BOOK REVIEW: Son

The Giver, Gathering Blue, Messenger, and now, SON. SON brings to conclusion the series that Lois Lowry started with The Giver and firmly establishes her high on my list of “must read authors”.

SON begins in the community that opened The Giver. This society is tightly regimented. The community provides all of the basic needs of the people, assigns the proper job, proper spouse, and the proper two children, one boy and one girl, and oversees all activities. There is no need that is not met. Well, maybe some emotional ones, but a little pill takes care of them.

Claire had been assigned to be a Vessel. Vessels are the healthy young girls who have been selected to be the birth mothers of the children in the village. From the moment of birth these babies are taken to nurseries where they are cared for until they are old enough to be put with a couple who has been judged ready to have a child.

Something goes wrong with Claire’s delivery and she is reassigned to work in the fish hatchery. She has been told to forget that she had a child, but her maternal feelings are too strong to ignore. When she learns that her son has been taken out of the community she has to try to find him.

Her travels take her to an isolated fishing village along the ocean where she finds life very different from the community where she was raised. While there the hard work, the climate, and the people help Claire to develop strength to continue the search for her son.

This moving story could stand on its own, but having read the three earlier books certainly gives it a richness that makes it very special. The author is clever in working in background material from the first books and I never was confused about what had happened in the past. There were times that I stopped and smiled over a memory about an earlier character. (Mattie in Messenger had made me cry and so when he is mentioned toward the end of the book it brought back very tender feelings).

The Giver was The County Reads selection several years ago and was received with great success. If you have read the first three in in this beautiful series, you will no doubt have been as excited as I was to hear that Lowry had written Claire’s story. If you are one of the few who have not discovered these four books, you owe it to yourself to meet Claire, her son, Jonas, Kira, and, of course, Mattie.

Lois Lowry richly deserves all of her literary acclaim. This is an author to be savored at any age and The Giver, along with its sequels is the main reason to add her to your “must read author” list.