Thank Goodness for Flashlights

I'm 14 years old. It's 2 AM on a Wednesday night and I'm sobbing over a tragedy that isn't real and characters who don't exist. 

I'm laying on my bed on my right side with my right forearm curled around the back binding of a thick novel, my fingers holding the pages and binding in place. A propped-up flashlight's beam illuminates the left page, and when I finish that page, I'll prop myself up and switch the flashlight so it shines on the right page until it's time to lay back down. This subconscious back and fourth will probably continue for another hour. I'm exhausted, I have seven a.m. Bible Study in the morning, not to mention school, choir, student government, and dance, but I'm actually only thinking about the characters in this book and the injustices of humanity that plague their fictional lives. 

That's the power of a good book. 

I could have been reading anything from Jane Eyre to The Kite Runner that night, but it was very likely The Giver by Lois Lowry, a book I read for the first time when I was eleven years old, but continue to pick up off the shelf for a quick, thoughtful read every now and then. I vividly remember the first time I read The Giver, because I was captivated by the idea of a Utopian society which didn't allow for human relationships, emotions, or memories. Though I had read life changing novels before, such as Holes by Louis Sachar and Harry Potter by JK Rowling, The Giver was the first in a series of novels like Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies which would cause me to seriously reflect on my place in society and the human race. I felt so much anxiety and loneliness for Jonas, who was the lone "receiver" of human memories in a society which protected it's citizens from the pains and joys of history. I knew that the setting of the novel wasn't real, but reading it caused me to ask myself a lot of "what if's" and a lot of "Why's?" "What if I couldn't pick my own career?" "What if my parents didn't love each other?" "What if they didn't love me?" "Why do we tolerate so much evil in the world?" "Why does the government allow people to abuse their freedom to make decisions?" 

These are pretty big questions for an eleven year old, and I think it was while reading this novel I realized the artistic value of literature, and the fact that it could change me in ways beyond simply enjoying the consumption of literature, but continuing to ponder its inherit themes and questions outside of my actual reading of the novel. The Giver is the first novel I can remember striking me in a philosophical way, and it started me on a path of critical reading analysis that has shaped my educational and career choices as well as my outlook on life in general.