Unless they're in remedial reading.
High school seniors should be reading Milton and the Shakespeare tragedies and Twain and Melville. By that time they should have developed a discerning literary judgment and be able to handle adult themes far beyond what Lowry touches on.
The Giver is written on what used to be considered a junior high level. Even the infanticide scene is handled without a great deal of emotion, and from the protagonist's reaction it is obvious that the writer disapproves. In fact, it's the pivot point of the book, in which the protagonist finally discerns that his society's way of life is irredeemably evil. I don't have a problem with evil being portrayed, so long as it is demonstrated as such and consequences ensue.
I considered the book appropriate for my daughter at around age 12 -- but she was always a scholarly and serious kid.
Each parent should make an informed judgment, of course, but this is just not a particularly outrageous example. It's well written, it has a moral, evil is punished and good rewarded.
There are far, far worse books being read in the public schools. There was one that a friend of mine (a substitute teacher in a public school) had a cow over, can't remember the title, but it was about two students who murder their principal and are never punished for it. Nothing like that was ever offered in my daughter's private Christian school, and I kept tabs on everything she read, most of course I had run across before but if I hadn't I read them myself. Surprisingly enough, many of the same books that were assigned when I was a student at the same school are still being taught - classics and all that.
Mother, I’m with you. The Giver teaches some very good moral lessons, as well as teaching the evil of a totalitarian society. Age 11/12 is the best time - kids of that age are starting to grapple with morality and some of the eternal questions of life. I read “Atlas Shrugged” at age 12, and it was a great age to do so.
Shoot, the Bible has some stories that are hairier than that, and we let the kids read the Bible.