Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry | Website
Publisher/Year: Ember | January 24, 2006
Pages: 240
Series: Book 2 in The Giver Quartet
Genre: Middle Grade Dystopian
Format: Audiobook
Source: Overdrive Media
Summary (From Goodreads)
In her strongest work to date, Lois Lowry once again creates a mysterious but plausible future world. It is a society ruled by savagery and deceit that shuns and discards the weak. Left orphaned and physically flawed, young Kira faces a frightening, uncertain future. Blessed with an almost magical talent that keeps her alive, she struggles with ever broadening responsibilities in her quest for truth, discovering things that will change her life forever.
As she did in The Giver, Lowry challenges readers to imagine what our world could become, and what will be considered valuable. Every reader will be taken by Kira’s plight and will long ponder her haunting world and the hope for the future.
Shannan’s Summary
Gathering Blue is set in a different area from The Giver all together and there is never a connection made between the two books. The main character is a girl named Kira who has a bum leg which should have meant she was killed at birth. Kira’s mother fought for her, though, and got to keep her, until her mom dies from a mysterious illness and some of the villagers try to get rid of her again. But because of her unique talent with sowing, some of the village leaders see her as something more than an invalid and take her in. Kira just didn’t know at the time it could be more dangerous than being on her own.
First Off…
If I had known the Giver was part of a series, I would have read this a long time ago because I really liked The Giver.
Thoughts:
It’s amazing the world that is painted in this book. Such little things that make it a unique and plausible world. I loved that levels of maturity are shown by how many syllables your name is. Names are something that parents take great care to give, but what if you had to earn your name by gaining the respect of those around you? I love Kira, that she was determined to make her way in the world and not use her deformity as an excuse, but rather tried to fight for her place in the world. She has a lot of gumption and even when life is hard and she breaks down, you don’t feel pity for her. She is strong, and I would hope to be that strong if I was in the same circumstances. Which is what I think I love about these books so far. Both in The Giver and Gathering Blue, the main characters are put in tough situations and have to choose who they want to be sooner than they should have to. However they decide to do the right things rather than the easy things and don’t through pity parties for themselves, rather they pull themselves up by the bootstraps and march forward.
I think the other reason I like these books so far, is that they’re about self discovery, plan and simple. It’s not them trying to figure out who they are with a significant other. It just about figuring out what kind of person they want to be, no romance necessary.
10 Second Summary:
- This story stands on its own: Lowry might tie everything together by book four, but you could read this book without ever reading The Giver and it would make complete sense.
- This book is about Self Discovery: Kira is not only on a quest to figure out who she is without her mom, but also to figure out what it means to do the right thing.
- It’s a believable future: Great dystopians are ones you believe could really happen. Lowry makes a world that could be our future, and does it in a way where it kind of feels like it already is.
So far I love the series and with the new beautiful covers, I think I’ll wind up with the box set, especially before movie versions ruin all of them.