Unlike I anticipated, this book is not strictly a children's tale. It's meaning goes way beyond the surface of a nice little easy to read story. The people in Loury's tale chose one from among their ranks to shield themselves from the slings and arrows of life on earth and the consequences of their failure to live life according to divine law. In doing so they created a situation for themselves that was entirely unnatural, even robotic. They turned the chosen one, "The Receiver" , intended to be the Inner "Giver" of Wisdom to the people in their everyday lives, into a Taker of the sturm and drang of the people's karma by which they themselves are required to develop their own inner capacity to live spiritually rich and meaningful God directed lives as souls embodied on earth. To me, this tale raises troubling questions about the efficacy of the long held belief in the Lone Sacrificial Bearer of the sins of the people as the way to acquire personal and communal happiness.