Among the Hidden

Luke is a 12 year old boy who likes helping his dad and older brothers, Matthew and Mark, out on their family farm. He likes reading with his mom. He also likes playing outside in the vast backyard... until the Government begins tearing down the woods behind the house and building a new neighborhood for the wealthy families - The Barons.

Barons have everything. Money, fancy cars, nice houses. Apparently, the also have the ability to break the law without penalty. The Government and the Population Police have outlawed having more than two children. Remember Luke's brothers? Yes, brothers. Matthew and Mark... and Luke. Luke is a hidden child, a shadow child, a third, confined to the house after the new neighborhood development, he now lives as a recluse in the attic of his family's farmhouse, never to step outside or darken a window again. Until he sees movement from one of the neighbor's houses. A Baron neighbor house who has two football jock sons that go to school and a mother and father that work in the city and leave the house every day. So why is there movement in the house?

Luke discovers Jen, another third, living in the Baron house. She has a computer, something Luke's only ever really heard about, since he's not allowed near the one in his house for fear that the Goverment is watching through the monitor. She also has chips, brown, fizzy drinks and cookies! There's something else Jen has that Luke doesn't, aside from luxurious foods and technology. She has doubts. Doubts that there isn't enough food for people to have third children. Doubts that the Government won't do anything to rid itself of thirds. Luke has something Jen doesn't have, though. Fear. Fear that the Government knows everything and will swoop in to kill them if they use the computer or watch TV. If only Jen had that fear...

After making friends online with other thirds, Jen decides to rally at the president's house. She wants to be free! She wants to live an actual life not cooped up indoors. Luke, of course, wants these things, too, but as he tells Jen before she leaves for the rally, "I still can't go. I'm sorry. It's something about having parents who are farmers, not lawyers. And not being a Baron. It's people like you who change history. People like me -- we just let things happen to us" (117).

If only Jen didn't have her doubts that the Government wouldn't do anything to a large group of rallying thirds.

They would.

And they did.

Jen and all her rallying buddies were shot on the steps of the president's house without a second thought. Luke goes to Jen's house a few days after the rally to see if she's made it home yet when he's greeted by someone else, Jen's father, who has a gun. Instead of killing the boy (as he should because he's a member of the Population Police) Jen's father gives Luke a fake ID and sends him to a boarding school. He gives Luke a chance to live. A chance to live outside of his attic room, to go to school, to change the world.

Will he? We'll see....

Betty Carter (The ALAN Review, Winter 1999 (Vol. 26, No. 2)) says of Among the Hidden, "Luke, mirroring his disenfranchised family, fears the totalitarian government; Jen using all the resources of her privileged background, challenges it. Although the denouement is swift and tidy, the fully realized setting, honest characters, and fast paced plot combine for a suspenseful tale of two youngsters fighting for their very existence."

Debbie Earl (VOYA, October 1998 (Vol. 21, No. 4)) says, "This is an easily understood, younger reader's 1984 or Brave New World, presenting a chilling vision of a possibly not-too-distant future."

Much like the VOYA review says, sharing this story along with 1984 or Brave New World or even The Hunger Games would be a great way to discuss the future and dystopian novels with tweens and teens.

Haddix, Margaret Peterson. Among the Hidden. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780689817007