Gathering Blue
EDU 1400
Jennifer Tingey, Janna Trovalto, Carli White
Summary of Book - Jennifer Tingey
Gathering Blue is a continuation of Lois Lowry’s novel, The Giver. The main character,
Kira, a crippled, teenage girl, finds herself an orphan after her father is killed by beasts before
she was born, and her mother succumbs to an illness and is left in the Field. She is faced with the
harsh realities of society when she is confronted by a woman named Vandara, who holds to the
belief that handicapped people are useless and a burden to society and therefore should be forced
to the Field to be taken by beasts. Vandara and the other women of the village want to build a
pen for the children on the land where Kira grew up, thinking that is a better use of the land than
giving it to Kira. The issue goes to the council to settle the dispute.
At the hearing, Councilman Jamison defends Kira’s right to be in their society based on
her advanced embroidery skills. Kira’s skill surpassed that of the villagers when she was a child
and her talent continues to grow. The Council spares Kira from the Field but they do grant the
land to Vandara. Kira is known now as Kira the Threader and is to live within the Council
Edifice and is given the prestigious task of mending the Singer’s Robe. The robe is intricately
embroidered with the history of the people and is usually seen only once a year, when the Singer
sings the Story.
Kira finds her new life strange, yet comfortable. She no longer worries or wants for
anything. All that is required of her is to repair and finish the Singer’s Robe. She soon learns that
another boy lives within the building. Thomas has lived in the Edifice since his parents were
killed by beasts when he was a young child. Thomas the Carver is a very skilled woodworker
and his task is to keep the Singer’s Staff in perfect condition and eventually finish the Staff.
While Kira learned a lot from her mother who fixed the Robe when necessary, she doesn’t know
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Gathering Blue
EDU 1400
Jennifer Tingey, Janna Trovalto, Carli White
everything about dying the threads. Kira is sent to an elderly woman’s, Annabella, who lives
outside of the village who has a vast knowledge of how to dye threads. Kira takes her little friend
Matt on the long journey to Annabella’s hut every day so Kira can learn from Annabella.
Annabella teaches Kira how to make every color imaginable, except blue, no one has the
knowledge to make the color blue.
Kira notices one patch of blue on the Singer’s Robe and asks Annabella where it came
from. Annabella tells Kira and Matt that it came from yonder, indicating further down the path.
One day, Kira makes the journey to Annabella’s without Matt and his dog, Branch. On the
journey she was convinced she heard the beast and didn’t know if she would be able to escape if
they attacked. When she arrives at Annabella’s hut, Kira tells her of the noises in the wood and
how frightened she was. Annabella tells Kira that there are no beasts and that she is perfectly
safe. Kira dismisses Annabella’s claim of no beasts due to her age, but is so disturbed by her
claim that she tells Jamison. Jamison dismisses the claims as that of an elderly woman. The next
day, Kira is on her way to Annabella’s when Matt tells her that Annabella has died and has
already been taken to the Field.
After Annabella’s death, Kira stays on the Edifice ground all day and learns more from
Thomas. Thomas tells Kira and Matt that he has heard singing and a child crying coming from
the floor below him. Matt suggests that it might be the little girl from the Fen that was taken a
few weeks prior. It was said that the little girl, Jo, could sing like an angel. Thomas and Kira go
to investigate later that evening. They sneak down the steps and spy Jamison unlocking a door
and scolding whoever was behind it. He locks the door behind him as he leaves. Thomas and
Kira go to the door and hear a young child crying. Thomas produces a key he had carved when
he was younger that will open any door in the Edifice. Using the key, they open the room to find
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Gathering Blue
EDU 1400
Jennifer Tingey, Janna Trovalto, Carli White
the little tyke named Jo. She is forced every day to practice the same song the Singer uses to tell
the history of the people. Kira and Thomas show Jo how to contact them by climbing a cabinet
and tapping the ceiling with her hairbrush if she needs them.
The day of the Gather is finally here. The Singer dons the Robe Kira repaired and uses
the Staff Thomas fixed. As the Singer climbs the steps to sing, Kira notices that his ankles are
shackled, bleeding, and look like they are infected. Kira finally makes the connection that all of
the people the Council deems as Artists are kept within the confines of the Edifice. She had felt
somewhat free but now she realizes that she will always have to mend the Singer’s Robe.
