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I was surprised at the story of the painter Carl Nelson. She found the perfect man for this story. His life story really played a part in the making of the giver and it really shows. With him first losing his sight of colors to then being blind. The most surprising thing about it though is the fact that he is from Maine and lives on an island by himself. First off no one lives in Maine.

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Something that surprised me in her speech is her talking about the community she lived in in Japan. I found it very shocking how much it reminded me of The Giver. I can see how these memories from her past helped create this story. Another thing that surprised me was the artist Carl Nelson. I found it very shocking that as a man who was once able to see, suddenly went blind. I cant imagine how awful that would be.

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One thing in Lois Lowry's speech that surprised me was that she completely excluded the girl in her dorm at college because she dressed differently. This surprised me because a lot of her speech was about including people.

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I was surprised that she wasn't at all exposed to the culture of Tokyo. I wonder why her parents didn't at least bring her out to see the sights or learn about the culture. I feel as if it's a sort of "When In Rome". If I lived there I would have participated in the culture quite a lot.

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Something that surprised me was that she remembered and person in her college that was called out for being different and she remembered that and put that detail in the giver which just seems so surprising because I for sure could not remember such a small detail like that

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Something that I was surprised about was that Lois Lowry remembered the college classmate she ignored. I think she feels bad about what she did and she knew it was wrong so she remembered it. After all these years it's surprising that she can remember what happened in college.

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Something that really surprised me about Lois Lowry was how much she learned from her life's experience and used it to make the Giver. She has learned a lot from the little things in her life and added that as a problem in the Giver. For example, in the speech, she talks about how she and her daughter are at a pub. The news comes on and it talks about a person who went into a building and shot a some people. At first, Lowry showed concern, until she found out it occurred many states away. She then realized how wrong that was that people didn't care about something that didn't affect them directly. Later on when she writes the Giver, she makes it so that this community is isolated from the rest of the world and wants nothing to do with their problems. They do not care what goes on around them, so long as it doesn't harm their people. Lowry used her life experience to write the book and use some of the life lessons she learned and make them apparent in the book.

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This surprised me because it correlates with the giver, and shows that Lois is worried of the idea of losing sadness and pain, and that led to one of the main ideas of the giver.

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"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 hopes. Let me tell you a few endings which are the “right” endings for
a few children out of the many who have written to me. This came from a sixth grader: “I think that when
they were traveling they were traveling in a circle. When they came to “Elsewhere” it was their old
community, but they had accepted the memories and all the feelings that go along with it...”
From another: “...Jonas was kind of like Jesus because he took the pain for everyone else in the community
so they wouldn’t have to suffer. And, at the very end of the book, when Jonas and Gabe reached the place
that they knew as Elsewhere, you described Elsewhere as if it were heaven.” And one more: “A lot of
people I know would hate that ending, but not me. I loved it. Mainly because I got to make the book happy. I
decided they made it. They made it to the past. I decided the past was our world, and the future was their
world. It was parallel worlds.”
Finally, from one seventh-grade boy: “I was really surprised that they just died at the end. That was a
bummer. You could have made them stay alive, I thought.” Very few find it a bummer. Most of the young readers
who have written to me have perceived the magic of the hero’s circular journey. The truth is that we go
out and come back and that what we come back to is changed, and so are we. Perhaps I have been traveling
in a circle too. Things come together and become complete. Here is what I’ve come back to The daughter
who was with me and looked at me in horror the day I fell victim to thinking we were “only us, only
now” (and that what happened was in Alabama, or Indiana didn’t matter) was the first person to read the
manuscript of The Giver". This surprised me because there was no real ending

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I was surprised by how many things from her personal life influenced The Giver. The story was pulled from many different moments in her lifetime. I think that most authors are usually inspired by one thing, maybe two but Lois Lowry took many different things from her life to build the story. I also found it interesting that a stranger, Carl Nelson, influenced the story so much. A stranger that she was sent to interview became the cover of the book, I find that very surprising.

