Among the Hidden by
In a future where the Population Police enforce the law limiting a family to only two children, Luke, an illegal third child, has lived all his twelve years in isolation and fear on his family's farm in this start to the Shadow Children series from Margaret Peterson Haddix. 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?
Margaret Peterson Haddix
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, 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 jacket copy.)
Margaret Peterson Haddix grew up on a farm near Washington Court House, Ohio. She graduated from Miami University (of Ohio) with degrees in English/journalism, English/creative writing and history. Before her first book was published, she worked as a newspaper copy editor in Fort Wayne, Indiana; a newspaper reporter in Indianapolis; and a community college instructor and freelance writer in Danville, Illinois.
She has since written more than 25 books for kids and teens, including Running Out of Time; Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey; Leaving Fishers; Just Ella; Turnabout; Takeoffs and Landings; The Girl with 500 Middle Names; Because of Anya; Escape from Memory; Say What?; The House on the Gulf; Double Identity; Dexter the Tough; Uprising; Palace of Mirrors; Claim to Fame; the Shadow Children series; and the Missing series. She also wrote Into the Gauntlet, the tenth book in the 39 Clues series. Her books have been honored with New York Times bestseller status, the International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award; American Library Association Best Book and Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers notations; and more than a dozen state reader’s choice awards.
Haddix and her husband, Doug, now live in Columbus, Ohio, with their two children.
How many of you are third children? How many of you have ever stayed home from school -- say you have told your mum or dad that you are sick, and, well, you do feel a little sick, maybe -- No, don't put up your hands, I don't want you to incriminate yourselves. But if you have ever stayed home from school when you maybe should have gone to school anyway, and you look out the window and you see that everyone else in your neighborhood has gone to school or work, and there you are all alone -- it's sort of a strange feeling, isn't it? Sort of like you are getting away with something but you feel a little bit guilty and jumpy at the same time?
Luke knows the feeling. The suburbs have grown up around his farm-house and kids in his neighborhood do pretty much what kids everywhere do. They play outside, they date, go to school, learn to drive. That is, two kids from each family live like this. You see Luke lives at a time when the population police are in control and THEY say that 2 children is the limit for any one family. Third children who become known to the government have a mysterious way of disappearing. And Luke is a third child. In an attempt to keep him hidden his parents have forbidden him to walk near windows, to sit in the kitchen to eat meals with the rest of the family - pretty much to do anything at all. Luke is on the verge of going insane from lack of stimulation. So he discovers in his attic room, a vent which will allow him to spy on the world. But on one quiet morning in the suburbs, about 10 a.m., when the bikes are abandoned in driveways and it seems as though even the chipmunks and birds have gone elsewhere, he catches a movement out of the corner of his eye. Startled, he looks and catches a glimpse of a face in a window, before the curtain is hastily dropped back. It seems that Luke is not alone in the world - not the only third child in his neighborhood. And if he is not the only third child in his neighborhood, might there be many others like him in the world? But now Luke must make the biggest decision of his life - should he risk going out in the open to meet this person?
Sang Spell by
Josh is hitchhiking from Boston to Dallas to begin a new life, trying to sort out the changes that have skewed his world since an accident killed his mother and made a mockery of his dreams. No longer will he be what he was -- an important person in a high school he loved. Instead he will be starting his junior year in a place where no one will know him, no one will care.He wanders up a road he has taken away from the interstate, where he has been thumbing rides, looking for a village where he might find shelter from the unexpected August cold and rain. When a car comes along, it looks like a ride to somewhere. And that's what it proves to be. But the somewhere he finds is not the somewhere he expected. It is a place that knows him, knows the darkness inside of him; that offers food and shelter, but also confronts him with choices he does not know how to make. It probes his past, examines his possible futures, and finally pierces the wall of despair he has built around himself.Sang Spell is a fantasy built on the hopes and dreams of a people who longed for a place of peace, for a way out of the dark and the rain. Some might think finding such a place to be a miracle, but not Josh. To him it is a nightmare, a prison he cannot escape. Sang Spell is an adventure into a place of forgotten people, the Melungeons, and into the boundaries created by the human mind.
Sasquatch by
Thirteen-year-old Dylan follows his father into the woods on the slopes of Mount St. Helens, which is on the brink of another eruption, in an attempt to protect the resident Sasquatch from ruthless hunters.
Leaving Fishers by
Dorry Stevens, new to town, is unbearably lonely until she is befriended by Angela and her friends, members of a religious group called Fishers of Men. Dorry begins attending Fishers activities with them, and is baptized. She is expected to obey unquestioningly and to recruit. Dorry grows troubled as to whether the Fishers speak for God or themselves. When she eventually breaks with them, she is cut off cold, and fears that she will be damned. Through help, she begins to think for herself and tries to build new relationships with God and other people.