This series plunges readers into a dystopian future where population control dictates strict limits on family size. It follows the secret lives of 'shadow children,' illegal offspring hidden away from an oppressive government. The narratives explore profound themes of identity, freedom, and the courage to resist totalitarian rule. It's a gripping tale of young protagonists fighting for their right to exist and find hope in a world designed to erase them.
In a future where the Population Police enforce the law limiting a family to only two children, Luke has lived all his twelve years in isolation and fear on his family's farm, until another "third" convinces him that the government is wrong.
Danger continues to loom over Luke now that he's out of hiding in the second book in bestselling author Margaret Peterson Haddix's Shadow Children series. Luke Garner is an illegal third child. All his life has been spent in hiding. Now, for the first time, Luke is living among others. He has assumed a deceased boy's identity and is attending Hendricks School for Boys, a windowless building with cruel classmates and oblivious teachers. Luke knows he has to blend in, but he lives in constant fear that his behavior will betray him. Then one day Luke discovers a door to the outside. He knows that beyond the walls of Hendricks lie the secrets he is desperate to uncover. What he doesn't know is whom he can trust -- and where the answers to his questions may lead him...
What does it mean to save yourself? Nina Idi -- a third child in a society where families are allowed only two children -- has been betrayed by the boy she loved, and arrested by the Population Police for exposing other alleged third children. Angry and confused, Nina knows only one thing for sure: She is innocent of the charges. But now she is faced with the most difficult choice of her life: Get three other prisoners to admit they are shadow children and be spared herself, or refuse to cooperate and be killed. The options are clear. The choice, Nina discovers, is not....
Luke Garner, an illegal third child, spent his first twelve years in hiding. For the past four months Luke has lived among others, using the identity of Lee Grant, at the Hendricks School for Boys. But just as things are finally starting to go right, Lee's little brother Smits arrives at the school and Luke finds himself caught in a tangle of lies that gets more complex with every passing day. Can Luke trust Smits to keep his secret? And can he trust Smits's menacing, fat bodyguard, Oscar who carrys a sledge hammer?
In a society that allows families to have only two children, a group of third-borns tries to save themselves and others like them
HIDE OR FIGHT?Matthias, an illegal third child, is caught in the cross fire between rebels and the Population Police. When he unwittingly saves a Population Police officer, Matthias is brought to Population Police headquarters to train as an officer himself. There he meets Nina, another third-born who enlists his help in a plot to undermine the Population Police. But Matthias is under constant scrutiny, and he has no idea whom he can trust. What can one boy do against a wicked bureaucracy?
Alexandrea has just moved to Harlem and her mother is pushing her into ballet and she has stage fright.