Gathering Blue is a 2000 children's

Children's literature

Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

, social science fiction

Social science fiction

Social science fiction is a term used to describe a subgenre of science fiction concerned less with technology and space opera and more with sociological speculation about human society...

, dystopian novel by noted children's author Lois Lowry

Lois Lowry

Lois Lowry is an American author of children's literature. She began her career as a photographer and a freelance journalist during the early 1970s...

. The book is a companion novel to The Giver

The Giver

The Giver is a 1993 soft science fiction novel by Lois Lowry. It is set in a society which is at first presented as a utopian society and gradually appears more and more dystopian. The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the twelfth year of his life...

(1993), and is followed by Messenger

Messenger (novel)

Messenger is a 2004 novel by children's author Lois Lowry. It forms the third installment of the loose trilogy begun by her 1993 novel The Giver, which won the 1994 Newbery Medal. This novel is speculated to take place in the year 2073, about eight years after the events of The Giver, and about six...

(2004) in The Giver trilogy. It is set in the same future time period and it treats some of the same themes. The central character, Kira, who has a twisted leg, is orphaned and must learn to survive in a society which normally leaves the weak or disabled

Disability

A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...

exposed to die in the fields.