A Challenged book The Giver

A CHALLENGED BOOK: THE GIVER

By: Sadman Khan

Class: 810

There has been many challenged books throughout these past few years, and one of them were, “The Giver” by Lois Lowry. Imagine living in an utopian society where one cannot have access to color. Where one cannot feel pain, or hold any memories of the real outside world. In a world where you have a certain death of euthanasia, when you past an age limit. When you give birth to twins, the lightest of them will die. These negative aspects of this book strongly suggests that this book should be banned.

A specific reason as to why this book should be banned is euthanasia. Euthanasia is a lethal injection in which stops the heart, therefore killing the patient. It can be requested for ending suffering, or can be forced, as this book shows. For example, Jonas, the main character of the of this book experiences on how a twin is “released”. He sees the doctor taking an injection and then ends the baby’s life. This image could be too dark for young readers. As mentioned in usatoday360.com, many teachers are doing a read aloud to kids young as 6-7 years old. This evidence adds up to why this book should be banned.

Some may argue that this book should not be banned. It contains moral value such as the importance of friendship, and how this book makes us appreciate our democratic society. For example, Jonas and Ajaf were really good friends. They always watched each others backs and shared their feelings with one another. Also, the book, “ The Giver” takes place in a utopian society in which you have no freedom of speech. The government put many strict laws that made people behave like robots. However, our society now, allows freedom of speech and does not have strict laws. This book may contain some positive aspects, but it is not enough.

Even though there are positive aspects, there are still a lot of negative. For example, Jonas’s wet dreams can be too advance for the young readers. It includes nudity, and inappropriate behaviour towards that. As Jonas described, “To Jonas, it felt like a weird behaviour of wanting. But he tried to get it out of his mind.” This shows the inappropriate behaviour toward the dreams, which could be really inappropriate for the readers themselves. Another reason why this book should be banned is because of the crude reality. For example, the atmosphere on the society is harsh. If you do the wrong thing you get punished. This could bother the young minds reading this book. A bit too challenging for them. These legs add up to the body on why this book should be banned.

In conclusion, this book has been challenged by many readers and critics. It contained positive appointed tings like friendship and appreciation of democratic society. However, there are negative aspects such as sexual awakening for young readers, inappropriate behaviour, and euthanasia along side with crudeness. These add up to why the book, “The Giver” should be removed from our bookshelves.