they’re not his birth parents or anything).

As for the kids, they are all older teens, a fact that was lamented wildly when it was first announced.  However, as much as I’m for films to stay strictly faithful to their books, this change makes a lot of sense.  I never quite understood those books where kids find out their lifelong jobs when they’re 12.  The age appears to be there solely to allow the book to be shelved in the children’s rather than the YA section.  In life, teenagers are more often told to pick their career paths.  Plus the themes of the film fit adolescence so well (example: the desire to be the same as everyone else, even if it removes you from your own identity).  Plus, kids watching the film at this point will certainly be thinking that this is a pretty great place to live.  Teens will be the ones who first see the cracks.

Of course there is no picking in this world.  Jonas is on the cusp of finding out what his job for life will be.  Played by Brenton Thwaites, it’s a thankless role.  A whole lotta yearning, which would try any actor’s patience.  Brenton does a good job of it, though, and there’s a faint creepiness to the sunny happy-go-lucky interactions between him and his friends.  Very Disney Channel-esque, if less risqué (if such a thing were possible).

When Jonas returns home we meet his mother and father, played by Katie Holmes and Alexander Skarsgård.  To have Katie playing a teenager’s mother is, sadly, par for the course with Hollywood.  She’s over 30?  Cast her as a mom.  But in this society you get the distinct feeling that it makes a lot of sense.  If she was handed a baby when she was 18 then sure, she could be Jonas’s mother.  It makes sense within the context of the film.  Holmes, however, is a bit overshadowed in her role by Skarsgård who ends up being one of the finest actors in the movie.  He plays the part of a very earnest, nice guy who would seriously kill you without a second thought if told to do so.  This disconnect could tap nicely into a teen’s hidden fears about their own parents.  You trust them implicitly when you are a child, but as you grow older you begin to see some character defects (some MAJOR character defects in this case).

We get to know the world a bit better when we hear about people being “released”.  That’s where the Soylent Green similarities start to crop up (and if you haven’t seen that film, I assure you that it is MUCH better than one would expect it to be).  Then we witness the ceremony where the kids get assigned their jobs and as each one is named a little montage of them over the years plays on a kind of live feed.  It becomes clear that these images are plucked from the constant surveillance technology that inundates the place, which gives a nice eerie vibe to what would otherwise feel a lot like those videos parents make for their kids’ graduation ceremonies.

When Meryl Streep arrives via hologram (there are a lot of Star Wars-esque holograms to be found here, partly because Streep’s schedule didn’t allow her to travel to Australia where much of the movie was filmed) she steps into the role of white-haired-woman-in-charge.  This is a popular role for great, older film actresses.  Heck, the aforementioned Guardians of the Galaxy even had one in the form of Glenn Close.  In Streep’s case, her role is as the Chief Elder, an embodiment of the problematic leaders of this society.  The nice thing about casting Streep is that she’s able to give a bit more nuance to what would otherwise be a two-dimensional part.  The Chief Elder is honestly conflicted by the choices she has to make, but there’s an understanding that society itself wouldn’t have her any other way.  Plus, only Streep could give the line “Thank you for your childhood” the right edge.  Mind you, I would bet you really good money that as I write this Anthony Lane is wracking his brain to come up with an appropriately cutting line to use to describe her bangs.  They didn’t bug me though.

Jonas is assigned to be The Receiver to Jeff Bridges, the titular Giver.  Like Streep, Bridges is fantastic to watch.  Of course, he has an advantage over her in that he’s the only real person in the whole film for quite some time.  A guy who doesn’t waste his time with b.s.  Half the time he’s talking you’re not certain if he believes what he says.  He’s also the kind of guy willing to play with the whole “chosen one” trope for fun (a fact that I appreciated).  He lives in a little house near “the edge” of society itself in a house that’s sort of Dr. Calgari meets M.C. Escher.  As The Giver, Mr. Bridges hands Jonas memories of the past via a kind of Vulcan mind meld.  The first memory is of a sled, effectively making this film Citizen Kane for kids.

