Gifts

GiftsScattered among poor, desolate farms, the clans of the Uplands possess gifts. Wondrous gifts: the ability with a glance, a gesture, a word to summon animals, bring forth fire, move the land. Fearsome gifts: They can twist a limb, chain a mind, inflict a wasting illness. The Uplanders live in constant fear that one family might unleash its gift against another. Two young people, friends since childhood, decide not to use their gifts. One, a girl,

Scattered among poor, desolate farms, the clans of the Uplands possess gifts. Wondrous gifts: the ability--with a glance, a gesture, a word--to summon animals, bring forth fire, move the land. Fearsome gifts: They can twist a limb, chain a mind, inflict a wasting illness. The Uplanders live in constant fear that one family might unleash its gift against another. Two young people, friends since childhood, decide not to use their gifts. One, a girl, refuses to bring animals to their death in the hunt. The other, a boy, wears a blindfold lest his eyes and his anger kill.

In this beautifully crafted story, Ursula K. Le Guin writes of the proud cruelty of power, of how hard it is to grow up, and of how much harder still it is to find, in the world's darkness, gifts of light.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Published: 04/01/2006
ISBN: 9780152051242
Pages: 286
Weight: 0.46lbs
Size: 7.00h x 5.14w x 0.82d

Review Citations: Kirkus Best Books 03/01/2006 pg. 10
Publishers Weekly 03/27/2006 pg. 82
Kliatt 07/01/2006 pg. 24

Accelerated Reader Quiz #/Name: 80490 / Gifts
Reading Level: 5.6 / Interest Level: Middle Grade Plus / Point Value: 9