Gathering Blue

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry is book number 2 of 4 in The Giver series and focuses on a new protagonist named Kira. The paperback version contains 256 pages that are divided into 23 chapters....

The answer is both yes and no. Gathering Blue is set in a village that is very dissimilar to the community which Jonas leaves at the end of The Giver. Kira, the main character in Gathering Blue,...

Kira is brave and empathetic. For instance, she is shocked by how the villagers physically and psychologically harm one another. Furthermore, she does not agree with the way the Council manages its...

In the book Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry, one simile that is contained in chapter one is when Kira tells Matt she has watched her mother's spirit leave her body. She says: "My mother's spirit has...

The Ruin Song chronicles the history of people and life on earth from the beginning to the present. Because most people in Kira's society are illiterate, the Ruin Song is the way the culture...

One of the most glaringly unfair rules of Kira's village is that only boys and men are allowed to learn to read and write. No explanation is given for such an arbitrary and sexist practice. Another...

To me, the message is that a centrally controlled society is, by its very nature, unjust and destructive of the human spirit. This is a very consistent theme in Lowry's works. In this community,...

The rather insidious and disturbing theme that rears its ugly head in this book is one of control and the lengths that some people will go to in order to maintain that control. As the novel...

One great external conflict that Kira experiences occurs after her mother's death [man vs. nature]: As for Kira, she had no family, now. Nor any home. The cott she had shared with her mother had...

The answer to this question can be found in chapter 8. Chapter 7 ends with Kira telling Matt that she wants to go visit Annabella. Chapter 8 begins with Matt saying that he will come with Kira...

Lowry describes five significant objects in Gathering Blue. These objects are described in detail and/or are referenced multiple times. Each of them has a symbolic meaning as well as being...

This is definitely an interesting question, because with the arrival of her father Kira has all the proof she needs that the Guardians whom she serves have probably killed her mother and definitely...

All the dyes were natural based on the vegetation grown there. Our ancestors used the same process. Certain plants like onions produce a yellow color when they are boiled. The string would be...

Well, hyperbole is just another word (a literary word, mind you) for exaggeration. It is pretty easy to find, both in this book and in others. However, please realize that it is an error to ask...

Matt lives in an area known as the Fen, which is a lower-class area equivalent to a slum in our culture. Kira lives in the village, and those who live in the Fen are closely associated with village...

Gathering Blue takes place in a post-apocalyptic society that has been rebuilt without technology. Because most citizens of the society are illiterate, the community preserves its history orally...

These kinds of questions are often best left to individual readers. There isn't a definitive list of ten items that all readers are going to agree with, but I do recommend including items on the...

When Kira is in the field to deal with the death of her mother, Kira's cott burns down. Matt, a young boy from town, is able to save a few items from the fire. It is not clear who set the fire in...

After Kira's mother dies, Vandara makes accusations against the girl, whose leg is twisted. Vandara, who wants the little section of land that Kira has accuses the girl of being unfit, eating too...

Matt tells Kira that in Christopher's village, "broken" people like herself can get married. Matt says that he saw a boy there about her age, and that, in his opinion, she could marry him if she...

Authors use dystopian fiction to look at current society with a critical eye. In Gathering Blue, Kira's society reflects the possible outcome of human culture if some aspects of modern culture...

In Chapter Three of this excellent dystopian classic we are introduced to "The Gathering," which we are told happens once a year and is when the Singer, an important person in the community, sings...

In Lois Lowry's novel Gathering Blue, Kira has both intelligence and imagination, courage, and talent. 1. Imagination While her mother is alive, Kira tells the children creative stories that...

Kira's scrap of cloth is one of her earliest bits of work which was produced because of her incredible talent, that she was not aware of doing herself and her hands just produced as if by magic....

Kira, knowing her mother's cott might be burned while she was at the Field of Leaving, had managed to stash away some personal possessions in the clearing so they wouldn't be destroyed. Matt, Kira...