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Something that surprised me was her nonchalance at finding out the shooting was in a different state, when there was still a news-worthy shooting in the country with no apparent motive, making it more dangerous.

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One thing that surprised me was how deep Lois's inspirations for the story were, with personal stories like the blind painter or her adventures in Shibuya making a lot of sense in the story, while also being important moments in her life. I was also surprised by how she explained her life with such detail; I really felt like I was with her throughout the whole speech.

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Something that surprised me was all her reasoning. I think that most authors will respond to the question; "what was your inspiration?" With a simple response, by giving a short answer. It surprised me by how many reasons she gave and that she was so in-depth in her responses. For example, she doesn't just give a short answer about the time she was 11 and inspiration stock. She talked about the time she was 11 years old, a college freshman, 31 years old, and when her father passed away, she tells us all these examples and then elaborates on them, further explaining herself.

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"At eleven years old I am not a particularly adventurous child, nor am I a rebellious one. But I have always
been curious. I have a bicycle. Again and again – countless times without my parents’ knowledge – I ride my
bicycle out the back gate of the fence that surrounds our comfortable, familiar, safe American community. I
ride down a hill because I am curious and I enter an unfamiliar, slightly uncomfortable, perhaps even unsafe" This makes sense because it relates directly towards the plot of the story. Such as when Jonas escapes the community with his bike. Also when she said that she was not a rebellious child just a curious one, this reminds me of Jonas.

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"Most of the young readers who have written to me have perceived the magic of the hero’s circular journey. The truth is that we go out and come back and that what we come back to is changed, and so are we. Perhaps I have been traveling
in a circle too."
Things come together and become complete.
This line makes sense because she connects everything together like a circle. It connects to her idea that everything is changing all the time and in the giver they didn't alow change.

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"Now and then I wish, in a whimsical way, that he could have somehow magically given me the capacity to see the way he did. A little bubble begins, a little spurt, which will trickle into the river."

I really like this quote because it is sort of a callback to earlier in her speech. How writing is like a river. I like how an interview with an artist made her want to become an artist of her own.

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"We react with a kind of mindless cruelty. We don’t tease or torment her, but we do
something worse; we completely ignore her. We pretend that she doesn’t exist. In a small house of
fourteen young women, we make one invisible. Somehow by shutting her out, we make ourselves feel
comfortable, familiar, safe. I think of her now and then as the years pass."
I feel that this line made a lot of sense because you can just picture what that person might have felt and how in the giver this was a very important detail which just shows this line made so much sense to add to her article of how she got the idea

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"She and I are talking. Suddenly I gesture to her. I say, 'Shhhh' because I have heard a fragment of the news and I am startled, anxious, and want to hear the rest. Someone has walked into a fast-food place with an automatic weapon. They randomly killed a number of people. My daughter stops talking and waits while I listen to the
rest. Then I relax. I say to her, in a relieved voice, 'It’s all right. It was in Oklahoma.'” I feel that this line makes so much sense because people can relate to it. We are so focused on the little area that we live in and are not concerned with what goes on everywhere else.

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"We don’t tease or torment her, but we do
something worse; we completely ignore her. We pretend that she doesn’t exist." This line makes a lot of sense when paired with The Giver. The community that they lived in ignored the rest of the world and pretended that nothing else existed. They were brainwashed into believing that they had everything they needed and that nothing else existed. They were taught that there was one normal and if you weren't it then you were released and ignored.

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A Line That Makes A Lot Of Sense - Ashton Pease

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A Line That Makes A Lot Of Sense - Ashton Pease

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this makes sense because the river metaphor is a metaphor of a constant flow of problems, one after another. this line shows that the river is beginning to flow.

