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To: steplock
This is a good letter but I have one quibble. I have read The Giver, it is NOT utopian propaganda. Just the opposite, it is a cautionary tale about the horror and force underlying any ultra-controlled utopian society.

The part about killing babies is where the young hero sees, with shock, that the apparently benevolent man who is his assigned "father" has duties that include "release" of (murder of) unwanted children. The boy snatches up another child marked for "release" and tries to escape The Community. It's as anti-utopian and cautionary as 1984, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451. I'm surprised a girl like this didn't catch that.

17 posted on 08/30/2003 8:04:47 AM PDT by wizardoz (Bomb Hollywood!)
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To: wizardoz
Maybe it was the presentation by the teacher that warped the real meaning of the book.
23 posted on 08/30/2003 8:42:49 AM PDT by DLfromthedesert
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To: wizardoz; upright_citizen
Yes, I caught "The Giver" thing too. It's one of the popular books kids buy on their own at our public school's 4th - 5th grade book fair. Of course it was the more advanced kids who bought it over Sponge Bob.
71 posted on 08/30/2003 10:44:28 AM PDT by mtbopfuyn
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