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The Giver
- Narrated by: Ron Rifkin
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
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Publisher's summary
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.
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 Best Audiobooks Under 5 Hours
Books are pure magic: they transport us to other lands, help us learn about the world and ourselves, teach us new skills, and give us an escape from daily life. And thanks to audiobooks, we don't even have to stop what we're doing to enjoy them. You can visit Narnia while washing the dishes, or laugh at a comedian's childhood stories while riding your bike to work. Looking for an audiobook that can be finished in just a few sessions? These standout listens will immerse you for a few hours with captivating storylines and unforgettable performances. These are the best audiobooks under five hours.
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The planet of Windhaven was not originally a home to humans, but it became one following the crash of a colony starship. It is a world of small islands, harsh weather, and monster-infested seas. Communication among the scattered settlements was virtually impossible until the discovery that, thanks to light gravity and a dense atmosphere, humans were able to fly with the aid of metal wings made of bits of the cannibalized spaceship.
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A promising early Martin work
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By: Lisa Tuttle, and others
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On an ordinary day, at an air show like that in any small town across the country, a plane crashes into a crowd of spectators, killing and injuring dozens. But when the dust clears, a thirteen-year-old girl named Ava is found huddled beneath a pocket of rubble with her best friend, Wash. He is injured and bleeding, and when Ava places her hands over him, his wounds miraculously disappear. Ava has a unique gift: she can heal others of their physical ailments.
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Innocent love
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By: Jason Mott
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Punish the Sinners
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Italy, 1252. Inquisition. Accusation. Fear. Torture. The guilty and the innocent dying for sins real and imagined, in the flames of the burning stake.... Neilsville, 1978. Peter Balsam has come to this sleepy desert town to teach its youth, and finds a mystery of mounting horror. Something is happening to the young girls of St. Francis Xavier High School - something evil. In bloodlet and terror a suicide contagion has swept the town...while a dark order of its holy men enacts a secret medieval ritual.
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Not bad
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By: John Saul
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Twenty-six-year-old Katie Macauley has placed all her hope in Hope Springs, a small town in the 1870 Wyoming Territory. But if she wants to return home to Ireland to make amends with her estranged family, she’ll need to convince the influential Joseph Archer to hold true to his word and keep her on his payroll as his housekeeper - despite her Irish roots. When Joseph agrees to keep Katie on ash is housekeeper, the feud erupts anew, and Katie becomes the reluctant figurehead for the Irish townsfolk.
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Absolutey Wonderful
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To the nobles who live in Benden Weyr, Lessa is nothing but a ragged kitchen girl. For most of her life, she has survived by serving those who betrayed her father and took over his lands. Now the time has come for Lessa to shed her disguise and take back her stolen birthright. But everything changes when she meets a queen dragon. The bond they share will be deep and last forever. It will protect them when, for the first time in centuries, Lessa's world is threatened by Thread, an evil substance that falls like rain and destroys everything it touches.
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Skip this and go for Unabridged
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Kraków, 1939. A million marching soldiers and a thousand barking dogs. This is no place to grow up. Anna Łania is just seven years old when the Germans take her father, a linguistics professor, during their purge of intellectuals in Poland. She's alone. And then Anna meets the Swallow Man. He is a mystery, strange and tall, a skilled deceiver with more than a little magic up his sleeve. And when the soldiers in the streets look at him, they see what he wants them to see.
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Depressingly beautiful as WWII stories have to be
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The Just City
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Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community populated by over 10,000 children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future - all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past.
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Could Not Get Past Mispronunciations
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Comes the Blind Fury
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Amanda: A century ago, a gentle blind girl walked the cliffs of Paradise Point. Then the children came - taunting, teasing - until she lost her footing and fell, shrieking her rage to the drowning sea... . Michelle: Now Michelle has come from Boston to live in the big house on Paradise Point. She is excited about her new life, ready to make new friends...until a hand reaches out of the swirling mists - the hand of a blind child. She is asking for friendship...seeking revenge...whispering her name....
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attention getter from the start
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Hidden
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When Anna decides it’s time to leave her abusive boyfriend, she doesn’t know where to turn. Rob has completely won over her parents, and the entire community, with his good looks and smooth charm. Only Anna has seen his dark side.
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Predictable but enjoyable none the less
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Every Heart a Doorway
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Children have always disappeared under the right conditions - slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere...else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she's back. The things she's experienced...they change a person. The children under Miss West's care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.
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Utterly Moving
- By tm on 07-12-16
By: Seanan McGuire
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SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality instructional study guides for challenging works of literature. This audio study guide for The Giver by Lois Lowry includes detailed summary and analysis of each chapter and an in-depth exploration of the book’s multiple symbols, motifs, and themes such as societal control versus individual freedom, loneliness and isolation, and the pain of growing up. Featured content also includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay questions, and discussion topics.
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Absolutely Phenomenal!!!
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What listeners say about The Giver
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Luanne
- 04-20-13
Skip the audiobook and read the print version!
Is there anything you would change about this book?
The story is a great beginning to the series. I read it 20 years ago and loved it then and love it now. The audiobook, though, leaves a lot to be desired.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Ron Rifkin?
Someone who would have personified Jonas with a less annoying and whiny personality. This isn't Jonas!
Any additional comments?
