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Gathering Blue
The society in Gathering Blue is led by an oligarchy, a Council of Guardians who enforce the laws and resolve disputes. While the guardians and their functions are rather mysterious to Kira, she...
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Gathering Blue
In Gathering Blue both the robe and the Song are methods by which the Council keeps control of society. Gathering Blue is a "companion" book of The Giver; both are set in the future after an...
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Gathering Blue
Kira is able to fix everything on the robe. For a time, she doesn't believe she'll be able to replace the blue on the robe. She never learned how to make blue dye because her mother doesn't know....
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Gathering Blue
Gathering Blue is a novel written by Lois Lowry and is the sequel to her novel The Giver. This novel is mainly about a girl named Kira who is asked to help the Council of Guardians and the...
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Gathering Blue
The author emphasizes the importance of being an abled person in the society in Gathering Blue by showing that they outcast people who are disabled in any way. When they are outcast, they are taken...
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Gathering Blue
Lowry mentions that the women are not allowed to read or do other intellectual activities, and they are only allowed to bare children, take care of the household and do some simple activities such...
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Gathering Blue
Kira is a significant character in Gathering Blue on several levels. She is important within her family because her mother's love enabled her to stay alive in opposition to society's Way. She...
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Gathering Blue
At the beginning of the story, Kira is unsure of herself and is focused on day-to-day survival. She also thinks a lot about the past, especially her recently-deceased mother and her father who she...
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Gathering Blue
Ten key events in Gathering Blue are: 1. Kira's mother's spirit drifts away. As the story opens, Kira's mother has been dead for four days, but the drifting away of her spirit means Kira can return...
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Gathering Blue
Women are forbidden to read because the Council of Elders want to keep them in a state of permanent ignorance. If women start reading books, there's a real danger that they'll develop ideas of...
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Gathering Blue
Gathering Blue is categorized as Young Adult fiction, which means that its target readers are adolescents. Many children of various ages have had the experience of losing a parent. The idea that a...
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Gathering Blue
Perhaps the best insight into how Kira's community values human life is provided by Kira's trial. Vandara, Kira's accuser, brings a case against Kira that relies on the accepted standards of the...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
There are many characteristics of the society in Gathering Blue that make it dystopian, and perhaps one that breaks the rules for a typical dystopia. A dystopian society is usually understood as a...
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Gathering Blue
Both Thomas and Kira are artists. Thomas has the ability to carve intricate designs in wood, and Kira can embroider scenes in beautiful colors with thread. Kira discovers that their journeys as...
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Gathering Blue
In Gathering Blue, Lois Lowry creates a future world in which people are valued only for their ability to contribute to society. Those who cannot are condemned to death in the “field.” Throughout...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
There are certainly plenty of messages or themes for you to identify in this great dystopian novel, but one of the more interesting ones is the presentatino of creativity and artistic talent. We...
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Gathering Blue
I'm not sure whether you mean "expectations" or "exceptions" in this question, but I think the answer is the same. During Kira's trial, Vandara accuses her and invokes the rules of the society to...
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Gathering Blue
At the very beginning of this excellent novel we are told that Kira's mother died after a "brief and unexpected illness," which does little to raise our curiosity until we begin to understand more...
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Gathering Blue
The answer to this question can be found in Chapter One of this excellent follow up to The Giver. Remember that Matt, because he comes from the Fens, is not given a precise age. The narrator only...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
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,...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
You might want to consider the description we are given of the community of which Kira is a part, and the way that it features elements that are both pre- and post-Ruin. This helps to present us...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
The answer to this question can be found in Chapter Three of this excellent dystopian novel. As Kira is summoned before the Council of Guardians, we are told about the role of the Singer in singing...
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Gathering Blue
In the introduction to Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue audio book and in an interview with Scholastic (see below), the author hints at why she wrote the book. When she wrote The Giver, the companion...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
Kira is resourceful--although she is crippled, she finds ways to make herself useful even as a child, gathering cloth scraps from the looms. She is hard-working, a constant help to her mother and...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
In Gathering Blue, many effects that at first seem to have one cause end up having a completely different cause. For example, the novel opens with Kira's mother's death after a "brief and...
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Gathering Blue
The major frightening truth that Kira discovers is the truth about how brutal and manipulative the leaders of her society are. She learns that they (even when they seem to be nice and caring like...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
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,...
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Gathering Blue
Matt matures and grows more courageous over the course of Gathering Blue. In chapter 1, Matt meets Kira coming back to the village from the Field of Leaving. She hopes he will help her rebuild her...
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Gathering Blue
There are twenty-three chapters in Lois Lawry's novel.
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Gathering Blue
The first metaphor I see in the book is on page 2. It says that, as Kira watched her mother's spirit drift away, she could also see the "cindered fragments" of her childhood going up as well....
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
The protagonist of the story is Kira, born deformed in a society that shuns the infirm and the disabled. Thus, the society that usually casts out those like Kira would most likely be considered...
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Gathering Blue
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...
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Gathering Blue
Thomas was special because he was an artist. When he was still a very young boy, the guardians noticed his ability to carve wood. They apparently wanted to groom him as the official carver who...
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Gathering Blue
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...