A Great Comparison for "The Giver"

In my Library Services class at UTM, we read The Giver by Lois Lowry. I was fortunate enough to get a newer publication of the book that featured a letter from the author. In her letter, Lowry mentioned how The Giver has touched so many lives and inspired a depth of emotion for her readers. She also included how she received a letter from a fan telling her, "I hope you get help." While I definitely enjoyed the book, it really did not provoke a life changing feeling in me. Something I do want to mention that I noticed while reading The Giver was it's similarities to a series of books I read about a year ago called Matched.

The similarities were almost too much for me. I'm not sure if Ally Condie (the author of the Matched trilogy) has cited The Giver as her inspiration, but she definitely should have. When thinking about my own classroom, I'm not sure if I would choose The Giver or Matched. While I think The Giver is much better written, Matched gives you the ending craved by all readers that The Giver did not exactly deliver.While I had a hard time staying focused during Matched because of the lack of details and depth that I enjoy in a book, I think middle school students might actually like Matched's "to the point" style. I think a good strategy for the classroom would be to give students a choice in which book they want to read. After each group has finished their book, the class could explain and compare and contrast what happened in their book of choice. (This is one of those moments I think English might have been a better fit for me over Math.)