At this point the Garden of Eden references start to crank up big time.  Jonas peers into the mist at the edge where nothing is supposed to exist and sees a tree.  The first thing he officially sees in color is an apple (Fiona’s pretty red hair notwithstanding – though I suppose you could argue that it had some Biblical significance as well).  As Jonas starts to learn more he decides not to take his inoculations, so he puts a bit of blood on a red apple and bypasses the system that way.  And, naturally, he uses this apple to try to convince his friend Fiona to do the same.  One naturally wonders if sex is going to come up since these are teenagers we’re talking about, but the most you get is some very chaste kissing after the two have plunged into a man made waterfall (now entering metaphor city).

Now did I fail to mention that until this point the film has been in black and white?  It has indeed, and that’s fine.  It certainly gives the film a kind of Wizard of Oz feel when Jonas at long last begins to see colors.

I watched with great interest how the film handled the darker elements of this society.  First off, it’s been a while since I read the book so I couldn’t remember what the first memory of cruelty The Giver would give.  In this case it’s a mighty realistic elephant safari.  Can you train an elephant to fall down like that?  You must.  And that was one well trained animal.  As for the shockingly horrible memory Jonas accidentally taps into, they went with Vietnam.  A clever choice since Vietnam is sort of the perfect American nightmare in and of itself.  But as well all know, there is one particular element to the book that causes it to be banned with shocking regularity in schools nationwide.  I wondered if the film would show it or skip it entirely, but it’s so essential to the plot that you really can’t take it out. I am referring of course to the murder of a baby.

These days you can’t really kill a dog onscreen anymore.  They will never remake Old Yeller for this very reason.  But a baby?  James Kennedy, the man behind the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, once told me that when he gets a submission for The Giver there is usually one thing he can count on.  The film may skip one part of the book or another but kids ALWAYS include the dead baby scene.  They will reenact it with teddy bears or baby dolls or what have you, but it’ll be there.  And fair play to the filmmakers.  There’s Alexander Skarsgård, all soft sweet talk and pretty eyes, and he friggin’ kills a baby onscreen.  If you are in the audience holding a baby at this time it is all the more harrowing.  People are going to freak out about this when they see it, but it is probably the #1 most effective method of showing that this world is awful.  Even kids and teens will understand that much.

I should note that there are the occasional lighter moments, though it would be a stretch to call this film comedic.  You’re so desperate for some lightness, in fact, that the moment when Jonas’s father is telling his daughter that a stuffed elephant is a “mythical hippo”, it works.  Plus Jeff Bridges is himself a great source of humor.

As we near the end we gear up for the big escape of Jonas and baby Gabriel.  Now for the screenwriter there was a very big dramatic problem at the core of the original book.  You want to have an exciting climax to the film where your hero is attempting to do something big.  In this case, it isn’t enough for Jonas to be running to safety with Gabe.  You can only take that so far.  So they’ve added that he must also free everybody’s memories as well, something that can apparently be done by crossing some kind of border.  It’s not really explained but since the whole transference of The Giver’s memories isn’t explained in the book either, you can’t really sweat it.  Mind you, by crossing this border everyone in society will have as many memories of the past as The Giver himself.  And on top of that they alternate Jonas’s flight with the upcoming execution of a friend, which also allows for a dramatic conversation between The Giver and The Elder about knowledge and choices.

Those of us familiar with the original book know that one of the great debates surrounding it for years was the ending.  In fact, you could credit much of The Giver‘s success to the fact that the finish was open ended (sequels that settle the matter and Ms. Lowry’s own protests aside).  Some people would interpret the end to mean that Jonas and Gabe died while others were convinced that they lived.  The question in my mind, upon entering the theater, was whether or not the film would also be open to interpretation in this way.  Final conclusion: Probably not.  For one thing, Jonas is narrating the whole time and he’s speaking in the past tense.  And sure, this might be Ghost Jonas talking, but from what he says you get the feeling that he’s defending himself from people who don’t like how he changed their society.  The ending of the film isn’t really cut and dried, though.  Jonas and Gabe hear the Christmas carols.  They see the sled.  They see the house where the songs are coming from. (Gabe also sports what may well be the most authentically runny nose in cinematic history.)  They approach and the film ends.  But what was the carol they were hearing? “Silent Night”.  And what line in the song was clearer to the audience’s ear than any other?  “Sleep in heavenly peace.”  Hmmmm.  I say, the jury is still out.