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"In the summer of 1979, I am sent by the magazine I am working for, to an island off the coast of Maine to
write an article about a painter, Carl Nelson, who lives there alone. I spend a good deal of time with this
man, and we talk a lot about color. It is clear to me that although I am a highly visual person – a person who
sees and appreciates form and composition and color – this man’s capacity for seeing color goes far beyond
mine. I photograph him while I am there, and I keep a copy of his photograph for myself because there is
something about his face – his eyes – which haunts me.
Later, I hear that he has become blind. I think about him from time to time. His photograph hangs over my
desk. I wonder what it was like for him to lose the colors about which he was so impassioned. Now and
then I wish, in a whimsical way, that he could have somehow magically given me the capacity to see the way
he did. A little bubble begins, a little spurt, which will trickle into the river". This makes sense because in the giver no one can see color.

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"Again and again – countless times without my parents’ knowledge – I ride my
bicycle out the back gate of the fence that surrounds our comfortable, familiar, safe American community. I
ride down a hill because I am curious and I enter an unfamiliar, slightly uncomfortable, perhaps even unsafe
... though I never feel it to be ... area of Tokyo that throbs with life." It makes sense that growing up in such a strict area would make her want more freedom. This would lead to her secretly exploring, especially considering she is in such a strict country as well.

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One thing about the speech that made a lot of sense to me was in the 1989 section when Lois shows her father a picture of her dead sister:

“That’s your sister,” he says happily.
“That’s Helen.” Then he comments, a little puzzled, but not at all sad, “ I can’t remember exactly what happened to her.”
We can forget pain, I think. And it is comfortable to do so. But I also wonder briefly: is
it safe to do that, to forget? That uncertainty pours itself into the river of thought which will become the book."

This makes a lot of sense because it shows Lois's realization that pain can't always be shut away and that memories should be kept, the main theme of The Giver.

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"...without my parents’ knowledge – I ride my bicycle out the back gate of the fence that surrounds our comfortable, familiar, safe American community."
This line makes sense about her inspiration because this is just like what Jonas did; he ran away from the safe walls of his home.

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One line I think makes a lot of sense is "Perhaps I have been traveling in a circle too. Things come together and become complete." I think this is fitting for life today because we are all doing things and making decisions that will definitely have an effect on us later in life. I feel like this line is important because it shows that even though what you're doing might not make sense now, it will come together eventually and become complete.

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this is what she said about a girl who dressed different but lived in the same dorm with her in japan

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this is what she said about a girl who dressed different but lived in the same dorm with her in japan

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a girl who lives in the same dorm as lowry had this happen to her loris lowry writer of the giver "We react with a kind of mindless cruelty. We don’t tease or torment her, but we do
something worse; we completely ignore her. We pretend that she doesn’t exist. In a small house of fourteen young women, we make one invisible. Somehow by shutting her out, we make ourselves feel comfortable, familiar, safe." this is kind the idea of the giver be the same not different japan kind of has that problem in which people just do not want somebody who is different. that is the idea of the giver.

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i think the idea of a river is it has a main idea and streams that are reflections of those idea
little mini streams or build offs of it that is what i think that is like for example when everyone is the same in japan in the book maybe thats why everyone is color blind.

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Lois Lowry talks about a river comparing it to coming up with ideas for a book. There are multiple ways that the river has correlations in the Giver. For example, there is a real river in the Giver. They say how a little kid falls into the river in the early parts of the book, Jonas also escapes near it and they talk about it a lot. The river mainly means the ideas of Lois Lowry. It branches into many streams/stories.

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The river metaphor shows the ideas and words of an author flowing. When this metaphorical river flows, it sometimes opens up and creates more rivers. This metaphor fits into The Giver because when writing, Lois Lowry had to think of these ideas and words. The words had to flow and open up new opportunities and ideas. She also used memories from her past to continue the river. As The Giver grew, the rivers and streams continued.

