It's The Choosing That's Important,

Our People Made That Choice, The Choice To Go To Sameness. Before My Time, Before The Previous Time, Back And Back And Back. We Relinquished Color When We Relinquished Sunshine And Did Away With Difference. We Gained Control Of Many Things. But We Had To Let Go Of Others.

The Man That I Named The Giver Passed Along To The Boy Knowledge, History, Memories, Color, Pain, Laughter, Love, And Truth. Every Time You Place A Book In The Hands Of A Child, You Do The Same Thing. It Is Very Risky. But Each Time A Child Opens A Book, He Pushes Open The Gate That Separates Him From Elsewhere. It Gives Him Choices. It Gives Him Freedom. Those Are Magnificent, Wonderfully Unsafe Things. [from Her Newberry Award Acceptance Speech]

Gathering Blue' Was A Separate Book. I Wanted To Explore What A Society Might Become After A Catastrophic World Event. Only At The End Did I Realize I Could Make It Connect To 'the Giver.

And They Are Beginning To Realize That The World They Live In Is A Place Where The Right Thing Is Often Hard, Sometimes Dangerous, And Frequently Unpopular.

I Write Books Because I Have Always Been Fascinated By Stories And Language, And Because I Love Thinking About What Makes People Tick. Writing A Story... 'the Giver' Or Any Other... Is Simply An Exploration Of The Nature Of Behavior: Why People Do What They Do, How It Affects Others, How We Change And Grow, And What Decisions We Make Along The Way.