The Giver (Graphic Novel Adaptation) ~ Lois Lowry
As an educator who works primarily with reluctant and struggling readers, I was THRILLED to see that The Giver, the first dystopian young adult novel of its kind, was made into a graphic novel! Finally, the magic of this story is available to a wider range of independent readers!
This graphic novel does an excellent job of including all the important parts and language of the original text, so it would be the perfect supplement or replacement for the original work. In the story, The Giver, Jonas is excited, like all other children his age, for the ceremony of twelves. At this ceremony, each child is assigned a unique job and enters the adult world as a professional. With so little setting community members apart, this ceremony is an exciting and nerve-wracking day for all involved.
On the day of the ceremony, however, Jonas is not called up to receive his job title like all the other elevens. Instead, his name is called last, and rather than being assigned a job, he is selected for the most honorable role in the community, of which there is only one. Jonas is selected to be The Receiver. Bewildered and afraid, Jonas accepts his role with hundreds of questions swirling through his mind.
But once Jonas learns more about his role and begins to learn from his mentor, The Giver, Jonas begins to questions everything he once understood and loved about his community. For the first time, Jonas feels resentment, anguish, and suspicion toward those who he had learned to trust most. He begins to question the very ideals of “sameness” and conformity that kept his home so orderly and safe. Will Jonas be able to keep his newfound knowledge a secret, like he should? Or will he risk everything and try to change things?
Buy the title here!
Maturity: 2/4
I would recommend this novel to students 12+. While there is nothing explicitly mature about it, the concepts and themes in the novel require maturity to fully grasp.
Pages: 176
Lexile: (760L original novel) Not available for graphic novel adaptation
Lexile is a score that helps educators and parents match students with an appropriate text. A Lexile score is a measure of both a child’s reading ability and a text difficulty. However, Lexile does not take into account the content of a novel. So, pairing readers with a text is a complex process, and knowledge of a novel’s themes and plot is necessary to make a high-quality recommendation.
If you are curious about the grade-level equivalent to Lexile scores, check out the conversion chart here!
