Shadow Children Series by Margaret Peterson Haddix

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I first learned of this series a week or so after the spring 2011 ELA MCAS test. Some of my students were discussing one of the reading selections and questions from the test. A few of them were confused about it, but then went back and read all the italics and other small print on the page and figured out that it was an excerpt from a book called Among the Hidden. They explained that the government had made a law that you could only have two children in a family. All third children, known as shadow children, were illegal so most families who had more than two children kept them hidden so they wouldn't be taken away. My students were really curious about how this could happen, how anyone could live that way, what other laws the government made, would the children ever come out of hiding, how many shadow children were there? Well, since I hadn't read the series, we did a little research and discovered there were seven books in the series and it was written by Margaret Peterson Haddix. I borrowed the first book from a colleague and read it over the weekend. I was as enthralled by the concept as my students! I couldn't put the book down ~ or any of the other six books! We started Among the Hidden as our interactive class read aloud on that Monday and continued reading the series until the end of the school year! I highly recommend this series to anyone who likes suspense, mysteries, thrillers, puzzles, and stories where the protagonists are young adolescence. Let me know what you think of the series as a whole or any one of the books.


If you are interested in Margaret Peterson Haddix's thoughts on this series, click on the link below to read some of her thoughts. At the top of the link she cautions you not to read her thoughts if you haven't finished the book because she doesn't want to ruin the story!

http://www.haddixbooks.com/books/hidden_faq.html