Book cover image:
Book Summary: After
Kira loses her mother to an illness, she must face the fact that her simple
village does not want a girl with a twisted leg anymore. Much to her surprise,
not only does the council of the village defend her against angry accusers, but
they give her an important job: to be the new weaver of the Singer’s robe, to
design the future. However, this new cozy life isn’t what it seems to be.
People who question the way things are end up taken to the field to die. A
little girl is locked up in a room, and Kira wonders if she and the carver of
the future, Thomas, are actually being shackled for their artistic gifts as
well. It takes a feisty boy named Matty to bring Kira the one color denied to
her in weaving, blue, and with it, a person lost to her before her birth. Kira
knows that the fate of the future is in her hands, and she will not let anyone
tell her how to shape it.
APA Reference of Book:
Lowry, L. (2000). Gathering blue. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Impressions: Just
like The Giver, this novel creates suspense through young characters
questioning the world and becoming determined to change it for the better. Kira
is such a strong protagonist, especially since she has a physical disability.
She is strong because she does not let her leg defeat her in the obstacles of
life, and she does not allow others to control her mind and creativity by the
end of the story. I am honestly left with so many questions. Does Kira change
the robe to the future that she wants? Does she weave in blue threads, and how
do the council members react? Does she eventually go to live with her father? Darn
Lowry and her cliffhangers! I guess I will just have to read the next book and
hope that I find out somehow.
Professional Review:
Gathering blue [Review]. (2000). Kirkus
Reviews, (12).
Lowry returns to the metaphorical future world of her
Newbery-winning The Giver (1993) to explore the notion of foul
reality disguised as fair. Born with a twisted leg, Kira faces a bleak future
after her mother dies suddenly, leaving her without protection. Despite her
gift for weaving and embroidery, the village women, led by cruel, scarred
Vandara, will certainly drive the lame child into the forest, where the
“beasts” killed her father, or so she’s been told. Instead, the Council of
Guardians intervenes. In Kira’s village, the ambient sounds of voices raised in
anger and children being slapped away as nuisances quiets once a year when the
Singer, with his intricately carved staff and elaborately embroidered robe,
recites the tale of humanity’s multiple rises and falls. The Guardians ask Kira
to repair worn historical scenes on the Singer’s robe and promise her the
panels that have been left undecorated. Comfortably housed with two other young
orphans—Thomas, a brilliant wood-carver working on the Singer’s staff, and tiny
Jo, who sings with an angel’s voice—Kira gradually realizes that their apparent
freedom is illusory, that their creative gifts are being harnessed to the
Guardians’ agenda. And she begins to wonder about the deaths of her parents and
those of her companions—especially after the seemingly hale old woman who is
teaching her to dye expires the day after telling her there really are no
beasts in the woods. The true nature of her society becomes horribly clear when
the Singer appears for his annual performance with chained, bloody ankles,
followed by Kira’s long-lost father, who, it turns out, was blinded and left
for dead by a Guardian. Next to the vividly rendered supporting cast, the
gentle, kindhearted Kira seems rather colorless, though by electing at the end
to pit her artistic gift against the status quo instead of fleeing, she does
display some inner stuff. Readers will find plenty of material for thought and
discussion here, plus a touch of magic and a tantalizing hint (stay sharp, or
you’ll miss it) about the previous book’s famously ambiguous ending. A top
writer, in top form. (author’s note) (Fiction. 11-13)
Library Uses: Have students choose an artistic talent and showcase
it to explain the school’s history. Have some students decide what is to be
done, said, and created, and then discuss the effects these restrictions have
on creativity. See what the results will be when artists have free reign to
show their imagination and also when they have no choices in what they do.
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