• The Giver

  • By: Lois Lowry
  • Narrated by: Ron Rifkin
  • Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (14,403 ratings)

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The Giver  By  cover art

The Giver

By: Lois Lowry
Narrated by: Ron Rifkin
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Publisher's summary

December is the time of the annual Ceremony at which each twelve-year-old receives a life assignment determined by the Elders. Jonas watches his friend Fiona named Caretaker of the Old and his cheerful pal Asher labeled the Assistant Director of Recreation. But Jonas has been chosen for something special. When his selection leads him to an unnamed man, the man called only the Giver, he begins to sense the dark secrets that underlie the fragile perfection of his world.

Told with deceptive simplicity, this is the provocative story of a boy who experiences something incredible and undertakes something impossible. In the telling it questions every value we have taken for granted and reexamines our most deeply held beliefs.

©1993 Lois Lowry (P)1993 Random House, Inc., Listening Library, An Imprint Of Random House Audio Publishing Group

Critic reviews

Newbery Medal Winner, 1994

"This is a compelling prospect for family listening. Initially Rifkin's voice seems too regional to portray the characters of this utopian/dystopian world, but he convincingly conveys the anticipation of the coming-of-age ceremony of Jonas and his friends. As the meaning of Jonas’ selection as “Receiver of Memory” unfolds, Rifkin’s characterizations become more powerful. Although the story drives the presentation, Rifkin’s juxtaposition of the young boy and the old Giver has tremendous effect. His voice for the Giver becomes increasingly weary and strained while Jonas' gains strength. Sharing this audiobook in a family or a classroom offers a valuable opportunity to respond to and discuss Lowry’s moving novel." (AudioFile magazine)

"A powerful and provocative novel." (The New York Times)
"Lowry is once again in top form...unwinding a tale fit for the most adventurous readers." (Publishers Weekly)
"The author makes real abstract concepts, such as the meaning of a life in which there are virtually no choices to be made and no experiences with deep feelings. This tightly plotted story and its believable characters will stay with readers for a long time." (School Library Journal)

Featured Article: The 10 Best Dystopian Audiobooks with Unsettling Alternate Realities


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What listeners say about The Giver

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    9,063
  • 4 Stars
    3,484
  • 3 Stars
    1,239
  • 2 Stars
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Performance
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Story
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    2,488
  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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I absolutely hate it

They story sucks and the plot is weird. Whats even worse is the movie. I had to read this for school but I hated it

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Transformative

I read this book as a 12 year old in 1995. It gave me courage to escape my traumatic childhood. I would have been on a tremendously different path had I not read this book. Listening to it now reaffirmed that this book should be core 6th grade reading. The ending was abrupt then and is still. But after 28 years of life, I now understand better that the journey is the important part and the ending is up to me.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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I agree

It is really communist. Grant t r r r r r r r. R r

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

The music was distracting

The ending was abrupt. The music was distracting. The person who read the book, give a good performance. There was a lot of questions, unanswered in the story.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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Good story but unsettling performer

I love this intriguing story. Unfortunately it’s less well performed. The performer Ron Rifkin reads as if he is in a rush and can’t catch his breath. Come on bro, learn to breath before you read ok? People like to hear the storyline NOT the unnecessary sound of your whizzing.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Classic Story that Never Gets Old

This is a story that I have loved since I first read it when I was in grade school. This story is focused on a young boy named Jonas who lives in a community that is very restrictive but also all he has ever known. He however has something that most of the other people don’t have, he can see colors. When his year is given their assignments, he is given a very honored position - learning from the Giver and becoming the new Keeper of History. But learning more makes Jonas more and more unhappy.

This is a book that I read every year, because no matter what else, it reminds me to always look around and see the beauty and the ugly.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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Good, but not the best.

The music took over the narration and was a bit harder for me to hear it when there was music. Other than that, great job!

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

a good read

Short, simple, engaging & enjoyable! This has alot of common "distopian" themes but in a soft enough way it would be a PERFECT entry read into the genre for a teen/young adult. I think it would make the absorption of longer/denser reads easier. I.E 1984, Brave New World, Handmaid's Tale etc. Perhaps with some middle ground work in between such as the Delirium series.

"It was simply a marking of time with no meaningful changes."

"He waved his hand, as if a gesture had caused hills to disappear."

Damn... the subtle correlation of the enjoyable sun... and how an enjoyable experience can hurt with sunburn was MASTERFUL

"Even trained for years as they all had been in precision of language, what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?"

"Everyone in the community has one-generation memories like those. But now you will be able to go back farther."
Lois Lowry, The Giver

“I’d have to think about it. It’s hard to know sometimes what’s real and what’s my mind filling in blanks with stories I’ve been told.”
Mindy McGinnis, In a Handful of Dust

"and now he began to see them all, in his ordinary life (though he knew it was ordinary no longer, and would never be again)"
Lois Lowry, The Giver

"He felt himself overwhelmed with a new perception of the color he knew as red."

"Your living arrangements will have to be different from those of most family units, because the books are forbidden to citizens. You and I are the only ones with access to the books.”

"often-there are so many things I could tell them; things I wish they would change. But they don’t want change. Life here is so orderly, so predictable- so painless. It’s what they’ve chosen.”

"What is it that makes you suffer so much? If you gave some of it to me, maybe your pain would be less.”

"The colors of the carnage were grotesquely bright: the crimson wetness on the rough and dusty fabric, the ripped shreds of grass, startlingly green, in the boy’s yellow hair."

"But if he had stayed … His thoughts continued. If he had stayed, he would have starved in other ways. He would have lived a life hungry for feelings, for color, for love."

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Great Book

This was a really good read. I’ve listened to it more than once and have really enjoyed it as it takes the reader in to a futuristic look at what could happen to a society after hard times.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Gruesome

Creative story but gruesome, killing babies, abstract ending, possibly freezing a baby to death, or maybe not, who knows?

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