Vadim Perelman has signed on to adapt and direct Lois Lowry's Newbery Award-winning novel The Giver for 20th Century Fox and Walden Media.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that the story centers on Jonas, a 12-year-old boy living in an idyllic future society where all memory of human history has been erased. His life is thrown into turmoil when he is designated to inherit the role of the Giver -- the sole keeper of the vast range of human emotions.

Perelman will work from an earlier draft penned by Todd Alcott.