Gathering Blue

5snewman - 3/14/13 This book is amazing!! It is about a girl named Kira. She has a crippled leg. Her mother has just died and her house has been burned down. She decides to make a new house. Other people want her land. They have a fight and go to court. Kira is very nervous. She is allowed to stay in a building and use her gift of sewing to fix the Singer's robe. While she is there her friend Matt ( soon to be called Mattie ) visits her often. They both make friends with a boy who is a gifted wood carver. They find a girl who is forced to sing. She is sad. Kira comforts her. Then Kira learns how to color threads, but she doesn't have the things to make blue. So Matt goes to get her some. When he comes back ,he has Kira's long lost dad!! He tells her he was hurt in Forest a long time ago so he didn't come back. He asks her to come with him to Village a place where everyone is safe. She says she will when she is done here. So, he leaves with Matt. A sad farewell. Everything turns out fine.

September 25, 2000
After conjuring the pitfalls of a technologically advanced society in The Giver, Lowry looks toward a different type of future to create this dark, prophetic tale with a strong medieval flavor. Having suffered numerous unnamed disasters (aka, the Ruin), civilization has regressed to a primitive, technology-free state; an opening author's note describes a society in which "disorder, savagery, and self-interest" rule. Kira, a crippled young weaver, has been raised and taught her craft by her mother, after her father was allegedly killed by "beasts." When her mother dies, Kira fears that she will be cast out of the village. Instead, the society's Council of Guardians installs her as caretaker of the Singer's robe, a precious ceremonial garment depicting the history of the world and used at the annual Gathering. She moves to the Council Edifice, a gothic-style structure, one of the few to survive the Ruin. The edifice and other settings, such as the Fen--the village ghetto--and the small plot where Annabella (an elder weaver who mentors Kira after her mother's death) lives are especially well drawn, and the characterizations of Kira and the other artists who cohabit the stone residence are the novel's greatest strength. But the narrative hammers at the theme of the imprisoned artist. And readers may well predict where several important plot threads are headed (e.g., the role of Kira's Guardian, Jamison; her father's disappearance), while larger issues, such as the society's downfall, are left to readers' imaginations. Ages 10-up.