giver

Jonas got a folder with the instructions for his training and he was surprised by how little there was. some people had gotten thick folders with complex rules and procedures, but all that was in his was one sheet of paper with 8 simple rules;
1. Go immediately at the end of school hours each day to the Annex entrance behind the House of the old and present yourself to the attendant.
2. Go immediately to your dwelling at the conclusion of Training Hours each day.
3. From this moment you are exempted from rules governing rudeness. You may ask any question of any citizen and you will receive answers. (this startled Jonas. his whole life he had been trained not to be rude, so the thought that now he could was unnerving.)
4. Do not discuss your training with any other member of the community, including parents and Elders.
5. From this moment you are prohibited from dream-telling. (no problem; he rarely dreamed anyway)
6. Except for illness or injury unrelated to training, do not apply for any medication. (he was nervous of this, as he had never really felt pain, but he realized that was only work injuries; he could still get medication for normal accidents
7.You are not permitted to apply for release. (he wouldn't dream of doing so in the first place)
8.You may lie.
that last part was most unnerving of all. as with the rudeness laws, he had been told not to lie his whole life, so this was a shock. he had never before needed to lie either. than he had a though- what if others got that same new rule? what if all the adults could lie. if he could be rude he could just ask, but how could he trust the answers?
The next day he went to the annex with Fiona, who was also training there. the attendant greeted him, calling him Receiver, and directed him to the locked door and unlocked it, explaining that the Receiver needed privacy to help him concentrate (locks were rare in the community, so Jonas was surprised and discomforted). everything in the Receiver's room was slightly different from the normal houses. a little higher quality. but the main difference was all the books. most houses just had a dictionary, the rule book, and a thick book with info on all the parts of the community. but this place had hundreds, maybe thousands of books of all kinds! the walls were covered with them! then he noticed the man sitting on the chair watching him. he greeted Jonas, again as the Receiver, and again Jonas was confused- he thought that he wasn't Receiver yet, that he was just a trainee, but the Receiver said that from then on Jonas was the Receiver. he said to call him the Giver.
They talked, and the giver mentioned some unfamiliar concepts: snow, sleds, runners, and hills. So he decided to transfer the memory of snow. Jonas lied down, closed his eyes, and the Giver put his hand on jonas' back, and he felt like he was on a hard flat piece of wood. he opened his eyes and saw white... snow swirling around him. he also knew that he was on a sled going down a hill. the giver finshed giving him the memory and asked if he saw the sled. they went back to the memory and Jonas looked at the sled, and gasped. it was like the apple, but it didn't change, it just was that way. he told the giver, and the Giver said that Jonas was starting to see red.

COMPARE

this section shows the main problem in messenger. Forest. The trees and plants themselves are alive, they can think, remember. Forest is a strange part of Village. It attacks those it doesn't want in it. and it does seem to actually think about it. The first time an unwanted person comes in, it just gives a warning. something small, sometimes unnoticed, like a cut. but they can't enter again. If they do- well, you read what happened what happened to Gatherer. Matty is an exception, though. he's gone through forest countless times, and forest hasn't given him a warning it's part of what makes him special in the story. trade mart is also a huge problem. people make trades and they come out... different. Also shown is the main part of the giver- his assignment. The Receiver of Memories is an important part of the community. He holds all the memories and wisdom of the past that the community fears. war, pain, starvation, sunshine, the ocean, all these things and more are part of what the receiver safeguards. I also should mention that the reason the he was chosen to be Receiver is that the current receiver said that jonas can See Beyond. That becomes more clear later. Oh, and forgot to mention; Keening is Village's way of mourning the dead. they come out and sing and moan for the lost person

Messenger, 2-4

chapter two starts out with the death of gatherer. He had tried to visit his home town but he, as the book puts it,"had been taken by Forest" he had been completely entangled by sticks and vines(see pg.14 of the book for the gruesome details.) there had been a keening ritual for him and he was buried in the cemetery.
Matty is called to delivery messages about a meeting to close village to outsiders. a petition had been signed by many people in Village,which was strange as most of the had come there themselves, and it had always been open to outsiders. It was lead by Mentor, the schoolteacher who had always been among the first to greet newcomers. They weren't themselves.
That night Matty tried to convince Seer to get a gaming machine like the one his friend Ramon got. he says it would be fun to have, that their nights would never be boring. But Seer looks past that to what the machine costs. Matty didn't know what the machine had cost his friend. Seer thought that Ramon's family must have traded something of great value to get it, and they didn't have anything to trade. Seer thought that something strange was happening to the ancient tradition of trade mart. it used to be simply trading items, but Seer fears it is something much more now(He doesn't know how right he is.)

