Nancy Churnin

Lois Lowry doesn't shy away from speaking truth to kids. And while there have been prescient books about the dangers of surrendering freedoms to the state, notably 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451, Ms. Lowry's 1994 Newbery Medal winner, The Giver, stands out for telling the story from the perspective of a 12-year-old boy, Jonas.

Fittingly, the book is being given its local stage premiere by Dallas Children's Theater, a company that has also made it a policy to show kids the respect they deserve in thinking about matters of life, death and personal choice.

Under the sensitive, well-paced direction of Artie Olaisen, the story opens in the gray, monochromatic world of Randel Wright's set design, where everything seems idyllic, if colorless. Everyone is pleasant and similarly dressed and coiffed. No one expresses anger or any other strong emotion.

Jonas tells his parents he is anxious about the upcoming ceremony in which the elders will tell each 12-year-old child the future occupation that each will soon start learning.

And while his parents reassure him, smiling, that the elders never make a mistake, it turns out that Jonas was right to worry. He is the first child in 10 years who has been chosen to be apprenticed to the Receiver of Memory, whom he will call the Giver. It is the Receiver's job to hold all memories that are considered too dangerous for the general population.

That means he will have to transmit memories to Jonas that are both happy and painful, from war, hunger and broken bones to the joys of sledding, sunlight and a birthday party with grandparents. As Jonas absorbs more memories, he sees more colors, which pop up in Mr. Wright's cleverly metamorphosing set. And he questions more, especially when he learns some of his community's secrets.

Professional actors anchor the production, with Douglass Burks bringing depths of humanity to the aging Giver and Seth T. Magill and Lisa Schreiner conveying ever chillier shallowness as the parents.

But Mr. Olaisen has also taken a well-rewarded risk by casting locals as the children in the play. And as Jonas, 14-year-old Christopher Harshaw, who alternates with 13-year-old Shaun Senter, delivers impressively on the anguish of the enormous choice his character ultimately faces. It's one that should hit a young audience all the more powerfully by coming eye-level from someone their age.