The Books That Rock the Cradle

Libertarian themes in children's fiction.

Stuart Anderson from the January 2006 issue

You are 12 years old, and you're watching your father cradle an infant in his arms. He works for a special branch of the government tasked with population control and ensuring the health of those deemed "normal." He weighs the infant on a scale, then places the baby on a blanket. As you watch, he fills a needle with a clear liquid, then plunges the syringe into the baby's skull. The newborn squirms, wails faintly, and dies. You have just watched your father commit murder in the name of controlling the size and quality of the population. What would you do?

The scenario comes from Lois Lowry's 1993 novel The Giver, which won the prestigious Newberry Medal for children's fiction. If it doesn't strike you as the usual children's fare, you're right.

Many people perceive children's books as the most politically correct genre in all publishing. Look through the kids' section in your local bookstore, and you'll see aisle upon aisle of vanilla. These days, celebrities like Madonna and Jay Leno produce anodyne children's books carefully manufactured to contain nothing offensive to anyone. Although books for older readers will tackle serious issues, these will usually be "safe" themes--say, combating prejudice.

But not every book for young readers fits those stereotypes. During the last 12 years, two popular, critically acclaimed authors have written series that combine the familiar themes of rebellion and coming of age with some of the most subversive story lines seen in juvenile fiction. The novels of Lois Lowry, 68, and Margaret Peterson Haddix, 41, are thoroughly skeptical of the idea that the state should be an all-powerful benefactor. They have gained a large and loyal following, striking a receptive chord in a market not normally associated with anti-government themes.

The Giver tells of a futuristic society where the government directs births, marriages, career choices, food distribution, and more. Women are selected to give birth and their offspring are raised for one year in state-run day care centers. The children are then distributed to families, with each allowed only two kids--one boy and one girl. The Committee of Elders makes all decisions for individuals, who are heavily medicated to manage mood and desire.

A boy named Jonas is selected to train as a privileged adviser to the Committee of Elders, learning to absorb and differentiate good and bad emotions so he can recommend the best course to maintain social control. At one point Jonas, still naive, says, "We really have to protect people from wrong choices." His mentor, The Giver, an adviser to the Elders who has turned into a silent rebel, does not agree, and replies to Jonas with irony, "It's safer." It becomes clear to Jonas that making his own choices about how to live his life is anything but safe. He nevertheless decides to act after witnessing the government brutally wield its power to deal with those who dissent or allegedly impose a burden on society, such as the elderly or underweight infants.

The Giver is taught in many schools, public and private, around the country. The American Library Association ranked it the 11th most frequently challenged book by parents during the 1990s, having been banned for a time by the Bonita Unified School District in Southern California's Inland Empire and elsewhere, despite the fact that the book contains no profanity or explicit sexual references.

Lowry believes The Giver is best used in the seventh or eighth grades, and says some of the complaints have come from parents of younger kids being taught the book. Some of the objections, she says, come from those who are at least subconsciously reacting to the depiction of a boy who, when faced with a set of rules established for seemingly benevolent purposes, rebels and tries to change the rule book. Her rebuttal? That when faced with immoral leadership, "children have the right--and sometimes even the responsibility--to rebel."

Lowry got the idea for the book growing up in post-war Japan. Instead of experiencing life in a Japanese city as she hoped to do, her family lived in an enclosed faux-American city, complete with its own stores and movie theater. Years later, when she asked her parents why they did this, they told her it was to make the family feel safer. "I always resented the benevolent attempt to create comfort that takes away the opportunity and the richness of diversity that is out there," she says. The world of The Giver is a place where society's ills--crime, extreme poverty, divorce--are removed, but when you lift up the rock, Lowry says, you see the price paid. It's a comment on the "terrible compromises we're in danger of making to rid ourselves of [social problems] and the need to be vigilant."

Through the end of 2000, The Giver ranked as the 63rd best-selling children's book of all time, according to Publisher's Weekly, having sold more than 6.5 million copies in paperback. Movie rights have been sold, and the book has been translated into 21 languages.

Lowry followed The Giver with a sequel of sorts, Gathering Blue (2000), which presents a different community controlled by another group of wise men determined to impose their vision of how everyone else should live. It is a society where Kira, a girl with a twisted leg, must defend herself in a rudimentary court proceeding or be put to death as a burden on the community.

Kira turns out to be a skilled weaver, and she is allowed to live so the government can use her abilities. She grows to understand the leaders, known as "guardians": "The guardians with their stern faces had no creative power. But they had strength and cunning, and they had found a way to steal and harness other people's powers for their own needs." Paperback sales of Gathering Blue have reached 800,000.

A surprising third book, Messenger, published in 2004, connects characters from both The Giver and Gathering Blue. Lowry portrays a land that serves as a refuge for those who escape persecution, including from the societies described in the previous two books. It is a place where those who are different can live and thrive in freedom. But something changes in the people. They begin to care primarily about themselves, their personal appearance and petty wants, forgetting their humble origins and the welcome they received in this new land. These people, who would not be there but for the openness displayed to them or their parents, crowd a community meeting and say they no longer want to accept newcomers to their village: "Our school is not big enough to teach their children; only our own....They can't even speak right....We've done it long enough." And finally: "Close the village! Close the border!" The Messenger suggests that once people have achieved their own security they have few qualms about denying opportunity and security to others.

Margaret Peterson Haddix's series of books deals with the frightening effects of population control, describing a future where the government hunts down children born beyond the two-child-per-family limit. Using eugenics and population control as literary devices to warn against modern society's encroachment on the individual is not new. They're not often deployed, however, in novels for the young.

The first installment, Among the Hidden (1998), won an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults award. It's the story of Luke, a 12-year-old boy who must hide to avoid detection as a "third child," while his two older siblings live a normal life. Haddix establishes the story's tone on the second page, relating Luke's thoughts: "At twelve he knew better, but sometimes still pictured the Government as a very big, mean, fat person, two or three times as tall as an ordinary man, who went around yelling at people, 'Not allowed!' and 'Stop that!' " In Haddix's world, children and adults fear the government, rather than view it as a solution to their problems.