I mentioned before the whitey whiteness of the film, which really wasn’t necessary.  The society itself isn’t all-white, just the major characters in this film.  Then there are the women.  Were in not for Fiona and Jonas’s rather charming little sister we’d be drowning in a sea of disapproving shrews (Katie Holmes, Meryl Streep, etc.).  As it stands, it could be better (Fiona’s more a symbol than a person) but it’s not terrible by any means.  As I said before, Streep’s a pro and gives her character a great deal of nuance.  She’s not cackling with malicious glee or anything (ala Jodie Foster in Elysium).   There are also the flashbacks into the past that Jonas witnesses through his sessions with The Giver.  These are sometimes so well done that the last one in particular made me tear up a little.  Sadly, while it shows families and protests and other meaningful elements (Nelson Mandela gets some serious screen time) there were no gay families or alternative families in the mix.  A bit of a missed opportunity there, folks.

When we consider the pantheon of book to film adaptations, few are word-for-word carbon copies of the books.  Even the faithful Harry Potter films had to make the occasional change.  Much of what has been done to The Giver is entirely logical.  In the end, the best way to judge a book-to-screen situation is to look at the book’s theme.  Is this a case like The Lorax where the film upsets the very moral of the original source material?  Or will it be more like The Fantastic Mr. Fox and preserve the beauty of the book’s thematic core while clearly establishing itself as its own beast?  The Giver happily falls into the latter category.  It is most faithful to the book in terms of the themes, the morals, and way in which it confronts the problems with conformity.  Over the next few decades millions of children will be shown this Newbery Award adaptation in school.  And I, for one, am grateful.

I considered closing this post by embedding a trailer for the film, then thought better of it.  For the record, the trailers of The Giver are all universally awful.  The initial one made it appear as if the film was in color.  After public outcry the studio rushed to assure people that it had simply been cut to look that way.  Then came the second trailer which acknowledged that parts were in black and white, but at the same time it contained about five different misleading moments.  Rather than watching these trailers I suggest you see the film itself.  Or, in lieu of that, this delightful 90-second version created for James Kennedy’s 90-Second Newbery Film Festival.  Bonus: No dead babies.

Many thanks to Walden Media for allowing me my own little preview!

And here I thought that Dr. Seuss films began with The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T and those short animated specials and ended with stuff like the CGI fests we’re seeing in theaters practically every year.  Not so!  Good old stop-animation also has had a hand in Seuss’s silver screen career.  Interestingly, this is the only film version (that I know of) of And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street.

And To Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street by CarlStallingEnthusiast

Fun Fact: Beatrix Potter was a fan of the book.  Thanks so much to Phil Nel for the link!

So the official trailer for The Giver movie came out.  Like so:

Two words: Ruh-roh.  Or is that one word?  Hm.  By the way, 100 points to the first person who makes a mock version of this video with the title “The Giver Tree”.  I will honestly and truly send you a cookie if you make that thing.  Scout’s honor.

So a couple weeks ago we were watching the Oscars and I was happy to find that all the nominated songs were interesting and good.  But I’ll confess to you that the one that interested me the least was the U2 song.  I’m just not a U2 girl.  Joshua Tree lovers, pelt me with your stones at will.  But wait!  Hold fast your flying rocks because I just discovered a fascinating fact.  Actually someone that I’ve now forgotten (someone at a dinner, I suspect) shared this with me very recently.  If you watch the music video for the U2 song “Ordinary Love” you will find that all the writing in it (and there’s a lot) looks a bit familiar.  Know why?  Bloody blooming Oliver Jeffers did it!  I kid you not!  Wowie-zowie.  An honest-to-goodness kidlit connection.

