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Directions: In your draft book, answer each question using complete sentences with
proper capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.
The Giver Study Guide Questions
Chapter 1
1. From whose point of view is the story told?
2. What have you learned about the society in which Jonas lives?
3. How is Jonas’s family like your family? How are they different?
4. What do you know so far about “release” in the book’s society?
5. How is the care of children different in Jonas’s world from your own world?
Chapter 2
1. What is the private conversation Jonas has with his parents in Chapter 2?
2. What rules does Jonas’s father disobey?
3. How do people receive their Assignment?
4. Why do you think the author is building up to Jonas’s Ceremony of Twelve?
What will his Assignment be?
Chapter 3
1. What about the society is revealed by the reaction to eye color?
2. What is a birthmother?
3. Why is Mother so appalled when Lily suggests she’d like to be a Birthmother?
4. How was Jonas disciplined for taking an apple home?
5. Why had the apple intrigued Jonas?
6. What does the nondescript shade of the tunics and the apple tell you about the
people and the society in the book?
Chapter 4
1. What seems to be the purpose of the volunteer hours?
2. Why doesn’t Jonas seem to have a niche (talent)?
3. What is the nakedness rule?
4. What is the Releasing Room and the releasing ceremony?
Chapter 5
1. What is the morning ritual?
2. Why must Jonas start taking a pill every day?
3. How are you feeling about the society in the book?
4. What have you found so far that the book’s society represses?
Chapter 6
1. What values does the book’s society embrace? What values does it encourage?
2. What is interdependence? Give an example of interdependence from your
experiences.
3. What is the difference in the book between loss and release? Why do you think
the author points out the distinction on page 44?
4. Who makes the important decisions in the book’s society?
Chapter 7
1. How does the Ceremony of Twelve start?
2. What do numbers mean for each person?
3. Why is number nineteen skipped in the Assignments?
4. What do you think Jonas’s assignment will be?
Chapter 8
1. Why do Jonas and the audience feel ill at ease at the start of Chapter 8?
2. What is announced as Jonas’s Assignment?
3. What qualities does the Chief Elder explain Jonas will need?
4. How will Jonas’s life change as he trains to be Receiver of Memory?
Chapter 9
1. What does it feel like to be different?
2. What happened to the Receiver selection that failed?
3. What are Jonas’s instructions for his Receiver training? Why are the rules
particularly puzzling?
4. What is the puzzle about lying which Jonas ponders at the end of Chapter 9?
5. What puzzles do you expect in the rest of the book?
Chapter 10
1. What does Jonas notice about the Receiver of Memory’s dwelling?
2. What will Jonas’s position as Receiver of Memory involve?
3. Why is it important to save memories?
4. Why does the Receiver have books but no one else has more than three? What
three books do most dwellings have?
5. How will the old Receiver transmit the memory of snow to Jonas?
Chapter 11
1. Once Jonas receives the memory of snow and sledding, how does he feel?
2. Just how does the Receiver of Memories’ training proceed?
3. How are The Giver’s burdens lessened in working with Jonas?
4. What other memories are transmitted on his first day of training?
5. Why did the book’s world eliminate sunshine and hills?
Chapter 12
1. What is Jonas’s first lie?
2. Why doesn’t Jonas tell his friends about his training?
3. What is Jonas seeing in Fiona’s hair, the apple, and the sled?
4. Why don’t people in the book perceive colors?
5. What is Jonas’s opinion on giving up colors? How do you feel about the matter?
Chapter 13
1. What new meaning do these words have for Jonas? ordinary, color, choice
2. How would the elders react to the same three words?
3. What does safety mean to the book’s society, to you, adults, to those in the cities,
to those in rural areas?
4. What does The Giver share of his personal family life?
5. How does the book’s society deal with adults with grown children?
6. What are your feelings about the book’s way of life?
Chapter 14
1. How does Jonas react when The Giver gives him the memory of breaking a leg in
sledding?
2. What wisdom does hunger provide?
3. Reread the conversation between Jonas and The Giver on page 113. What is the
mood at the end of the talk?
4. How does Jonas calm Gabriel?
5. Why does Jonas decide not to confess giving away a memory?
6. Why does Mother shake her head about the release of the twin and Father’s
responsibility for it?
Chapter 15
1. Why do you think this chapter is so short?
2. Why does The Giver say, “Forgive me”?
3. If you were to advertise for a Receiver of Memories, what would you say in a
short help wanted ad?
4. Revise one of the following sayings to make it appropriate for the book. Explain
your work. “No pain, no gain.” You’ve got to take the good with the bad.” The
apple never falls far from the tree.” “Honor thy father and your mother.”
Chapter 16
1. How does Jonas learn of love?
2. Why are grandparents a new idea for Jonas?
3. What does the book’s society lose without grandparents? What do they gain?
4. What provokes Jonas’s first lie to his parents?
Chapter 17
1. How is the day in Chapter 17 a study of contrast?
2. Why does Jonas stop taking his daily pill?
3. How is Gabe proceeding?
Chapter 18
1. What was the story of Rosemary?
2. What happened to the memories transferred to Rosemary? How were the training
rules changed as a result?
3. Why does The Giver advise Jonas to stay away from the river?
Chapter 19
1. What does Jonas learn about rule 3 from his training rules in this chapter? (Look
back to page 68 to check out his rules)
2. How does The Giver feel about Rosemary’s release?
3. How does Lois Lowry describe Jonas’s feeling at the end of Chapter 19?
Chapter 20
1. Why does Jonas refuse to go home?
2. How does The Giver comfort Jonas?
3. What is the plan Jonas and The Giver hatch?
4. How did The Giver first experience seeing beyond?
5. What are the specifics of the escape plan? Will Jonas succeed in his escape?
6. What is the surprising revelation at the end of Chapter 20?
Chapter 21
1. What makes Jonas’s escape plan fall apart?
2. How does the first part of the escape proceed?
3. How has the mood changed by the end of Chapter 21?
4. Is Jonas justified in his escape?
Chapter 22
1. What new dangers does Jonas encounter in Chapter 22?
2. In which different ways does Jonas think about starvation?
3. Only one chapter in the book remains. How will it end?
Chapter 23
1. What weather conditions impede Jonas’s progress toward Elsewhere?
2. How do Jonas and Gabe finally get to safety?
3. What is the sensory image at the end of the book?