Luke has never been to school. He’s never had a birthday party, or gone to a friend’s house for an overnight. In fact, Luke has never had a friend.
Luke is one of the shadow children, a third child forbidden by the Population Police. He’s lived his entire life in hiding, and now, with a new housing development replacing the woods next to his family’s farm, he is no longer even allowed to go outside.
Then, one day Luke sees a girl’s face in the window of a house where he knows two other children already live. Finally, he’s met a shadow child like himself. Jen is willing to risk everything to come out of the shadows–does Luke dare to become involved in her dangerous plan? Can he afford not to?
~from haddixbooks.com
Among the Hidden is the fourth book in my Book-a-Week Summer Reading Challenge and the first book in author Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Shadow Children series.
This book is definitely aimed at a younger crowd, 8 and up, but it brings up some really serious social issues that make you think and could be a great discussion.
For me, this book especially hit close to home with our current adoption from China, a country that still has a one child law. It appears that things are relaxing in China with this law (and Maddi is not up for adoption because of it), but it does give a level of credibility to this book since it’s not such a far fetched idea.
I really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to the other books in the series. I wish that the boys were older so that we could read it together. I think that the social topics that are happening are great, thought provoking topics that can help children realize that the world could be a very different place and may actually be that in other countries in the world.
What did you think?
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