This man may have the most famous handwriting in the business today.

Now I’m about to go all adorable on you.  Or rather, these kindergartners are.  You may recall that a year or so ago I presented a video created by Arturo Avina and his kindergarten class from LAUSD’s Olympic Primary Center.  They had adapted Miss Nelson Is Missing and it was a great look at how you can combine digital technology, reading skills, and literature into a project.  Well, Arturo wrote me recently to let me know the sequel was out.  You betcha.  It’s Miss Nelson Is Back.  Check it out:

Says Arturo, “At first, I was skeptical about how this class would tackle it because they did not come in as high academically as last year’s class.  However, a beautiful thing happened.  When my students saw what last year’s class did, they wanted to do the same, and as a result, they stepped up to the plate and succeeded…in spades.  I am particularly proud of this class because they did not start off in third base like last year’s class.  They started off at home plate and hit a home run.The reaction to our movie has been enthusiastically positive by all who have watched it so far. At this point, several parents and teachers have contacted me to let me know that their kids absolutely LOVE it!   It is still my hope that teachers, parents, and kids are entertained by our efforts and hopefully encouraged to blend more dramatic arts into literacy activities. We also hope that this can be used a resource in the classroom.  We poured an incredible about of work and love into our project, and it is with great joy and pride that we present it to the world.”

Thank you for sharing this with us, Arturo!  You have some seriously amazing actors on your hands.  Hollywood, take note.

And since we were already talking about the Oscar nominated songs earlier, might as well play this.  It’s the fun little video all your 10-year-old daughters have already seen featuring Idina Menzel, Jimmy Fallon and The Roots.  Just cuz.

By the way, is it fair to say that Idina Menzel has spent most of her working career the idol of 12-year-old girls?  Other folks too, but to go from Rent to Wicked to Frozen . . . well, it’s impressive.

Some weeks can go by without a single solitary interesting video in sight.  Other weeks, you drown in brilliance.  This week inclines far more towards the latter than the former.

I could not lead off today with anything other than the latest bit of Bookie Woogie brilliance.  You keened to their 90-second rendition of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.  You hooted to their Black Cauldron encapsulation.  And you had to rewire your jaw after it smashed to the floor after seeing their Frog and Toad Together video.  Now behold the wonder that is . . . Charlotte’s Web!!!

Charlotte’s Web / Spider-Man Mashup (Bookie Woogie) from Z-Dad on Vimeo.

Naturally this was created for James Kennedy’s 90-Second Newbery Film Festival.  Those of you in the Chicago area will want to reserve your (free) seats for the February 1st screening here.  If nothing else I urge you to check out the posters that Aaron Zenz created in conjunction with this.

Aw, shoot.  I know for a fact I never put THIS 90-Second Newbery video up either (you see what happens when you try to post just one?).  This is my favorite, bar none, version of The Giver. If I were a producer on a comedy show I would hire this kid NOW NOW NOW.

From this awesomeness we now turn to the ultimate delight.  Self-deprecation.  Marc Tyler Nobleman had a brilliant notion.  He was watching Jimmy Kimmel Live! and saw the bit where celebrities read insulting tweets about themselves.  It gave him an idea – what if children’s authors did the same with bad Amazon reviews?  Though my temptation is to post all three videos here, I’m going to be a good pooky and only post one.  If you would like to see the other two (which are just as good and feature just loads of famous folks) go to Marc’s blog right here.  Here’s part one:

In book trailer news, or rather live-action book trailer news, Lorie Ann Grover’s YA novel Firstborn is coming out and the trailer looks pretty darn strong.  To the point, well shot, the works.  Love the brevity of it.  Well played, folks.

If you like your trailers a little more nonfiction picture booky, try on for size this one for Patricia Hruby Powell’s Josephine about you-know-who:

I'm so behind blogging...so much to do, so much to say.


I have more pictures to post of my visit to Crestview and Indian Hills in Clive, Iowa, but I'll do that after finishing final grades....this is too time-consuming.