In the days leading up to the Gathering Matt leaves on a mission without telling Kira. He
suddenly appears during midday break of the Gathering and informs he has two gifts for her.
First is a blue piece of cloth. After the Gathering is over Matt introduces her to a blind man in a
blue shirt, the same color as the piece of cloth Matt had given her earlier. The blind man
identifies himself as Christopher, Kira’s father. He told her that he wasn’t attacked by beasts, but
by a group of men lead by Jamison. They had attacked him and left him for dead in the Field.
Christopher was rescued by a group of people that lived farther down the path. Christopher’s
village is full of people with all types of disabilities. What one person lacks, another makes up.
They take care of each other and never go hungry. Christopher wants Kira, Jo, Matt, and Thomas
all to come back with him. All but Matt stay in the village but Kira promises to come back with
Matt one day after she has finished the Robe.
Description of Character who is Disabled - Carli White
Kira was born with a twisted leg. At first the village wanted her to just be taken to the
Field for her to die. They did not want the burden of someone in their village who could not take
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Gathering Blue
EDU 1400
Jennifer Tingey, Janna Trovalto, Carli White
care of themselves. Kira’s mother Katrina petitioned to the Council of the Guardians to be
allowed to keep her daughter and raise her. The Council was hesitant because Katrina would be a
single mother. Her husband Christopher had been taken away by beasts during one of the hunts
leaving Katrina pregnant. With the help of Katrina’s father, the Council conceded Katrina’s point
and allowed Kira to live.
When Kira was a young tyke her mother noticed that she had a gift with her hands. While
Kira could not walk without the help of her walking stick, she had strong powerful hands. Her
hands could create beautiful embroidery on any piece of cloth. Katrina noticed that Kira could
embroider things that she had never seen. Katrina trained her as much as she could possibly
knowing that one day Kira would be on her own. Katrina soon died leaving Kira alone. Fighting
to be able to keep her place in the village Kira is allowed to stay in the Edifice as the Threader.
This is a very honorable title that she received. She would repair the Singer’s Robe and
eventually finish telling the history of their village. What she didn’t realize was that when she
would embroider it was something magical. She could embroider things that had not happened
yet. She realized that Thomas had the same kind of gift but with wood. They both were
celebrated by the village for their talents.
Kira soon realized after coming to the Edifice that all of the artists were not free to leave.
They were trapped by their gifts that caused them to be cherished. For her she was trapped by the
gift that saved her life. The gift that eventually led her to find her father, Christopher who lived
in the village of healing down the path. He implored her to leave and to go back with him. He
knew that there she would be safe and cherished for who she was, not just for her gift with
threads.
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Gathering Blue
EDU 1400
Jennifer Tingey, Janna Trovalto, Carli White
How Character with Disabilities is Treated and Why - Carli White
Within her own village Kira is despised because of her disability. She is treated horribly
by the fellow citizens of the village because they do not want to be burdened by her disability.
After her mother died, Kira is left to defend herself from the villagers. Lead by Vandara, the
women of the village come at her with stones. They want to intimidate her to choose to go to the
Field herself, but they were also willing to do so by force with the stones. They were more
willing to stone her than to allow her to remain where she was. The villagers were so closeminded because the Council wants to protect it from any harm. They wanted a perfect village, a
village where no one was disfigured. The only two visibly disfigured people that it describes
from the village are Kira and Vandara. While Kira is disfigured to the point where she cannot do
some normal tasks and no man would want to have her as a wife, Vandara has an ugly scar
running down her face from when she fought the beasts. Kira’s disfigurement is a disability
while Vandara’s does not affect her ability to work.
The villagers do not seem to understand that people with disabilities are still people. They
treat them very poorly because they view them as lesser beings. Even when Kira lived in the
villager with her mother, she was only allowed to pick up scraps from the weaving shed. She was
not being taught how to do things by anyone other than her mother. The villagers do not care
about other people they care only about themselves. All they want to do is make life as easy as
possible for themselves. They are being lied to by the Council to make it so that they do not look
to other places and that they treat everyone the same.