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I feel that the idea is like how a river takes different paths and water moves around. Like a one-way road, you don't get a bunch of ideas for a story but a one-way road is like you already know what's going to happen. It's like Mr f's way with the brick and the sponge idea a sponge is like the river and the brick is the one-way road

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I feel that this idea really fit well with the Giver because it represents the thought that as continue to go downstream, the river grows wider. And the wider it grows, the more thoughts and problems that flow along with it. I feel that this shows the way Jonas sees the world in the Giver. At first, he knows nothing, and his mind is only a small trickle. Then, when he is elected Receiver of Memory, the river begins to flow, starting with a small stream of thoughts, growing into a roaring river of memories. I feel that Lowry also views life this way. Over the course of her life, she begins to see the problems of the world and the ideas she has learned from them. As she learns about the world and sees these issues, her river begins to grow. This is why I think the river metaphor really fits with this speech and the Giver.

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I think that the Metaphor of writing being a river fit well with the Giver because it really showed how Lowry's life experiences impacted the story of the book. All of the ideas, represented as springs, coming into one book, represented as a river, really made it clear how writing the book was a very personal thing for her.

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I think the river metaphor fits into the giver because the river is portrayed as a rising flow of problems. the river starts with one problem, and then starts growing and flowing faster with every problem.
That fits into the giver because the river starts when Jonas becomes the receiver, and then it starts flowing when Jonas starts to learn the secrets of the community, and becomes a rushing rapid when Jonas starts to escape, but the river ends when Jonas fails, and ultimately dies.

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"In 1954 I am a college freshman, living in a very small dorm with a group of fourteen other girls. We are very
much alike: we wear the same sort of clothes: cashmere sweaters and plaid wool skirts, knee socks, and
loafers. We all smoke Marlboro cigarettes and we knit – usually argyle socks for our boyfriends – and play
bridge. Sometimes we study; and we get good grades because we are all the cream of the crop, the
valedictorians and class presidents from our high schools all over the United States. One of the girls in our
dorm is not like the rest of us. She doesn’t wear our uniform. She wears blue jeans instead of skirts, and she
doesn’t curl her hair or knit or play bridge. She doesn’t date or go to fraternity parties and dances. She’s a
smart girl, a good student, pleasant enough, but she is different, somehow alien, and that makes us
uncomfortable. We react with a kind of mindless cruelty. We don’t tease or torment her, but we do
something worse; we completely ignore her. We pretend that she doesn’t exist. In a small house of
fourteen young women, we make one invisible. Somehow by shutting her out, we make ourselves feel
comfortable, familiar, safe. I think of her now and then as the years pass. Those thoughts – fleeting, but
profoundly remorseful – enter the current of the river".

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I think that the river metaphor fits the Giver because the Elders who created the community thought that be keeping the flotsam from the streams, or keeping people from knowing history. However, the river will kick up silt and sediment from the riverbank, meaning that just by keeping the past hidden, there will still be dissent.

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One way I think that the river metaphor fits into the idea of The Giver is that a river isn't perfect. Little chunks are missing from the river bed, it might be too muddy, or too mucky. There is no such thing as a perfect river, there will always be something. This relates to the idea of The Giver because The Giver's society tries with all its power to be perfect, but just can't be perfect. They can take away as much mud as they want but it will still be muddy.

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1 Shibuya is full of karaoke, restaurants, night clubs, shopping arcades and other interesting places to walk through.
2 Hachiko ハチ公 was a akita dog who in 1920 was waiting for his owner to return from work he never did for 9 years the dog didn't leave the station until he died when a statue was made for him he was labled the most loyal dog ever in japan

Japanese vocabulary and translation
Shibuya japan (澁谷)

Tokyo ward (区)
Hachiko (ハチ公)
station (駅)

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1. Stan Lee, The creator of Marvel, lived in the Washington Heights.

2. The highest natural point in manhattan is located in Washington Heights.

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1. Tokyo has over 14 three michelin star restaurants.
2. Tokyo is the largest metropolis in the world, with over 36 million people.

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1. Washington Heights was built following World War 2. It was constructed in 1946. It remained until 1964 when all the land was handed back to the Japanese people.

2. It covered a total of 942,000 sq. meters. It had a total of 827 housing units and was used primarily for the Air Force and their families.

