Have you ever thought about what it would be like not to be free? What would it be like not to be able to make choices? What would it be like not to be able to do what you want? It's scary to think about not being free, but even in the world today some people don't even have basic human freedoms. Lois Lowry shows us in her books The Giver and Gathering Blue what it would be like not to have freedom and how important it is that we have it.

Kira, a two syllable or teenage girl also a character in the book Gathering Blue, is living with her mother in a small village. After her mother dies from a mysterious disease, Kira is left orphaned and with most of the village against her because of her twisted leg. The people of the village want her...