Dear Lois Lowry,
I held off reading The Giver for as long as I could, that being a year. Finally, on my eleventh birthday, I grabbed a random book off the shelf to read in the car. That certain book happened to have a man with a long beard on the cover. The first thing I noticed about him was his eyes, full of pain, yet so incredibly wise. The eyes that I later found out, was the Giver’s.
I finished the whole book that day. When I got to the end, I was shocked. What?! It couldn’t just end like that! Somehow I knew that there was a sequel. There had to be.  And there was. I still haven’t gotten my hands on Gathering Blue, but I promise you, soon I will.
  As I flipped each page, it became harder and harder to imagine how life was in Jonas’s community. A place without color! How could something not have color? The sky is blue, grass is green, and the sun is yellow. That’s just the way things are. When trying to imagine living a colorless life, I thought of a black-and-white movie. Absolutely boring and unimaginable.
This book woke me up to the world’s cruel past and present. Hundreds of thousands of people have that sharp pain in their stomach when they go to bed; they’re starving. War is full of bloodshed and death. Many people in the world are homeless. Whether I wanted to or not, I had to stop imagining that we are perfect. This is the reality of the world. While this Earth is not perfect, I would not want to live in Jonas’s community where everything was planned out for them. People have the right and capability to make decisions for themselves. Even if they are wrong, well, we learn from our mistakes. I absolutely think what Jonas is doing is right. The citizens of the community deserve to have wonderful memories and need to be exposed to the harsh and horrible memories, too.
I was not in the car reading The Giver. I was experiencing the wonderful feeling of being with family, of being out in snow. Just as I received the pleasant, good feelings,  I was not spared from the painful memories. Oh, poor, poor Jonas. I could imagine being in the same room as the Giver and itching to learn the wonderful and horrible secrets of the hundreds of dusty books. Thank you, for not only saving me from a long boring car ride, but so much more. I was forced to come to terms with the other half of the world; war, hunger and pain. But the good things; hope, love, family, are what we have to remember during hard times. They are our saviors. I truly hope that someday the people of the community will be able to come out of their perfect, protected lives and truly live. Living is not when you don’t have much control in your life. Living is when you have the freedom to make decisions and make mistakes.
Jonas and the Giver taught me an important life lesson. I will always try to think about the good memories while still keeping the others in mind, even when life is not going so well. It could always be worse. Thank you for helping me have an optimistic outlook on life.

Sincerely,
A Hoper