What's up with the crazy music in this audiobook? Instead of enhancing the production, it was distracting and annoying.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Scott
- 03-22-09
Wonderful theme, hard to swallow resolution
I love this book. From it, we can better understand why it is so important that we know and remember even the simplest things in life.
Characters: Jonas, the main character, is wonderfully developed. His mother was probably the least interesting. Good cast overall.
Scene: Lowry creates a seemingly normal scene that gets more intriguing and more central to the story as the story unfolds. As the story continues, the scene becomes anything but normal.
Plot: A bit unsteady throughout the first half of the book, the plot strengthens in the second half. Still, the plots climax and ultimate resolution are just a little too ideal. For a book that goes to such great lengths to expose such an important lesson, I wanted to see the incarnation and resolution of that lesson be much, much more.
Theme: The theme single-handedly carries this book. The lesson to be learned from Lowry is the basis of this story's renown, and I am sure this book will be used for this lesson many more times to come.
Overall: The weakness of the plot is carries by every other aspect of this book. Unless you need books with incredibly strong plots, I'd highly recommend this book.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Alan
- 12-10-04
A Great Read for All Ages
I listened to The Giver because my son, a fifth grader, will be reading it in his Language Arts class. I was not expecting much, but I was completely surprised--It was captivating. Ms. Lowry has written a book that tackles the issues of diversity, responsibility, and honesty for all readers--young and old.
The setting is a socially engineered village where outward uniformity, discipline, and manners are the overriding virtues. Different colors are not visible or understood to the villagers because they underscore diversity. Although there is a stated concern for precise and polite speech, euphemisms are used abundantly by the villagers and their leaders to hide the less attractive truths of the their society. Children do not celebrate individual birthdays, but each year a proscribed set of responsibilities and privileges are granted to the children of an age group in the Ceremony. In the twelfth year, children begin their training for adult jobs selected for them by the Elders. The surface of the village is calm, but Jonas, the protagonist, has to decide if he should shatter the society perceptions by using what he has been given in his training for adulthood.
I am anticipating interesting discussions at our family dinner table when my son begins to read this book for class.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Sandra
- 05-06-05
The Giver
This is one of the best books I've "read," which is saying quite a bit. The plot was upon me before I realized what was happening. At first I suspected this was a strict religious group, but it became far more than that! Such a fantastic idea for a way of life is almost amusing if it weren't so serious. Their regard for human life was strange, and the world, in some countries, currently has some aspects of this book's theories. It reminded me a bit of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, except the ending, and the tension, the constant requirements to live with this group through most of the book, were far more imaginative. This was one I could hardly put down.
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- Erin O'Donnell
- 07-18-17
The Giver emotionally explained
It was at first just an innocent community with rules and regulations. But those rules and regulations began to seem more and more odd to me. I had a hunch that being "released" meant you were killed. My hunch was correct. I tested up as I listened to the part of the death of the twin. I was even more shocked when I heard that Jonas's father was going to kill Gabriel. As Jonas and Gabe escaped I kept thinking about what had happened to the Giver. But the most heartbreaking was at the end... it was like a little cliff hanger. Did they make it to their destination? Or did they both die? I believe they both died. But overall it was an amazing novel.
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- Anne
- 06-07-13
Oh my.
I liked this a great deal. It's a book I will definitely listen to again so that I can gather in more stunning detail. I have also purchased the "read it" version for the experience of ... well ... actually reading it.
The book explores coming-of-age themes in an entirely new way, such that it's actually somewhat hard to convey. Jonas is 11, almost twelve, and lives in a "perfect" utopian community where everyone is always content and safe and healthy and does their part and fulfills their roles in perfect harmony and peace.
The children all have their perfect places to fill in their perfect families and eventually come to their 12th year when the community comes together to celebrate the assignment of each child's role in the community. They are each assigned their professions on this special day and it's an exciting time for everyone. And in a very rare event, Jonah is given the assignment of "Receiver of Memories." As he begins his training, he meets the now very old man who, as the current memory keeper, now becomes "The Giver" who begins to give Jonah memories that the community doesn't want to know and doesn't want to share, but doesn't want to lose.
So, as Jonah begins to understand the true cost of a "perfect" life he is faced with some terrible decisions.
I am haunted by this book.
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- tasha plumber
- 06-16-19
it was beautiful 😍💓
I can't stop crying 😭😭 it was beautiful 🌻☀⛅🌟⭐I'm going to watch the movie now
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- Seatchecker
- 02-09-19
Skip the audiobook
Audiobook is unbearable. There are ringtones randomly playing, quite loudly, during random parts of the book. They make it very difficult to hear the book.
The main character is also portrayed as a whiny child, which is not accurate for his character.
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- Thegoodlifewife
- 02-02-19
what is with the background music?
I wish I could return this. I can't even concentrate on the narrator because of the distracting background music.
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- C
- 04-20-17
Good writing. Not good music.
This book is fantastic and the reader has a wonderful way. His voice is gentle and clean, very appropriate to the writing and style of the book.
But, there are random excerpts of music, which often have nothing to do with what's going on in the story. Aside from the offputting nature of the random music, the audio levels of the music are at the same level of the narration, making the book difficult to hear.
I buy the book for the writing. Not for the random music. 😒
If you removed the music, this book would be 5 stars across the board, for me. (Yes, it's that bad.)
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