The Giver Ch. 3

          Chapter Three begins with Jonas and Lily looking at Gabriel, the baby that Father had been so worried about in chapter one.  Father got permission for the baby to stay with their family at night, to give the baby some extra special care.  Lily tells Jonas, "He has funny eyes like yours, Jonas!"  The new baby and Jonas both have pale eyes, which is very unusual in the community.  Almost everyone in the community has the same dark eyes.  There is only one other person in the community, a young girl, who has pale eyes like Jonas and Gabriel.  No one ever talks about it, because it is rude to talk about people's differences in this community.



          Jonas' family puts away the baby's blanket and his comfort object- a soft toy that each baby gets to hold.  Lily asks, "What's his comfort object called?"  Each child's comfort object is a soft, stuffed, imaginary creature.  Lily has one that is called and "elephant."  Jonas' comfort object had been called a "bear," but he is too old to have it now.  Father reads the name of the comfort object, and says that it is called a "Hippo."

           Lily says, "I think newchildren are so cute.  I hope I get assigned to be a Birthmother."  Lily's mother doesn't like that.  She says that being a Birthmother is a bad assignment, because they are lazy for three years while they produce three children, and then they work as Laborers for the rest of their lives.  Father says, "Birthmothers never even get to see newchildren.  If you enjoy the little ones so much, you should hope for an Assignment as a Nurturer."

          While Jonas is thinking about Lily, who is never quiet and always has her hair ribbons untied, he remembers a time when he broke the rules.  It happened last month.  Jonas was playing with his best friend Asher during recreation time.  They were playing catch with an apple.  When the apple was in the air, it changed.  It looked different for a moment, but then it looked normal again.  That happened three times.  Jonas took the apple home to look at it more, and his mistake was announced to the whole community.  Jonas felt embarrassed and confused.  He couldn't describe what had happened, or how the apple had changed.


Vocabulary Words:  
pale, dark, rude, differences, imaginary, creature, recreation, change, embarrassed, confused

Words that have special meaning in this book: (what do they mean in THIS STORY?)
release, comfort object, newchildren, assignment, birthmother, nurturer,

Questions:
1.  What is special about Gabriel?
2.  What job does Lily want to have?
3.  What is a Birthmother's job?
4.  Do Birthmothers get to see their own babies?
5.  What happened to the apple when Jonas looked at it?

* THINK- the story says that animals are "imaginary creatures."  It also talks about eye color as "pale" and "dark"- color is never talked about.  DO YOU THINK THERE ARE ANIMALS IN JONAS' WORLD?  HOW ABOUT COLOR?  WHY?

* THINK- If "Birthmother" is an Assignment (job), and each Birthmother has to have 3 babies, but birthmothers NEVER SEE babies, what happens to babies in Jonas' community?  How are families created?  What do you think about this- is it a good thing?  How do you feel about it?