Black ink on a page by Danielle

Black ink on a page by Danielle - May 2017 Scholarship Essay

I think “The Giver” by Lois Lowry really influenced my life, I read this book my fifth grade year and as well as my seventh grade year. When I first read this book in the fifth grade, I did not think much of it, it was just a book that was a part of my daily 30-minute reading. But as I got older, my brain and thoughts began to mature.
Our first reading class of the seventh grade is when we were given the syllabus for the class, just like every other class I had ever gone to. But what was different this time were the names of the books on this single sheet of paper. The one name that stood out to me was “The Giver” and honestly the first thing that I thought was, “no, not this book again.” But as we began to read the book and annotate it in our own ways I begin to get intrigued with the black print on the paper.
One main theme of the book that really stood out to me was the idea of conforming. Although this was pretty much the major over-arching theme of the book, it really connected with my real life situations. I am personally not a big fan of conforming and going mainstream, but I am also not what one would classify as a “hipster”. This book really brought to light the struggle of finding one’s own true identity.