Jonas lives in a world where everything is black and white, right and wrong. And everybody can literally only see the color black and white. He starts seeing strange things when he was throwing an apple back and forth with a friend, he has no clue what to call it, nor does anybody else see it. But when The ceremony of twelve's come(a ceremony where twelve years old children get life long jobs) he gets the rarest one, he has never even heard of it. He gets the job of the receiver. Every night he meets with the previous receiver who is now called the Giver because he is giving Jonas his memories. The memories include color, snow, war, heartache, happiness, hunger, emotions no one has ever felt before. Jonas and the Giver are the only two in his community that has these gifts. Jonas' dad is a nurturer( some one who takes care of newborns and places them with a family) and tells Jonas about identical twins and how only one can get placed with a family. The other one has to go to elsewhere. Nobody really knows what or where "elsewhere" is they figure it is just beyond the gates of the community. Until Jonas ask the Giver what it is, so the giver shows Jonas the release ceremony for the twin. He realizes releasing means killing. His dad had just brought a newborn into their home to monitor the baby(baby Gabriel) to see if it could go to a home. After a few weeks he deems it unfit for a family. If the baby had been left his dad would have sent it to "elsewhere" in the morning(a.k.a. killed him) Jonas then runs away with Gabriel to past the community. He has no clue about what is waiting for him except for the fact that it is in color.