I do, however, want to mention that after Lois Lowry's live online booktalk through School Library Journal, I quickly ordered Gathering Blue (which I had started and never finished), Messenger, and her latest novel in the series, Son. 

Image lifted from Amazon, obviously:

I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't know these four books were a series. Not having gotten far enough in Gathering Blue to see the connections (which were sort of magically aha-inspiring when I got there), I didn't know that an answer existed in the universe as to what happened to Jonas and Gabe at the end of The Giver, which I've read many times. I love that book so much, I even required it a few times when I taught Humanities Critical Thinking at SCC, in hopes that the idea of treasuring knowledge and learning might sink in.

So, in between grading and the frantic pace of December in a college, I did plow through the last three books. Lois Lowry is a master of character and what I would call magical realism. She creates a dystopian world but makes the characters so heroic and human, even with their gifts, that I couldn't put down any of the books.

Son was truly a crowning end to the series. It's an epic struggle of good-heartedness against controlling society and against evil (is there a difference?). In the Ceremony of "Twelves"--the ceremony where Jonas was named "Receiver" from the "Giver," Claire is named "Birthmother." Birthmothers' job is reminiscent of "Handmaid's Tale" by Maraget Atwood. When something goes terribly wrong with the birth, Claire is deemed unfit for her position in the community and cast out of the birthmothers' dwelling. In a new position, no one remembers to give her the daily pill that eradicates emotion and desire. Hence, she longs for the son she's never seen. The longing leads her on a quest that reaches the edge of the Community and beyond.  Gripping, chilling, delightful, tragic, and heart-warming. Worth every second of reading.

The novel is richer if you've read the whole series--or at least The Giver, but it's a stand-alone story if you haven't.

I wished for just a little more conflict toward the end of the book, even though the tension all the way through made me want to yell the truths at the characters (the only book in the series where dramatic irony pulls us along--we know much more than the characters in this story). So the wish for more conflict wasn't due to a lack of it in the book. It's just that the final "battle" seemed almost too easy...I wanted it to demand just a little more...but who am I to be in the least bit critical of a master storyteller like Lois Lowry????  The book was masterful, powerful, horrifying and wonderful.

Any fan of The Giver should read the entire series.

I think I admire her so much, and love her characters and stories so much that she may have moved up onto my pedestal with Harper Lee and Barbara Kingsolver Dennis LeHayne and Marguerite Henry and Lois Lenski and Carol Ryrie Brink and Mary Calhoun and Astrid Lindgren and Sarah Pennypacker: enduring, forever-favorite writers of stories I love.

#4 The Giver by Lois Lowry (1993)
260 points

The original dystopian. – Jennifer Padgett

My 7th grade teacher, Mrs. Morgan, read this aloud to us. My best friend and I checked a copy out of the library and finished it on a sleepover, sharing a single copy until we finished it because we could not wait. – Jessalynn Gale

It’s likely that Lois Lowry’s 1994 Newbery Medal winner has introduced more readers to dystopian fiction than any other book. Covering themes of mortality and religion, it’s also a regular on the most challenged list. One thing is for sure – you’ll never forgot it. – Travis Jonker

One of the cooler things about getting old is when you meet adults younger than you who, for instance, may have read an amazing book you first read when you were 18 but THEY read at that perfect book age, when they were 10 or 11, and it is for them what YOUR #1 is for you, and it’s like, WHOA. Awesome. I loved it enough when I was 18. – Amy M. Weir

I think I might have an little bit of a Lois Lowry addiction. I had such a strong need to read The Giver while I was abroad in the Middle East that I wept with joy when I happened to find a copy of it in a used bookstore in Damascus. – Dana Chidiac

Blew my little mind. – Miriam Newman

The plot description from the publisher reads, “December is the time of the annual Ceremony at which each twelve-year-old receives a life assignment determined by the Elders. Jonas watches his friend Fiona named Caretaker of the Old and his cheerful pal Asher labeled the Assistant Director of Recreation. But Jonas has been chosen for something special. When his selection leads him to an unnamed man-the man called only the Giver-he begins to sense the dark secrets that underlie the fragile perfection of his world.”

