Author: Lois Lowry
Lexile Score: 760
Genre: Fantasy
Maturity level: 5th-6th grade.
Pages: 180 Chapters: 23 Average Chapter Length: 9 pages
Theme: free will, society/community, love/hate, utopia, euthanasia, equality, pain/pleasure, the importance of memory, individualism
Project ideas: Discussion, discussion and more discussion
First Line: It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.
Main Character: Jonas
Review in 25 words or less: An absolute must-have for upper elementary book club shelves. Unsettling, thought-provoking, heavy.
Grade: A
If the ultimate goal of book club is to develop deep comprehension and critical thinking skills, then this book is the perfect tool. There is so much for students to pour over in search for meaning. It is unsettling at several different levels, and I would expect a fairly mature book club to find their way into conversation without much prodding from the teacher.
I would not start book club rookies out on this for their first book. I think the group would need to be fairly comfortable with each other and have a high level of trust and acceptance - students (and even teachers!) would need to feel confident to try out ideas without judgement and be able to sort out their thoughts in an open, caring atmosphere.
In my experience, many book club books often have very superficial themes that students grasp and extract connections from. I don't think such books propel them to higher levels of thought and understanding. I often hear something like, "This book is about a brother and sister fighting, and I sometimes fight with my sister too." There just isn't anything for them to take their ideas a step futher. When the book clearly presents thought-provoking themes that students grab onto and want to discuss, it is a wonderful thing. Book clubs are for books that MUST be discussed and CANNOT be read and understood (quite as fully) by yourself. This is exactly the type of book that is made for book club.
A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
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