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50 free The Giver trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Giver has been a middle-school staple and a banned-books-list regular since 1993, which is exactly why it still gets argued about. These The Giver trivia questions cover the novel itself — the Ceremony of Twelve, the first memory, what release really means — plus the three companion books, the 2014 film and the author behind it all. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Good for a class review, a book club or a reader who just finished the last page.
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Q 01Who wrote The Giver?
Lois Lowry
She had already won a Newbery Medal for Number the Stars before The Giver earned her a second one.
Q 02In which year was The Giver first published?
1993
It arrived four years after Number the Stars and won the Newbery Medal the following year.
Q 03Which major children's literature award did The Giver win in 1994?
Newbery Medal
The same book also picked up the 1994 Regina Medal and the 1996 William Allen White Award.
Q 04How old is Jonas when the novel begins?
12
The 2014 film aged him up to 16 so the cast could play a romance that is barely hinted at in the book.
Q 05What is the name of the plan that removed pain, strife and emotional depth from society?
Sameness
Under it the community also lost color, climate and terrain, leaving a flat world in every sense.
Q 06What position is Jonas selected to inherit?
Receiver of Memory
The holder stores every memory from before Sameness and is the only person allowed to read forbidden books.
Q 07At which annual event are children assigned their life's work?
The Ceremony of Twelve
Jonas is the only child not called in turn, which the Chief Elder explains afterward as a deliberate omission.
Q 08What job does Jonas's father hold in the Community?
Nurturer
The role means caring for infants, which is what makes the later release video so devastating.
Q 09What physical trait do Jonas and the current Receiver unusually share?
Pale eyes
The baby Jonas's father brings home has the same trait, a sign that he too can receive memories.
Q 10Which normally forbidden act do Jonas's new rules permit him to do?
Lie
He is also allowed to withhold his feelings from his family, cutting him off from the nightly sharing ritual.
Q 11What is the first memory the Giver transmits to Jonas?
Sledding down a snowy hill
Jonas has never seen snow, a hill or a sled, since climate control and flattened terrain removed all three.
Q 12What does the Giver show Jonas to introduce him to color?
A rainbow
Even color was surrendered under Sameness, so every object in the Community reads as the same flat tone.
Q 13Which two painful experiences does the Giver pass on as darker memories?
Hunger and war
These are the memories that broke the previous apprentice, and they are what the Community wants shielded from.
Q 21What name does Jonas use for his mysterious ability to perceive what others cannot?
Seeing beyond
He uses it at the border to find a sled waiting at the top of a snowy hill, mirroring his very first memory.
Q 22At a 2009 festival, what did the author joke about Jonas to end the debate over the ending?
He is alive
The later Quartet books confirm it, with Jonas turning up as the leader of a village called Village.
Q 23Roughly how many copies has The Giver sold worldwide?
More than 12 million
A 2012 School Library Journal survey ranked it the fourth-best children's novel of all time.
Q 14What was the name of the Giver's previous apprentice?
Rosemary
She could not endure the darker memories and was released, which sent her memories flooding back into the Community.
Q 15The Giver's failed apprentice turns out to be his what?
Daughter
He plans to stay behind and help the Community cope with its returned memories before joining her in death.
Q 16What is the name of the infant Jonas's father brings home at night?
Gabriel
He only keeps the name if he grows strong enough to be assigned to a family; otherwise he faces release.
Q 17In everyday Community speech, what are released people said to have gone to?
Elsewhere
The word hides a lethal injection, which Jonas only learns when he watches a recording of his father at work.
Q 18In the video Jonas watches, why is one newborn twin released?
Identical members are forbidden
The smaller twin is killed by injection and put down a trash chute, which is how Jonas learns what release means.
Q 19How do Jonas and the Giver plan to limit the search once Jonas leaves?
Fake his drowning
The plan is abandoned when Jonas flees early after learning the baby is about to be released.
Q 20What does Jonas believe he hears for the first time at the end of the novel?
Music
He sleds toward a house with colored lights and a Christmas tree, though the scene may be hypothermia setting in.
Q 24Where did The Giver rank on the ALA's most challenged books list for the 1990s?
#11
It slipped to #23 in the 2000s and #61 in the 2010s, but it is still assigned in many middle schools.
Q 25Which family experience inspired the author to write The Giver?
Her father's senility
He kept forgetting her sister's long-ago death, and she imagined a world where people are spared painful memories.
Q 26The author partly based the Community's setting on what kind of place from her childhood?
Army bases
Her father was an army dentist, so the family moved between closely guarded posts across the US and abroad.
Q 27Which earlier book earned the author her first major children's book medal, in 1990?
Number the Stars
It is set in Nazi-occupied Denmark and also won the National Jewish Book Award in the children's category.
Q 28In which city was the author of The Giver born?
Honolulu
Her parents first named her Cena after a Norwegian grandmother, who telegraphed to insist on an American name instead.
Q 29How old was the author when her first book, A Summer to Die, was published?
40
A Houghton Mifflin editor read her Redbook short story and suggested she try writing for children.
Q 30How many books make up the series that began with The Giver?
Four
The group is called The Giver Quartet, and the final book ties all the earlier storylines together.