Among the Hidden by Margaret Haddix

Among the Hidden is a book about a boy named Luke who is born in a time where parents, by law, could only have two kids. If more than two children were born into a family than the third child would have to hide or else if he/she were to be caught they would get a huge fee or execution. Luke was a third child, they were also called shadow child. So Luke is alright to be outside because his closest neighbors were a few miles away and there was a woods surrounding Luke’s house until the government forced Luke’s family to give them the woods. The government wanted the woods so they could build houses for barons. This was going to force Luke inside of his house, maybe for the rest of his life. Luke got used to the patterns of the days and he got really bored. But he had vents that he could look out of to see the houses of the neighbors, which had recently moved in.

One day when Luke was looking through his vent he thought he saw a someone but he had seen everyone in the house leave, both of the kids and both parents. Luke thought it was another shadow child and he made a plan to go over to the house and check it out. But since he was a shadow child he couldn’t be seen. Luke finally thinks up a plan to go over and see if there is another shadow child in his neighborhood.  He knows it’s dangerous but he just has to take the risk.

I really liked this book, it had some suspense once I realized what was going on, I really got into it. I couldn’t put the book down and it was really good. I think the author was going for the idea that the government is taking control over everything. In the book this government got whatever they wanted whenever they wanted with the exception of people having shadow children. This book I thought was an A+ because it was very entertaining to read.