Lois Lowry received the Margaret A. Edwards award recognizing a "significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature" for her 1993 title The Giver.

Many of us may remember The Giver from a school assignment, or perhaps the movie version that came out a few years ago and featured a Taylor Swift cameo. Nowadays, the book is often categorized as a classic, which explains why Lowry received such an award long after it was published.

One thing people often don’t realize about this title is that it’s actually part of a series. Lowry took the world she built for The Giver and created other villages and characters for her stories Gathering Blue (2000) and Messenger (2004). All three books are connected by the long-awaited final title in the series, Son, which came out in 2012.

Despite its accolades and popularity, this famous book has not always been well received. According to the American Library Association, it ranked 11 out of 100 of the most commonly banned books between 1990 and 1999, and continues to receive challenges. Reasons cited for banning range between “unsuited for age group” to “suicide.”

Be sure to check out The Giver and its companion novels at your local BCLS branch!