Common Sense Media Review
By Patricia Tauzer
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Classic battle pulls quest quartet to exciting conclusion.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 11+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
Parent and Kid Reviews
Based on 2 parent reviews
Based on 15 kid reviews
Kids say this book delivers a powerful conclusion to the series, highlighting themes of love, sacrifice, and emotional depth through the protagonist, Claire. While some find it too mature for younger audiences due to brief mentions of violence and sexual content, many readers appreciate the strong character development and emotional impact that make it a worthy read.
- emotional depth
- mature themes
- strong characters
- satisfying conclusion
- love and sacrifice
Summarized with AI
Summarized with AI
What's the Story?
The Son begins as Claire's story, then interweaves with the stories of Jonas, Kira, and Matt (of the previous three books in the quartet), and ends as her son Gabe's story. All are heroic quests of different sorts that deal with similar themes of an unlikely hero confronting or escaping evil. As a young girl, Claire's selected to be a "vessel" -- to bear children for the community. She's not thrilled with the idea and doesn't really understand what it's all about. When her "product" (child) has to be delivered by caesarian section, she's considered a failure and is reasssigned to work in the fish hatchery. But one mistake is made: The community doesn't restart her on the pills given to all the nonvessels to make them impotent and passionless. She's driven to find her child and hopes to escape with him. But he disappears before she can effect a plan. Nevertheless, she takes off, hoping to find him. Eventually, after an arduous journey, she makes a deal with the Trademaster, a black-cloaked, violent personification of pure evil and finds Gabe, but her deal will make things complicated. Then it becomes Gabe's story, which pulls all four books together in a final confrontation with the ultimate force of evil.
Is It Any Good?
SON is adventurous, exciting, and very engaging, especially the second and third sections. Some readers may not enjoy the beginning chapters that describe Claire's experience in the birthing facility as much as the later parts, where she finds her strength, builds on it, and takes off on her quest journey. From then on, through Gabe's final confrontation with the Trademaster, the action and intrigue don't stop.
While author Lois Lowry uses many classic images, she adds enough creative twists to make the stories unique. And she masterfully pulls all the stories together to make her larger point about the importance of personal freedom, the strength of love, and the value of believing in yourself. Readers will understand and enjoy The Son more if they have read each of the other three books in The Giver quartet beforehand, though it could stand on its own.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the various trades that people made in the book. Do you think any of them made sense? Could Claire have done anything else? What kinds of trades would you be willing to make?
Son is the fourth book in a quartet. Do you think Books 2, 3, and 4 added to the story of The Giver and made it better? Is it what you expected would happen? Do you appreciate knowing the conclusion?
Why do you think it's so important for Gabe to face the Trademaster alone? Can you think of other stories where a small but innocent and good hero dares to confront a mighty foe who seems to have all the power and weapons?
Book Details
- Author :
- Genre : Science Fiction
- Topics : Adventures
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Publication date : October 2, 2012
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 12 - 18
- Number of pages : 400
- Available on : Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, Apple Books, Kindle
- Last updated : October 9, 2025
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