In Gathering Blue

“The threads began to sing to her. Not a song of words of tones, but a pulsing, a quivering in her hands as if they had life. For the first time, her fingers did not direct the threads, but followed where they led” (45). This was said about Kira, the main character in the book Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry. Kira is a threader seems to have a magical talent when it comes to threading. It is almost like her fingers know what to do, even though her brain doesn’t quite know what they are doing. While her mother was dying, she used that talent to create a remarkable scrap of fabric that seemed to speak to her. Up to that time, all of her threadings were just experiments, to help her learn what she would eventually do as work, but what she didn’t

This is a good place for the story to take place because the simple cotts illustrate the simplicity that the villagers thought they were living in. All the villagers knew was their own world, their own rules and their own culture, which is illustrated by how surprised Kira was when she learned about her father’s village (204). That simple village was also a good place for the story because it shows how the villagers lived compared to how the Guardians lived, and how much the quality of life improved for the “important people” because of all the power they had. Villagers had to use the stream to wash and the people in the Council Edifice had indoor bathrooms (69). The setting helped develop the conflict because they all had similar cotts, which illustrated how the community was so similar and how anyone who was different was looked down at (43). This showed how crazy and unheard of that something different- Kira- survived and was still living after her trial (51). It also helped develop the conflict because this divided community where the rich and the poor were clearly sorted, helped Kira meet Jo because if they didn’t live in the Council Edifice, Thomas would never had heard her cry (119, 123). Likewise, the timing of the story was right because at one point in America, only the rich had running water and the poor still had to get water from outside. This book is set at a time similar to that time, although the location is different. That time would be when they were still using plants to make dyes, rather than chemicals, what is used now. All in all, the setting was a good setting because it illustrated the power the guardians had over the people, the simplicity of the community, and how everything was the same and anything different was rare, and it was also in a good