As Lois Lowry stated in her acceptance speech when she won the Newbery Medal for The Giver, she began writing a book that takes place in a utopia, where everything is perfect. She learned from her memories that living in a perfect society is not risk-free, that dangers lurk in a society in which everything is the same and in which the freedom to choose how to live has been given up. Lowry's memories are the basis for The Giver, and her writing conveys lessons about life to her readers.
Lowry lived with her family in an Americanized community in Tokyo, Japan, when she was a young girl. The community was very familiar and safe because it resembled other communities in the United States, where she'd lived earlier in her life. While in Tokyo, Lowry oftentimes rode her bike to visit a nearby Japanese community, where everything was foreign to her, including the language, colors, smells, and even the way people dressed and acted. Lowry used this experience to create the community in which Jonas, the protagonist, or main character, in The Giver, lives. Jonas' community is very predictable, familiar, and safe. Lowry also created Elsewhere, the world outside the community that is believed to be different, dangerous, and inferior.
Years after Lowry interviewed and photographed an artist named Carl Nelson (whose photograph is on the cover of the Laurel-Leaf edition of The Giver), she learned that Nelson had become blind. Because Nelson was a painter, Lowry wondered what it must have been like for Nelson when his world became colorless. Lowry used this situation to create a colorless community in The Giver, where people do not see color; therefore, everything has the same color — none.
