Gifts by Ursula Le Guin is the story of a young boy living in a world of Uplanders. Some Uplanders are born with Gifts that allow them to call animals, to make people go blind to, “undo” things and various other mysterious powers. The Gift runs in a family and the power to “undo” runs in Orrec’s family, but the Gift has not reveal itself to him as a young man at the beginning of this story. The story follows Orrec’s life as his family deals with friendly and unfriendly neighbouring homesteads. Orrec and his friend Gry struggle with the difficulties of living with families dominated by these Gifts and the daunting decision of how to use their Gifts or not use the Gifts they inherit.
Ursula Le Guin weaves a compelling story in Gifts – which is set in a world of homesteads that could have existed hundreds of years ago with families like clans and no modern conveniences. La Guin mainly explores the ethical decisions that these two teens make in this Upland world and the difficulties they have to deal with as a result of their choices. For readers that enjoy a well crafted story with characters that have troubles they can relate to in a figurative way, then Gifts is an excellent read.
Gifts is the first of the Ursula La Guin books I will review from The Annals of the Western Shore series.
Le Guin, U. K. (2006). Gifts. New York: Harcourt Ltd.
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