The major point of consideration for Christian parents revolves around an aspect of this dystopian society that Jonas (the main character) discovers in a shocking moment. Jonas has been taught that the elderly, certain selected newborns and others are “released” from this utopian like society. The Giver eventually shows Jonas a video feed of a “release ceremony” where one of two twin babies is selected to stay and another to be “released”. The video, described in the book, reveals Jonas’ own father euthanizing the baby by injecting a syringe into it. To feel the impact of this moment, the author even has the baby convulse for a short time before going still. The baby is then heartlessly discarded in a trash chute (note, the impact of this whole society is felt as Jonas’ father seems unfazed by this, not even questioning it as something bad). We also find out the previous girl in Jonas’ position asked to do this process to herself, a request that was granted. Lowry clearly wants us to see this as 100% wrong, and it holding up a mirror to us as a sinful world… but the question for us is whether our young readers are ready for this shock to the system.
There are other a bit more heavy or intense moments as well that you will want to consider for your reader. Jonas recalls a memory of a child falling into the river and passing away. One of the past scenes Jonas experiences is of an African elephant being hunted for its tusks and again the author wants us to feel the impact (e.g., its blood is mentioned). The most intense of these puts Jonas on a battlefield and he sees the real impact of war all around him, with dead and wounded all around him. Here a man dies right in front of him. Jonas experiences pain in these memories (at one point he vomits because it is so intense) and emotional/phycological trauma. In fact, Jonas gets to the point once where he would “welcome death himself”. This is obviously not something every reader is ready for.
As a part of Jonas’ training, he is told he can lie and will hide things from his parents. They are only to be between him and the Giver. This is something that fits the plot, but is obviously a dangerous concept in real life. This can lead to a really important conversation with your child. Near the end of the book Jonas chooses to run away from his parents and society for what he feels is a righteous, justified reason.
One of the daily routines of this society is for a family unit to talk about their previous night’s dreams. Jonas, who usually never dreams, is perplexed at having a dream where he desires to see a female classmate undress. It comes across as a very innocent scene. His parents describe these as “stirrings”. We find out the society actually provides a medication daily to prevent these stirrings in teens and adults.
The society itself it hyper focused on following the carefully crafted rules, but there are quite a few moments where the characters treat certain rules as not a big deal. We read things like when a character says “even though technically I wasn’t supposed to”, to which it continues “Jonas laughed. It was one of the few rules that was not taken very seriously and was almost always broken”. In another scene Jonas points out “some foolish thing that no one cared about”. While this obviously isn’t the most concerning thing you will find in a book and we certainly have things like this in our society (picture jaywalking), the core concept is one we should be cautious of and talk with our children about.
Finally, while there is nothing in the book itself, in an author commentary it brings up an LGBTQ related office and she remarks, “I’m glad that it exists”. She also mentions a tragedy in passing where “Someone had walked into a fast-food place… and randomly killed a number of people”.