giver, 6-8

(I'll skip a few chapters, in which not much happens except the arrival of a newchild, Gabriel, to be temporarily taken care of by Jonas's family, a trip to the House of the Old for his volunteer hours, and the morning ritual in which the family members share their dreams.)
the day for the ceremony is finally here. They head for the auditorium, where the ceremonies will take place. the whole community comes to watch and everyone is nervous, whether it's for their family or themselves. the ceremony of one is first, where the newchildren got their names and are assigned to a family unit. then ceremonies of 2,3 and 4, then a break for lunch, then Fives, Sixes, Sevens, and finally the Eights, which was Jonas's sister's age group. the Eights got a new jacket with smaller buttons and pockets to show more independence. the next day started with the Nines, who got their bikes, Tens got shorter hair cuts that signaled themas older, and the Elevens didn't change much, and finally the much anticipated Ceremony of Twelve! they went in order in wich they were born, and each had a number to tell it; jonas was Nineteen. each person got their assignment and a speech about them. One was a Fish Hatchery Attendant, Two was a Birthmother ect. until they got to 18, fiona, a friend of jonas's, was assigned Caretaker of the Old, and then ... (jonas got ready to go up at this point) Twenty, Twenty one... She skipped me!
Everyone but Jonas went, and the ceif elder called him up and said he had not been assigned, but selected. to be the new Receiver of Memory, one of the most importent jobs in the community!

COMPARE

OK, that was a full summary, but I tried to keep it shorter, but oh well.
Anyway, you can see how different the two worlds are. Jonas's world is more sheltered, a things are planned and done very exactly. Its against the rules to lie and be rude, and unlike our world, people actually follow the big rules. Matty's world, Village, on the other hand, was like a refuge for traveler and people who had left other towns and hoped to have a better life (Matty himself had come from living on the streets in a nearby town). there is a rule on lying, but it's not followed as strictly as in Jonas's town, as is evident by Matty lying to his friend as to his destination. In Jonas's town all needs are taken care of; food, homes, jobs, family, all you can thing of. Village is good in that sense, but you need to buy or trade for everything you need. they are very different.

messenger

this book starts with the impatient Matty wanting to get out before nightfall but having to wait to cook dinner. He wants to test something, but first he has to take a lesson from Seer, the old blind man who took Matty in when he first came to village, on cooking onions. He finally got out side and he went to his hideout in Forest. he met one of his friends on the way. he invited Matty to come to his house, but Matty said that he had work to do, a lie, as he delivers messages throughout Village, and gets to his hideout, makes a croaking sound he'd been practicing, and picked up the frog that responded. He felt a little jolt of energy pass his hand and saw what he had hoped, and feared. he headed home.

MEMO

the full summary takes to long to write, so I won't do that anymore. Besides, you aren't as likely to read the books if I tell you to much, and that's what I'm trying to do.

the giver, chapter 1-3

The book starts near the end of November with Jonas,the main character, feeling frightened about the month to come. But that wasn't it. He knew "frightened" as the deep, sickening feeling that something terrible was about to happened , and recalled a time when a plane flew above, a rare occurrence, and every one had been asked to go inside. an announcement had declared it had been a false alarm with a trainee pilot. "needless to say he will be released*" the announcer had said. Jonas decided he was not frightened, but apprehensive.
That night he and his family had the normal sharing of feelings ritual*, and when his turn came, he explained how he was feeling, about the Ceremony of Twelve* that would come in December. they had a discussion of the ceremony and Jonas thought of the different jobs, then of the announcers, and of a time when an announcement (directed toward him, though his name hadn't been used) had reminded them that items shouldn't be taken from the recreation hall, and most importantly he remembered what had happened to that apple during recreation time. He was playing catch with it and it simply changed. He didn't know how, but it just changed . back to the conversation; His parents said that the assignments were chosen so carefully that people were rarely upset about their new jobs. He was glad about that.