Module 8 Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Among the Hidden is a fiction dystopian novel for upper elementary and middle school students.

Summary

 Luke lives his life in the shadows.  He is forced to live his life in hiding.  He is the illegal third child of a farm family.  The government has set strict population laws to deal with famine caused by overpopulation.  His family is terrified of him being found by the population police. 

His existence used to be somewhat more bearable when he could go outside.  However, the government has developed property next to his family’s farm, and the trees that once protected him are now gone.  Now he cannot go outside at all, cannot even sit at the kitchen table.

From his attic room Luke catches glimpses of the outside world through a small vent.  He watches every day.  Eventually he makes a discovery.  He is sure there is another shadow child in a nearby house.  He is so lonely and musters the courage to sneak over to the house.  Inside he finds Jen.

Through Jen Luke learns of a whole network of shadow children and of their plan to expose themselves and force government recognition of them.  Luke is skeptical and afraid.  He is forced into a position where he could lose everything, including his life, or gain a new one.  He has to choose.

Impression

Overall I find dystopian novels to be depressing.  I usually have a difficult time getting through them because everything seems so hopeless.  While the story line in the novel is depressing, I was surprised to find that I could not put the book down.  I could not wait to see what was going to happen next.  I was genuinely surprised to be this intrigued by an elementary/middle school novel.  I wanted to run right out and get the next book.

Haddix does a good job of developing Luke’s character.  Through this she is able to build empathy.  The reader can feel Luke’s dilemma and knows there is no good choice.  It is unclear who to trust.  Given that a one child quota was enacted in China with strict penalties for subsequent births, the events of this novel do not seem that far-fetched. 

Library Uses

Among the Hidden could be used as a discussion starter in exploring different kinds of governments.  In the book, the government is totalitarian.  The book can be used to discuss the similarities and differences between totalitarian and democratic governments.  The school librarian could work in collaboration with a Social Studies teacher to explore novels that represent various forms of government. 

Professional Reviews

Haddix (Running Out of Time) chillingly imagines a dystopia in this futuristic novel. Born into a totalitarian state that brutally enforces a two-children-only policy, 12-year-old Luke Garner, an ""illegal"" third child, has spent his entire life hiding from anyone outside his immediate family. His troubles multiply when the government makes his dirt-poor parents sell the woods surrounding their farm in order to build a housing development for ""Barons"" (the privileged elite), and it therefore becomes too dangerous for Luke to go outside. Next, the Garners are hit with a crippling tax bill and ordered to sell their hogs, so Mom has to get a factory job. Luke spends every day alone, hidden in his attic room, until he meets Jen, a ""shadow child"" secreted in the Baron house next door. She turns his whole world upside-down, introducing him to her secret Internet chat room and giving him literature analyzing the government's repressive policies. After Jen's foolhardy rally of shadow children ends in bloodshed, Luke is faced with a decision that will irrevocably determine his fate. The plot development is sometimes implausible and the characterizations are a bit brittle, but the unsettling, thought-provoking premise should suffice to keep readers hooked. Ages 8-12. (Sept.)

--Publishers Weekly, 1998

In a chilling and intelligent novel, Haddix (Leaving Fishers, 1997, etc.) envisions a near future where a totalitarian US limits families to only two children. Luke, 12, the third boy in his farming family, has been hidden since birth, mostly in the attic, safe for the time being from the Population Police, who eradicate such “shadow children.” Although he is protected, Luke is unhappy in his radical isolation, rereading a few books for entertainment and eating in a stairwell so he won’t be seen through the windows. When Luke spies a child’s face in the window of a newly constructed home, he realizes that he’s found a comrade. Risking discovery, Luke sneaks over to the house and meets Jen, a spirited girl devoted to bringing the shadow children’s plight center-stage, through a march on the White House. Luke is afraid to join her and later learns from Jen’s father, a mole within the Population Police, that Jen and her compatriots were shot and killed, and that their murder was covered up. Jen’s father also gets a fake identity card and a new life for Luke, who finally believes himself capable of acting to change the world. Haddix offers much for discussion here, by presenting a world not too different from America right now. The seizing of farmlands, untenable food regulations, and other scenarios that have come to fruition in these pages will give readers a new appreciation for their own world after a visit to Luke’s. (Fiction. 9-13)

--Kirkus, 1998

References

AMONG THE HIDDEN by Margaret Peterson Haddix | Kirkus. (1998, July 15). Retrieved April 19, 2015, from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/margaret-peterson-haddix/among-the-hidden/

Book Reviews, Bestselling Books & Publishing Business News | Publishers Weekly. (1998, August 31). Retrieved April 19, 2015, from http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/search/index.html?q=among the hidden&submit.x=14&submit.y=16&submit=submit.

Haddix, M. (1998). Among the hidden. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.