The Shadow Children’s Dystopian Friendships

Margaret Peterson Haddix published the new book series of seven books, The Shadow Children, from 1998 to 2006.– take out “new”, as it came out over 20 years ago. Her series involved a cruel government that only allowed families to have two children. The punishment for having more was the death of the extra children. The series talks about how these third children pretend to be second or first ones and overthrow the cruel government.

In the first book, Luke never saw the outside world because his parents hid him in the attic. He lived in fear of getting caught and killed by the Population Police. His parents greatly protected him, and when the Population Police arrived at the door, his parents did everything they could to remove the all evidence of his existence him. However, Luke still tries to sneak out once, meeting a girl named Jen. Jen later dies at a rally, protesting for freedom of the shadow children. Luke seeks help from Jen’s dad, who gets him a fake ID, allowing him to go to school. Later, he is able to go to school and meets many friends who try to help him defeat the Population Police.

This is a story of teamwork, hardships, and cooperation. It includes some violence, but at last, the friends cooperate and defeat the Population Police. For example, Luke had been held prisoner in the Population Police Headquarters. Mark, Luke’s brother, and Trey worked together to save him.

new point, new line: Luke was also very courageous in the book. To convince the others, he talked about his entire life as a shadow child and told them what the Population Police did to their his family. Luke’s character points to a strength of this series by is showing how dynamic all the characters are, changing from timid and scared to courageous and brave. One weakness of the series is that there is too much violence and harm to the children.

I would recommend this series to readers of ages aged 10 to adults who like the dystopian genre because of its important values and how characters like Luke change from the beginning before to the end of the book, where they learn new values.