An internal conflict is a struggle that takes place within a character's mind, while an external conflict is a struggle that takes place between the character and another character, the society,...

A dystopian society is contrasted with a utopian one. In a utopia, the society is blissful and self-sufficient, whereas a dystopian society is a misconstrued attempt at utopia. In a dystopian...

Gathering Blue depicts a post-apocalyptic society. The exact form the apocalypse took remains cryptic in the novel, but as the story begins, the "civilization of the ancestors" had ended long ago....

The climax of a work of literature is defined as being the most emotionally tense point of the plot before the falling action and the final resolution. Arguably, there are potentially many...

Gathering Blue is a novel written by Lois Lowry and is a companion piece to The Giver. Gathering Blue tells the story of Kira, the protagonist, who is an orphan with a deformed leg who must find a...

Kira, the main character in the story, is an orphan and has a twisted leg. In this setting (future) those with any weaknesses are left to fend for themselves and/or to die. One of the friends...

When Kira returns from attending her mother's corpse on the Field of Leaving, she intends to rebuild her burned cott. The women of the village, led by Vandara, want to use that land to build a pen...

We are first introduced to the Council of Guardians in Chapter Three of this excellent dystopian novel. It is clear from the respect and deference that is shown to the Guardians by both Vandara and...

The Robe and the Song are both historical stories that the Council shares with the people in their society. When Kira gets the job to repair and restore the robe, she realizes that it's one way the...

At the end of Gathering Blue, Kira is about to journey with her father to a different town called The Village of Healing. It would mean that Kira would have to leave everyone and everything behind,...

Lois Lowry is a YA/children's author who is known for her work The Giver, which she originally did not intend to become a series. Gathering Blue and Messenger are in between the The Giver and her...

In the novel Gathering Blue, Kira has several fears. At the beginning of the book, Kira finds herself alone after her mother has become ill and died. At this point, she fears the aloneness and the...

Obviously there are lots of variations in dystopian literature, and so there is no one size fits all approach. However, there are some themes that can be gathered together that occur in many...

Kira's first problem is one of survival. As she is both handicapped (she limps) and orphaned, she is excluded from the community. One woman even tries to force her to give up the small shelter...

The Council Edifice is the only building in Kira's village that remains from before the Ruin, a time in the distant past during which destroyed the civilization of their ancestors. The building is...

Thomas the Carver lives in the Council Edifice with Kira. Like Kira, he was orphaned and taken in by the Council of Guardians because of his artistic abilities. Thomas can be described as friendly,...

Lowry creates an interesting dialect for Matt. The people of the village, including Vandara and Kira, speak with typical grammar, although they use words unique to their society, such as cott and...

In Gathering Blue, author Lois Lowry seems to purposely make the society as opposite from the first novel in this series, The Giver, as she possibly can. Rather than the safe, organized world of...

The main conflict is man vs. society. The people in Kira's village don't accept anyone who is handicapped. If a person becomes handicapped through injury or disease, or if newborn babies have any...

Matt, the young boy from the Fen who befriends Kira, is thoughtful, alert, and strong-willed. He shows his thoughtfulness throughout the book. Near the beginning of the story, Kira learns that Matt...

What Kira realises by the end of the novel is that the Guardians, the people who are in charge of the society she is a part of and whom she now works for, are far from the benevolent individuals...

I think Kira changes so much throughout the novel because of two reasons. First, she has to change and adapt in order to survive. The culture that Kira lives in does not take kindly to people...

In Lois Lowry's book Gathering Blue, the fact that Matt does not know what "gift" means is significant is because it demonstrate Matt's background and upbringing (or, rather, the lack of it.) By...

It is not clear, but the story suggests that the Singer who performs the incantations in the annual ritual of "The Ruin" does so against his will. Such is the case of the little girl named Jo who...

At first glance, the culture of Kira's village, as depicted in Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue, seems very different from our "typical" American culture. Look at the customs of naming, for instance....