As per usual we turn to good old 100 Best Books for Children by Anita Silvey for the skinny on the creation of this title.  It was her twenty-first novel, you know.  No newbie to the children’s literature biz (as the fans of Anastasia Krupnik will all attest) the book was inspired by both the old and the young.  On the one hand, Lowry was visiting her parents in the nursing home.  Her mother had retained her memory but lost her sight.  Her father could see but was losing her memory.  This became coupled with a comment from Lowry’s grandson while on a Swan Boat ride in the Boston Public Garden.  “He said to her ‘Have you ever noticed that when people think they are manipulating ducks, actually ducks are manipulating people?’ “  Mrs. Mallard from Make Way for Ducklings would have something to say about that, I think.  Whatever the case, these seemingly disparate thoughts combined in Lowry’s brain giving us the book we have today.

It was a big time hit from the start.  Maybe this was partly due to the fact that it was the first middle grade dystopian novel to get any attention since the early 1980s.  For a while there, folks were convinced that the ending of the book was ambiguous.  Does Jonas live?  Does he die?  In her Newbery speech Ms. Lowry said, “Those of you who hoped that I would stand here tonight and reveal the ‘true’ ending, the ‘right’ interpretation of the ending, will be disappointed. There isn’t one. There’s a right one for each of us, and it depends on our own beliefs, our own hopes.”  Ambiguity sort of went out the window, though, when the sequels Gathering Blue, Messenger and Son (out this fall) came out and Jonas was wandering about.

It gets cha

    Absolutely everyone has noticed the rash of dystopian YA novels kicking around the bookstore these days. I was recently in the wonderland that is Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, and their YA room had a great "I'm Dystopian!" display. Author Philip Reeve wrote about the phenomenon in this month's School Library Journal. And you can't escape the promotions for the upcoming movie version of The Hunger Games. I'm guilty of being quietly obsessed with the genre ever since I started teaching Lois Lowry's classic The Giver twenty or so years ago.

    Well, in the past few years, I've read: The Hunger Games series, The Maze Runner series, the Chaos Walking series, the Gone series, the Uglies series, Incarceron, Divergent, Matched, Delerium, Enclave, Shipbreaker, The Roar, etc., etc., etc. Lots and lots of 'em. Some of them are great (Shipbreaker, Delerium, Chaos Walking series); some are very good (Maze Runner, Uglies, Gone, Incarceron). All of them are addictively readable.  For some reason I cannot fathom, we are fascinated with our own inevitable, horrific future. What we know for sure: Earth will suffer many cataclysmic disasters which will (probably) be our fault; the new government of what is left of the U.S. will be oppressive and totalitarian; the poor will be really poor and the rich will be really rich. And one last thing: Some plucky teenager with mad fighting and survival skills will soon see it all for what it is and will fight back.

    So what is different about Marie Lu's Legend, which will be published later this year and has already been optioned for the screen? Truthfully, not much. When I received the galley of Legend and read the back cover, I actually groaned. Aloud, not inwardly. My obsession was in danger of spilling over into compulsion: Yet another dystopian novel I must read. No, really, I just can't do it again. Please make it stop!

    Still, I cracked Legend open and began. Original it ain't, but, I gotta tell you, I liked it.  I liked it a lot. Despite being able to predict almost everything that was going to happen, I couldn't put Legend down. And if it's done right, it could make an awesome film. At the very least, it would be a great video game.

    June is a war-ready prodigy in the future Republic of America, a perfect soldier-to-be, who grew up in the golden light of Los Angeles's richest district. Day is a prodigy of another kind. He is from one of the city's poorest districts, and he's also the country's most wanted terrorist/criminal.  June and Day could not have come from more contrasting origins, but their worlds are about to collide in a big way.

    When Day's family is quarantined because of a breakout of the newest strain of plague to run through the L.A. slum areas, he needs to steal some plague cure quick. June's brother Matias, who seems to be the ultimate Republic soldier, is murdered at the hospital on the night that Day tries to swipe a few vials of the cure. Now, Day is the number-one suspect in the crime, and June is out to exact her revenge.

