Once Upon A Podcast

Sarah and Chandler discuss Lois Lowry's The Giver. What does it mean to be truly human? This is the question twined throughout Lowry’s 1993 book. This dystopian fiction was well ahead of its time in this genre, and definitely falls into the teen literature category. It deals heavily with themes of the human condition, pain, and free will, to name a few. The reaction to the book was enormously positive, but as with many good but thought-provoking stories, it has its share of controversy. Lowry herself addresses some of this in her introduction for the book. Violence, euthanasia, sexuality, and more have all been cited as reasons for banning this book from school libraries. Lowry’s response to this was simple: “I think banning books is a very, very dangerous thing. It takes away an important freedom. Any time there is an attempt to ban a book, you should fight it as hard as you can. It’s okay for a parent to say, ‘I don’t want my child to read this book." But it is not okay for anyone to try to make that decis