People in the know say 'The Giver' was the first young adult dystopian novel.

For Kirsti, the soldiers were simply part of the landscape, something.

It bothered him a little to lie about small things. But he always had; he had grown up lying, and he still found it strange that the people in this place where he now lived thought lying was wrong. To Matty, it was sometimes a way of making things easier, more comfortable, more convenient.

Oh, sometimes it’s just easier to please people,” Maria said finally.

Artist?” Thomas suggested. “That’s a word. I’ve never heard anyone say it, but I’ve read it in some of the books. It means, well, someone who is able to make something beautiful. Would that be the word?

You know, sometimes it’s nice to just have someone to blame, even if it has to be yourself, even if it doesn’t make sense.

But this room’s walls were completely covered by bookcases, filled, which reached to the ceiling. There must have been hundreds – perhaps thousands – of books, their titles embossed in shiny letters.

Friends will take care of them. That’s what friends do.

The exemption from rudeness startled him. Reading it again, however, he realized that it didn’t compel him to be rude; it simply allowed him the option.

NEFARIOUS means utterly, completely wicked. The character in The Wizard of Oz could have been called the Nefarious Witch of the West but authors like to use the same beginning consonant, often. Perhaps L. Frank Baum crossed out nefarious after wicked came to his mind. Thank goodness, because Nefarious would be a terrible name for a musical.