Social Norms for This Disability During Time Frame of Book - Carli White
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Gathering Blue
EDU 1400
Jennifer Tingey, Janna Trovalto, Carli White
It is a little difficult to describe the social norms for this disability during the time frame
of the book since it is a future dystopian society, but I presume that it is much like that of the
1800’s - 1900’s. In our culture during those times we would put those who had a disability into
an institution rather than allow them to live in normal society. That is similar to what happened
with Kira. She had little contact with the other villagers, she mostly stayed by herself with her
mother, then after she moved to the Edifice she was forced to stay there. During the time when
physical labor was intense, someone with a disability such as Kira’s, would not be able to do the
physical labor and may have been left alone or left to die.
One thing that I gathered from the book was the fact that the Council was a lot like the
Hitler Regime in the early 1900’s. They started off by picking off people of power who would
stop them. That is shown by Jamison attempting to kill Christopher and blaming the beasts. The
fear of the beasts is just like the fear of the Jews that the Nazi party had. The villagers went out
to hunt the beasts, that didn’t exist. During these hunts some people do die, but not from the
beasts as people claim. This is like the gas chambers. The innocent killing of people who do not
agree with your views or are different. They wanted to leave Kira out for the beasts because of
her disability. When that didn’t work they decided to take her away and save her, just as Dr.
Mengele did in the concentration camps. Because Kira was different, they wanted to watch her
and study her. They used her talents to force her to create beautiful things such as the Singer’s
Robe. Kira was very determined to live. She refused to give up on herself. She refuses to
succumb to the debilitating thoughts of her society. She has seen a better way. To me the village
of healing is much like what the Jews thought of the United States after the war. Someplace safe.
Kira is just one example of many. She is not appreciated by her society for what she can
do. All they focus on is what she cannot do. At times I still notice this today but it was far more
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Gathering Blue
EDU 1400
Jennifer Tingey, Janna Trovalto, Carli White
prevalent in the past. I still wonder how different the book would have been if Kira and Katrina
had gone to live in the village of healing instead of their own village. That would have been a
very different story.
Progress Society has Made Since Book or What Should Be Done - Janna Trovato
The time period is not specified in this book, but you know that it is a futuristic dystopian
society. The language and voice of the characters and the village is very primitive. They hunt
with handmade tools, create fire for light and warmth, and do most daily tasks by hand. They
make their own clothing, huts, cots, even threads. They are geared towards “survival of the
fittest”. You can clearly see this by the customs of their society. Everyone hunts for themselves,
does what needs to be done to survive, and are at times so focused on themselves that the book
talks of parents giving away their children or treating them in a harsh manner.
Kira is thought to be a useless individual who has no place in the village. Not just Kira,
but anyone who had any sort of “abnormal” physical or mental feature. These individuals could
not contribute and in return are sent to the field to be left to the beasts. In some areas of the world
today, individuals with disabilities are still thought to be useless in society and are not
technically sent out into the wilderness to die, but simply left alone. These parts of the world
tend to be less advanced living this primitive lifestyle from the book. Third world countries are a
prime example of areas that carry on this thinking pattern. Not many societies today cling to this
concept, but it still exists.
Unlike in Gathering Blue the United States has moved past this idea and uses people with
disabilities. Everyone has a place and a purpose in this world. Today we have schools, jobs,
athletics, and other resources that people with disabilities are involved in. If they desire, they can
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Gathering Blue
EDU 1400
Jennifer Tingey, Janna Trovalto, Carli White
live life and have purpose and meaning, not being defined by their disability. Life in the new
millennium has a changed way of thinking, being more generous to others. Of course we still
have prejudices and discrimination today but they are expressed differently and are not to the
same extent as detailed in the book Today, you may see someone stare or speak down to a people
with disabilities. In Gathering Blue people didn’t even bother to stare or speak. They simply
pushed the person out of the village and left them for dead.
At the end of the book you discover that there is another community far away from the
one our main character lives in. Here individuals live both with and without disabilities; or as
they say in the book there are individuals living there who are “broken”. This village always is
helping one with another and gives to others for the benefit of the community. I believe this
village shows more of the modern ideas behind the treatment of people with disabilities in our
community.
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