Please provide a brief summary about Lois Lowry's The Giver.

Lois Lowry's The Giver is about a community that lives under something they call Sameness. This means that everyone lives in the same type of home, with the same number of family members, and under the same rules. Not only that, but the Giver explains that Sameness can also completely manage nature, as in Climate Control. When Jonas asks him what happened to snow in chapter 11, he explains how they got rid of it as follows:

"Climate Control. Snow made growing food difficult, limited the agricultural periods. And unpredictable weather made transportation almost impossible at times. It wasn't a practical thing, so it became obsolete when we went to Sameness" (84).

Sameness is the concept that makes it so the world in which people live is perfect. There's one drawback, though; one person from the whole community must hold the memories of the world within himself in order for Sameness to be achieved. For example, the Receiver of Memory must hold all the memories of snow within his own mind in order for others not to experience snow ever again. They did this with anything and everything that wasn't practical, peaceful, or equal. They didn't want to live with sunburns or skin cancer, so they gave all the memories of the sun to the Receiver of Memory and the sun went away. They wanted to do away with people desiring free choice and personal preferences, so they gave away all of the memories that were unique, such as colors, music, and love. 

For every benefit of Sameness, the community had to sacrifice something else in return. As a result, a community of obedient people follow every rule, do whatever their government tells them to do, and no one is different or unique to the point of upsetting Sameness. Anyone who breaks the rules three times is released. A baby who does not develop properly in a specified time is also released from the community. When elderly people are not worth anything to the community anymore, they are released. 

The conflict comes as Jonas, the protagonist, is faced with becoming the new Receiver of Memory. As he learns his new role in the community from the Giver, he also understands just how deeply the sacrifices for Sameness have influenced the quality of life that they live. The question is, will Jonas obediently accept his new painful and lonely role as the new Receiver of Memory, or will he rebel and try to bring down Sameness and the only life he's ever known.