Son by Lois Lowry

The book Son by Lowis Lowry is about a young girl, Claire, who is given the job to give birth to children. She is not supposed to know where her baby goes, or who it is “assigned” to, but Claire wants to find out, and she does. She finds he is going to be killed because he is different. But, someone rescues her baby, Gabe, before she does, and she goes on a journey to find him. But the cost is her memory. I think a theme in the book Son, is that family comes first, no matter what. There are many instances where it is evident that Lowry is trying to communicate to the reader that message. I think this is important because it is a valuable lesson that relates to the real world in many different ways.

                One reason why I think that this lesson (family comes first) is a theme in the book Son is that, the main character Claire has a need to rescue Gabe, her son “I could walk out of here,” Claire thinks to herself as she holds Gabe (page 62) “I could leave right now. I could take him.” She really wants to take him from a place called the nurturing center so that she can take care of him, not some random family. Claire wants to be the one to help Gabe grow so badly that she is willing to steal him from the nurturing center. I think that she wants to be the one to do this for Gabe because here, in this point in the book, Claire feels like she doesn’t belong anywhere and having family means you belong somewhere. You belong with your family.

                Another reason why I think the theme family comes first is a lesson in Son is that on page 194 sometime after her and Gabe are separated, she has a conversation with her friend Alys:

‘”I must find him’ Claire whispered, finally.

‘Aye you must’

‘How?’

Alys stayed silent’”

She is explaining to Alys in this paragraph that she HAS to find Gabe. And later on she does, but she gives up her youth and nearly dies trying to find him and be with him. Claire puts family before anything else in this scenario. She leaves her love for Einar and her friendship with Alys all to find Gabe, her only family. But in a way Einar and Alys were also her family because she belonged with them as well as with Gabe once she finds him.

                The last reason why I think that family comes first is a theme in Son is that when Gabe is apart from Claire, even though he doesn’t even know who his mom is he has a passion and zeal for finding where he belongs and where his family is. On page 274 Gabe is determined to find his mom or “birthmother”:

“’what happened to the birthmothers? What happened to my birthmother?’

‘I don’t know, Gabe’

‘Didn’t she want me?’

Jonas sighed ‘I don’t know Gabe. It was a different system---‘

‘I’m going to find out.’”

In this quote, Gabe is determined to find his mom and belong somewhere, even though he has no idea how to find her or where he is going. I think that people put family before other things and want to belong because they feel safer and they feel loved. Instead of being the odd one out, they have family.

                All in all, a very strong theme in the book Son is that family comes first. This is an important theme because all people want to belong somewhere and when you are with family, you feel like you have a place in the world. I also think that this book is a reflection of our world where so many people are lost and have no one to be with or love. I don’t think anyone deserves that. I think something that someone can learn from this theme/ book is that if you don’t have any place you belong or any family you can find family in people like your friends and mentors.