The Giver, by Lois Lowry

This was my first time reading The Giver, and it reminded me of several other stories: Ender's Game, with the kids started in battle training at extremely young ages, The Hunger Games series, with the futuristic setting and the control and the lies, and A Wrinkle in Time, with everyone in the same house doing the same activities at the same time. That's what I thought of when the book mentioned "sameness."
Speaking of sameness, I didn't realize that nothing was in color there until the Giver explained the "seeing-beyond" to Jonas. I had been painting color in myself automatically, though I realize Lowry deliberately didn't mention color until after Jonas started seeing it. She called eyes "light" or "dark" but never by a particular color. The realization that their world had no color was really a bummer and surprising. And that was only one of the many things that continued to surprise me. No music, no love, no choice of spouse, no emotions good or bad...the list went on and every time I found myself surprised that they didn't have each thing. I had assumed they had all these or at least knew what they were, and so at the beginning the overly organized, rule-driven society didn't seem too bad. But then the rules turned out to be governing emotions, removing choice and freewill and the right to life, and turning life into a lukewarm mass of not ever truly experiencing anything.
And the memories...the lack of them! If I try to imagine my life without memories, I don't know what there would be. There are my own memories, ones that I like to escape to or laugh about when they pop into my head, and there are the memories of my parents and their parents and the memories passed down from their parents..."and back and back and back." I realize my family and friends and everyone I meet are Givers, too, and Receivers. We all share memories of experiences with each other - passing on our histories, shaping our identities, adding to what we know and altering what we mistakenly thought we knew.
In teaching, I'd like to steal some topic ideas from the reader's guide in the back of my book: euthanasia and euphemisms. The "release" turns out to be a form of euthanasia, and the question in the book asks "What are some of the disadvantages and the benefits of a community thst accepts such a vision of euthanasia?" I like how this question was extremely open-endeed - it's worded in a way that invites more exploration, asking not just whether euthanasia is right or wrong but why. On a side note, I wonder where this is practiced/legal and why? And where did euthanasia begin? Then with euphemisms, I think it'd be interesting to explore how they are used in the media and in advertising, and compare those to the euphemisms in the book, "release" being one of the major ones. Finally, I'd also like to look at how memories shape our identities, and maybe look at emotions - whether it is better to not feel and be safe from pain as the people did in Jonas' community, or to risk the experience of pain in order to also experience joy and love. There's probably a more provocative way to state it, to get people talking, but nothing's coming to me at this moment. :)