Perfect Society

The date: Thursday, 27 April 2006
The time: 11:15 a.m. Fourth hour English 9 class
The activity: Prereading questions over Lois Lowry’s The Giver
The people: A group of 4 15-year-old boys … and one English teacher nearby eavesdropping

Okay, question #1. Have you ever read another book by Lois Lowry. If so, what was it about?

Yeah, we read that one in sixth grade.

Yeah, what was that called?

Something about dogs and Denmark. And a picnic basket. Oh yeah, and the Holocaust.

Wait, was it that one about the Holocaust?

Oh yeah—it was.

You can’t remember it was about the Holocaust, but you remember there were dogs and a freaking picnic basket in the story?

Attention to detail, my friend.

Moving on. Let’s answer question two. You guys, what was the story about?

People died.

People cried.

You guys are doing it wrong. You’re supposed to put what you thought about the book, not what it was about. So put … [in a monotone voice] it was good.

Yeah, it was good, it was … extravagant.

It was inspirational.

Put stars around “inspirational”.

Yeah, so she knows it’s good.

Okay, we have it was good, extravagant, and inspirational with stars. Next question: what would it take to make a perfect society?

Bunnies!! Lots of bunnies.

Penguins can fly.

Air-powered cars.

Lots of water.

With floodgates. [Defending his choice] What? We don’t want to die from the rain.

No guns. Wait, let’s have guns! … BUBBLE guns.

Law #1: Everyone must have a bubble gun on them at all times.

Lots of machines that do our work.

Robots!

Willy Wonka exists.

There’s sand everywhere!! We live on a beach.

Everyone’s rich!

(scoffing) That wouldn’t work—everyone can’t be rich!

Oh, Willy Wonka can exist but everyone can’t be rich?!?

Okay, okay, here’s what we should do: Let’s take off the beach thing. That wouldn’t work. We’d all have to drive SVUs for that to work.

Good point.

So cross off the beach thing and just leave everyone is rich. If anyone argues the point with us, we’ll just say we meant everyone’s rich with …

Love! Everyone’s rich with love.

Except us. We’re rich with money.

Just us?

Yeah. And that’s how we know it’s a perfect society. Because *we’re* the happy ones. We have money and lots of pet bunnies. What could be better?