Among the Hidden

Among the Hidden is the first book in the shadow children series. The books main character is Luke Garner a twelve-year-old illegal 3rd child. He spends his days hiding from the population police in his isolated farm, unlike most 3rd children he is allowed outside. When he is outside one day the government comes to build new houses in the lot that Luke's dad had to sell for money. He has to stay in his room in the attic now all the time. To pass time Luke spies on the barons that moved in and after everyone has left he though he saw a face in one of the windows. After about a week of building up the nerve to go to the house to see if there was another 3rd child, Luke runs to the house and surely enough there is another child. He meets Jen Talbot who is a 3rd child and she's allowed to use the computer, TV and gets junk food, which the government outlawed. Jen wants 3rd children to be freed so bad that she organizes a rally. Luke is to scared to go and after two weeks of not hearing from Jen he gets scared and runs to her house. She is not there so Luke goes onto the computer into a chat group of all 3rd children and types, "Where's Jen". As he is typing Jens dad comes into the house and Luke tells him everything. Jens dad is a double agent who works for the population police, but is really trying to free 3rd children. After Luke and Mr. Talbot talk, the population police come because they had hacked the message that Luke sent on the computer. They leave without discovering Luke, but they had bugged the house so they could hear everything. Mr. Talbot knew it was going to get dangerous so he got Luke a fake ID and he was sent off to Hendricks school for Boys. I really enjoyed this book and have continued reading the series. I would recommend this book to anyone, boys and girls. It is a quick read only about 180 pages, but you will not be able to put it down. I am very excited to finish the series.