Gifts

Le Guin, U. K. (2006). Gifts. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc. ISBN 0-15-205124-4 (Originally published in 2004.)

Why read this book

Orrec is said to inherit the power to unmake things merely by looking at them, to turn a living rat into a boneless bag of hair, for example. Gry has inherited the power to call wild animals to her, which makes her perfectly suited to lure animals to their death during a hunt. But neither is comfortable using these powers. What will it mean for their lives if they challenge generations of family traditions?

Plot summary

Orrec and Gry live on neighboring feudal estates in the Uplands territory. They were born in the same year, they have been raised together, and in their early adolescence they must come to terms with the powers they have each inherited from their ancestors. Orrec’s family power is to unmake things by looking at them. His father can turn a living rat into a boneless bag of hair with a single glance or burn a line through a forest to mark the boundary with another estate. Gry’s mother can call the wild boars out of the mountains and into the clutches of hunters. Gry masters her mother’s powers easily but hates to use them to lure animals to their death. Orrec has trouble mastering his powers at all. He seems to kill a snake, to burn a hillside, and to kill his pet dog, but he doesn’t feel any control of his power and fears he will turn out like his ancestor Caddard who accidently killed his own wife and then blinded himself in remorse. Orrec asks his father to bind his eyes so he cannot misuse his power, a request his mother, who was raised in the lowland cities, finds superstitious and self-destructive. As a territorial dispute arises between Orrec’s family and an aggressive neighbor, Orrec wonders if his self-imposed blindness makes him useless in the strife or a weapon of fear.

Critical evaluation

Ursula Le Guin’s beautiful coming-of-age story works on many levels. It’s a story of young people finding their identity by learning if they are their mother’s child or their father’s child. It’s a story of finding discipline to use one’s talents wisely. It’s a story of moving beyond the old rural traditions and superstitions into a wider, new urban world.

Le Guin creates her setting carefully to allow all these possibilities to emerge from the story. Orrec and Gry live in the Uplands, a region halfway between the large, wealthy estates higher in the mountains and the cities in the lowlands. It’s a pre-industrial world with an economy based on farming, domesticated animals, and the bounty of the forests. The people in the Uplands live by feudal social traditions, with the most powerful family living in a large stone manor and the other families living both in service to and protected by the landlord. Le Guin evokes this environment so beautifully that the supernatural powers of the leading families seem perfectly natural and the younger generation’s challenges to their heritage are completely heartfelt.

Two figures from the lowlands offer Orrec and Gry glimpses of an option for a more modern way of living. Orrec’s mother is a lowlander whom his father kidnapped, although she connived in her own abduction on the hunch that she would find a better life with him than what she had. They are loving mates and warm parents, but they bequeath Orrec different paths to follow. Emmon is a thief who has wandered up from the lowlands and stays in Orrec’s house for a few months one winter. As Orrec and Gry describe their world to him, his questions help them see that they have more options than reliving the tragedies of their ancestors. Although the world that Le Guin creates for Orrec and Gry is far away and long ago, the dilemmas she spins for them will resonate easily with many contemporary teen readers.

About the author

Ursula Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California, in 1929. Her father was the noted anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and her mother was the writer Theodora Kroeber. Le Guin is a highly regarded writer who has published more than 20 novels and more than 100 short stories, most of them science fiction and fantasy, for adults and young adults. She has also published children’s stories. She has received a National Book Award, five Hugo Awards, five Nebula Awards, the Kafka Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the Howard Vursell Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Gifts is the first volume of a trilogy called Annals of the Western Shores that also includes Voices (2006) and Powers (2007) (Thompson, 2007; Le Guin, 2009).

Genre: Coming of Age, Supernatural powers

Curriculum ties

• When teaching the Industrial Revolution, it’s important that students first understand the nature of pre-industrial life. Le Guin’s early descriptions of life in Caspromant would be a useful way to convey that concept.

• Gifts would be a good resource for any course or unit designed to help young people explore their identity, since that is what Orrec and Gry are doing in this novel.

Book-talking ideas

• Reading any of the three passages where Orrec seems to exercise his powers should catch the attention of students who like reading fantasy stories.

• Read the passage where Orrec decides to bind his eyes (p. 121-124) and discuss whether students would choose to limit a supernatural power like that if they had one.

Reading level/interest age

The innocence of this story makes it appropriate for younger teens and the richness of the themes means that many older teens will also find it engaging.

Challenge issues

The innocence of the story makes it hard to imagine that anyone would challenge its place in either a school library or a public library. There is no sex, no profanity, and almost no violence. The battle near the end is brief and not sensationalized.

Responses

• Remind the challenger of the policy (in the case of the San Francisco Public Library) to present “all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.”

Why I chose to read this book

I was browsing the teen section of the public library when this book caught my eye. I’ve heard good things about Ursula Le Guin for many years but had never read one of her books. Now I see why everyone enjoys her so much.

References

Le Guin, U. K. (2009). Ursula K. Le Guin: Biographical sketch. Retrieved November 28, 2009, from http://www.ursulakleguin.com/BiographicalSketch.html

Thompson, C. (Ed.). (2007). Le Guin, Ursula K. World Authors 2007. Retrieved November 28, 2009 from http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/hww/results/getResults.jhtml?_DARGS=/hww/results/results_common.jhtml.33