    Soon, however, June and Day cross paths in a most unlikely way.  An uneasy alliance, even a touch of romance develops, and June and Day start to uncover some horrifying trut

• Things that I love: Blogging. My baby girl.  Seattle.  Two of those three things will be coming together on September 16th and 17th.  That’s when the 5th (five already?) annual Kidlitcon will occur!  It’s looking like a remarkable line-up as well with special keynote speaker YA author Scott Westerfeld and great presentations, as per usual.  Baby girl is keeping me from attending, which is awful.  I think I’ll have missed three out of five by this point.  That just means you’ll have to go in my stead.  For conference information, Kidlitosphere Central has the details.

• Speaking of conferences I could not attend (whip out your world’s smallest violins playing a sad sad song for me), ALA came and went.  Between reading Twitter updates of awesome people having post-Caldecott/Newbery Banquet parties until 5 a.m. and knowing that there’s a whole world of ARCs out there that I have not seen, I took comfort in SLJ’s very cool shots of the outfits at the aforementioned banquet.  Jim Averbeck, I await your red carpet analysis.  Oh, and allow me to extend my hearty thanks to Tomie dePaola for mentioning me as well as a host of other fine librarians in his Wilder acceptance speech.  Made me feel quite the top cat it did.

• Artist Adam Rex discusses the “Hogwarts for Illustrators” and gives us a sneak peek at a cover of his due out this coming February.

• There’s more Ungerer in the offering.  Tomi Ungerer got covered by the Times the other day with an interesting Q&A.   In it, at one point he happens to say, “Look, it’s a fact that the children’s books that withstand the grinding of time all come from authors who did both [writing and illustrating].”  J.L. Bell takes that idea and jogs on over to my Top 100 Picture Books Poll where, rightly, he points out the #2 on was old Margaret Wise Brown.  He then finds other books that have stood the test of time with authors who do not illustrate.  Well played, Bell man.

• Also at The New York Times, editor Pamela Paul shows off the new crop of celebrity picture books.  Normally I eschew such fare, but one book in the batch is of particular interest to me.  Julianne Moore has penned the third Freckleface Strawberry book called Freckleface Strawberry: Best Friends Forever.  I’m rather partial to it, perhaps because of this librarian character that artist LeUyen Pham included in the story:

• J.K. Rowling: Classy dame.

• Oh, man.  This i
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As I write this, I am watching "The Matrix" on AMC.  This is my absolute favorite movie of all time.  They just "woke" Neo from the dreamworld of the Matrix, and he's about to find out what the real world actually is.  This movie is visually stunning in so many ways.  I've used it to teach about viewing movies with a critical eye.  It's just a delight for a film junkie like me to watch, even if this is the fiftieth time I've seen it (at least).  In addition to its visual appeal, "The Matrix" is a wonderful story about being the master of your own destiny, fate versus free will, and the dangerous reach of technology. It is wholly original.

Which brings me to Veronica Roth's Divergent, a dystopian novel set in a futuristic Chicago.  What does Divergent have to do with "The Matrix?" Nothing, and that's my point. Where "The Matrix" is a highly inventive, groundbreaking movie, Divergent is  a remix of The Hunger Games trilogy with a bit of The Giver thrown in for good measure.

Observe:

As much as her name resembles that of a character out of The Crucible, Beatrice Prior lives not in pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts,  but in post-apocalyptic Chicago. The city (The country? The world? Roth never reveals what lies beyond Lake Shore Drive) has been divided into five factions, each inhabited by people who embody that faction's virtue: Amity, Dauntless, Erudite, Candor, and Abnegation (SAT word alert! Couldn't Roth have just used Selfless?).  At age 16, kids choose the faction in which they will spend the rest of their lives. Generally, that means staying in the faction you're born into.  But not for Beatrice. Never feeling like she wholly belongs in the selfless realm of Abnegation, Beatrice chooses Dauntless. She doesn't know if she's right for Dauntless either, but at least she won't be bored.

