The plot development is sometimes implausible and the characterizations are a bit brittle, but the unsettling, thought-provoking premise should suffice to keep readers hooked. After Jen's foolhardy rally of shadow children ends in bloodshed, Luke is faced with a decision that will irrevocably determine his fate. She turns his whole world upside-down, introducing him to her secret Internet chat room and giving him literature analyzing the government's repressive policies. Luke spends every day alone, hidden in his attic room, until he meets Jen, a ""shadow child"" secreted in the Baron house next door. Next, the Garners are hit with a crippling tax bill and ordered to sell their hogs, so Mom has to get a factory job. His troubles multiply when the government makes his dirt-poor parents sell the woods surrounding their farm in order to build a housing development for ""Barons"" (the privileged elite), and it therefore becomes too dangerous for Luke to go outside. Born into a totalitarian state that brutally enforces a two-children-only policy, 12-year-old Luke Garner, an ""illegal"" third child, has spent his entire life hiding from anyone outside his immediate family. Haddix (Running Out of Time) chillingly imagines a dystopia in this futuristic novel. Series by Margaret Peterson Haddix Shadow Children (7 books) by Margaret Peterson Haddix 4.05 avg rating 260,504 ratings The Missing (8 books) by Margaret Peterson Haddix 4.00 avg rating 94,270 ratings The Palace Chronicles (3 books) by Margaret Peterson Haddix 3.
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