Reading The Giver

What does the author say about the ending?

· Read below to find out what Lois Lowry has to say about the ending of her book.
A message from the Author
                    [This is a transcript of the response that Lois Lowry gave to
                    young people who questioned her about The Giver.]
                   Many kids want a more specific ending to The Giver. Some
                   write, or ask me when they see me, to spell it out exactly. And
                   I don't do that. And the reason is because The Giver is many
                   things to many different people. People bring to it their own
                   complicated sense of beliefs and hopes and dreams and fears
                   and all of that. So I don't want to put my own feelings into it,
                   my own beliefs, and ruin that for people who create their own
                   endings in their minds.
                   I will say that I find it an optimistic ending. How could it not be
                   an optimistic ending, a happy ending, when that house is there
                   with its lights on and music is playing? So I'm always kind of
                   surprised and disappointed when some people tell me that they
                   think that the boy and the baby just die. I don't think they die.
                   What form their new life takes is something I like people to
                   figure out for themselves. And each person will give it a
                   different ending.
                   In answer to the people who ask whether I'm going to write a
                   sequel, they are sometimes disappointed to hear that I don't
                   plan to do that. But in order to write a sequel, I would have to
                   say: this is how it ended. Here they are and here's what's
                   happening next. And that might be the wrong ending for many,
                   many people who chose something different.
                   Of course there are those who could say I can't write a sequel
                   because they die. That's true if I just said, Well, too bad, sorry,
                   they died there in the snow, therefore that's the end, no more
                   books. But I don't think that. I think they're out there
                   somewhere and I think that their life has changed and their life
                   is happy and I would like to think that's true for the people they
                   left behind as well.
                [Taken from http://www.randomhouse.com/teachers/guides/give.html]

· Did the author’s response surprise you?  Do you think that sometimes your own writing may get interpreted differently?  How does that make you feel?