As she goes through the miserable, tortuous, often gratuitous initiation process in Dauntless, "Tris" makes a few friends and a few enemies, falls for her initiation trainer (whose name is Four, by the way, which tripped me up occassionally because it wasn't always immediately obvious whether "Four" was referring to the number or the person), leaps from the roof of a skyscraper more than once, and saves her city (world?) from the evil Erudites. Along the way, Tris's narrative treats us to buckets of blood-soaked violence and the usual teenage sexual longing. 

So? You're thinking that Divergent doesn't sound too much like The Hunger Games, except for the choosing ceremony, the training, the smarter-and-braver-than-she-thinks-she-is heroine, and the civil war. What's my beef with this book exactly?  I don't think Veronica Roth gives us a new and interesting heroine here, at least not yet.  Tris is Katniss with tattoos.  The cadence of her speech, her temperament, her gritty vulnerability- they all mimic Katniss, leaving Tris without an original voice.  My hope is that as the trilogy develops, Tris will find her own authentic voice. I also hope that Roth develops some of the other characters into rounder, fuller

For your reading pleasure, I present The Giver by Lois Lowry.

The Giver

Choices. You make countless of them in a single day. Every choice you make, whether miniscule or grand, shapes your individual identity. Now imagine a world where you, quite literally, have no choice. The Giver does just that.

Lois Lowry crafts a world that at first leaves you mystified. However, the deeper into the story you delve the greater understanding you, as a reader, achieve of the characters and the world in which they live. It’s with the journey through this fictional world that Lowry leads you to experience your own world once again for the very first time. She gives you the opportunity to feel, see and question not only yourself but also that which surrounds you.

Some novels are described as powerhouses. The Giver, in my opinion, is deserving of this accolade.

When considering the perks of working in publishing, I have only two words: free books.  Between galleys and take shelves, there’s always something to bring home. But the best part is when Penguin decides to give away a free, hot-off-the-presses title… delivered right to your desk!

I’d heard about the famous “Penguin 5″, a selection of new YA titles whose advance copies were packaged and sent to industry folks, setting them all abuzz with excitement (did I mention the power of free books?).  I’d be surprised if the above trailer and website didn’t send every teen reader of paranormal/romance/horror/dystopia/fantasy running “breathless” to the nearest bookstore.  But the book I was excited to read myself was Matched… and guess what pretty, pretty hardcover showed up on my desk in honor of its release yesterday?

I think I can accurately describe Matched as The Giver for the teen girls of 2010. Heroine Cassia Reyes is a 17-year-old member of The Society, the universal government that dictates everything from your clothes and your food, to the art you consume, your job and – of course – your mate.  Cassia receives her optimum match, and in a stroke of luck, it’s her best friend and resident blond hottie, Xander.  But in an unlucky “error”, another face comes up on her match-card as well: outsider Ky.  Ooooh snap!

Who is her true “match”?  Will knowledge lead her to buck “The Society” and realize it isn’t all that perfect?  Though the answers seem obvious, I’m a third of the way through… and I’m still enthralled.  Definitely a great YA read!

Check out the super-mysterious website for Matched, as well as a video of the author, below.

What am I reading now? The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by K. DiCamillo
 
On Thursday, October 28, 2010, Scholastic launched You Are What You Read, a new social networking site for readers. The main focus of You Are What You Read is to both “celebrate those books that helped us discover who we are and who we can become.”

Users can log on through existing social media accounts, namely Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google, LinkedIn and MySpace. Once users have logged on they have the chance to not only share the five books that made a difference in their lives but also connect with readers around the world through shared “Bookprints.” Daniel Radcliffe, Taylor Swift and Venus Williams are just a few of the more than 130 “Names You Know” who have shared their Bookprints.

In addition, You Are What You Read provides users with the opportunity to:

In the spirit of You Are What You Read and to get the ball rolling even further, here’s my Bookprint:

1. Love You Forever by Robert Munsch

2. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

4. The Giver by Lois Lowry

5.