在這本書中，Jonas住在一個「理想社區」，社區中的每個人的出生，幾歲該做什麼事、婚姻、甚至死亡都是經由事先計劃安排的。而當他們滿了12歲更會舉行所謂的「成人禮」，在這天每個剛成年的孩子會被指派（assign）未來所必須從事的工作。而這些指派的工作都落在社區裏的長者身上，他們經由仔細觀察每個孩子成長過程中不同的性向及長處來決定他們未來的工作。Jonas就是其中一個，當與他同年紀的同伴都獲得各別指派的工作時，他卻被選（select）為下一任的「接受者」（The Receiver），單獨由現任的「接受者」個別訓練，而現任的「接受者」就變成了「給與者」（The Giver），他是全社區中唯一擁有智慧並且有「感覺」的人，他將所有人的痛苦、悲傷、喜悅都一肩扛起，所以社區才能保持所謂的「相同性」（Sameness），而Jonas變成了接班人，當他開始接收到不同的痛苦、悲傷、喜悅時，會對他產生多大的衝擊呢？他會完全接受或是企圖去改變現狀呢？這雖然是作者虛構的故事，但值得慢慢閱讀深思。適合12歲以上兒童閱讀。In the "ideal" world into which Jonas was born, everybody has sensibly agreed that well-matched married couples will raise exactly two offspring, one boy and one girl. These children's adolescent sexual impulses will be stifled with specially prescribed drugs; at age 12 they will receive an appropriate career assignment, sensibly chosen by the community's Elders. This is a world in which the old live in group homes and are "released"--to great celebration--at the proper time; the few infants who do not develop according to schedule are also "released," but with no fanfare. Lowry's development of this civilization is so deft that her readers, like the community's citizens, will be easily seduced by the chimera of this ordered, pain-free society. Until the time that Jonah begins training for his job assignment--the rigorous and prestigious position of Receiver of Memory--he, too, is a complacent model citizen. But as his near-mystical training progresses, and he is weighed down and enriched with society's collective memories of a world as stimulating as it was flawed, Jonas grows increasingly aware of the hypocrisy that rules his world. With a storyline that hints at Christian allegory and an eerie futuristic setting, this intriguing novel calls to mind John Christopher's Tripods trilogy and Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl. Lowry is once again in top form--raising many questions while answering few, and unwinding a tale fit for the most adventurous readers. Ages 12-14.
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