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1. In the green turtle key all people don't drive cars you drive golf carts pretty cool I know

2. They have this little island you can get there by boats and you can see sharks, sting rays, turtles and it's a like feeding ground which is really cool

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1. Oklahoma has 33.7 million acres of farmland.
2. It has the most man-made lakes for any state, with a total count of 200.

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1. In Maine, it is illegal to walk down the street playing a violin, but only in Augusta.
2. It is also illegal to bite your landlord, but only if you're a Rumford resident.

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1. In Alabama it is a Class B felony to wrestle a bear.
2. Dotham Alabama is considered the Peanut Capital of the World.

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Lois Lowry spoke briefly about going to Maine to interview Carl Nelson. One interesting fact about Maine is that it has more coastline than California. Maine has 3,478 miles of coastline (not counting islands), while California has 3,427. Another interesting fact about Maine is that 90% of the country's lobster supply comes from Maine.

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2 Interesting Facts About Washington heights japan

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2 Interesting Facts About Washington heights japan

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Washington heights was a United States Armed Forces housing complex located in Shibuya, Tokyo during the occupation of Japan by Allied forces. It remained in operation until 1964, by which point all land had been returned to Japanese control

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1. Oklahoma has the largest population of Native Americans of any state.

2. Oklahoma state flower is the Oklahoma state rose. It is a hybrid tea rose created by Herbert Swim and O. L. Weeks in 1964. Oklahoman Dottie Weissenberger lobbied for more than thirty years to have the Oklahoma rose named as our official state flower.

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Here are two interesting facts about Alabama:

1: Martin Luther King Jr.'s church, and the Rosa Parks museum are both located in Alabama's capital, Montgomery.

2: The official beverage of Alabama is The Conecuh Ridge Whiskey. It is the only state with an alcoholic drink as its official beverage.

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Two interesting things about Oklahoma are;
1.) Twenty-four percent of Oklahoma is covered by forest.
And...
2.) Turner Falls, which is in Oklahoma, is the oldest state park.

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The place I decided to research was Shibuya. I found that Shibuya is a place for Japanese youth culture. Shibuya Crossing, the major focus in Shibuya, was built in 1885.

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the giver ending was a pool of events from a possible death and a journey but i cant help but say why did you really not give it a real ending but make it seen more like he died. how can a memory give a person the ability to keep? going is it the image or do they feel it?

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Hey, Lois Lowry my class just finished reading the giver and I have a few questions to ask you. First off in the ending of the book there are a lot of different endings within peoples own beliefs, therefore you must have your own ending based on your beliefs what is your opinion on how the book ended?

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Dear Louis Lowery, After I finished the giver I have a couple questions to ask you like how  did you want the giver to end if you had any idea about what the ending of the book would be. My last question is how did you come up with all of they names for the story they all seem to have a specific meaning
Sincerely Sawyer,

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Dear Lois Lowry,
I have many questions about ending you wrote. Some people don't like the ending you wrote, but personally I don't mind it. I like how you wrote the ending so it lets people really think. The ending you wrote lets the readers figure out whether it is sad or maybe happy.

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Lois Lowry,
I enjoyed your book a lot. I really liked that we got to watch Jonas grow and break free from the community. I also liked the ending, that it is up to interpretation. However, I wish you had included how the community changed after receiving all of Jonas's memories. I would have liked to see how everyone reacted and if the community really changed or if they went back to their old ways.

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Lois Lowry,

I did not like the ending of the giver. I wish you had an ending. It felt like you gave up at the end. I wish the ending had shown the people in the community receiving the memories after he left. I would have liked to see their reaction. I like to believe that Jonas survived the journey with Gabe and found a family to live with.

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Lois Lowry,

I really liked the ending for The Giver because it allowed people to conclude the book however they wanted to. I like to believe that the sled Jonas found at the top of the hill was a metaphor. I think the metaphor should represent Jonas sliding into his afterlife where he gets to experience all of the things he missed out on for the first time.