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Grade 5–8. This fifth book about third-born children who must go into hiding to avoid elimination picks up where S & S, 2003) ended. The ruthless head of the Population Police has taken over the government, and executions are common. Trey has gone to Mr. Talbot's home seeking help to rescue Luke and his other third-born friends just as the man is taken away in handcuffs. Desperate, he teams up with Luke's older, more reckless brother, Mark, to try to find the others. Mark is caught and Trey enlists in the Population Police, his only hope of freeing him. To escape, the boys make a deal with a resistance member disguised as a guard to rescue a prisoner from another torture camp. The prisoner turns out to be none other than Mr. Talbot, who headed the resistance movement. Mark and Trey are able to rescue their friends, but are unable to help the guard who helped them. The adults are ready to give up but the third-born children vow to keep up the fight. Even though elements of the plot seem timeworn and not all of it is plausible, this book provides a fast and wild ride that will appeal to reluctant readers. Once again, Haddix makes real how hard ordinary and not-so-ordinary actions would be for kids who've spent most of their lives hidden away. Although this installment could be read on its own, this series works best when read in sequence.

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Gr. 4–7. Like its predecessors in the Shadow Children series, this novel concerns children hidden from society because their families have exceeded the strictly enforced, two-child limit. Trey struggles to survive during a dangerous political shift, as the most repressive faction of the government seizes power. On a personal level, Trey feels intense fear and increasing mistrust as he tries to maneuver in a world where he often cannot tell friend from foe. Haddix writes a compelling story, full of intrigue, danger, and adventure. The level of tension barely lets up, ensuring that "can't-put-it-down" headlong impulse to keep reading. Still, the constant tension gives individual scenes less impact than they might have had in a book with more contrast. Trey makes an interesting, sympathetic protagonist, reflective about his past, convincing in his outlook, and fundamentally alone even among his allies. 

Grade 5–7–A continuation of the series in which third-born children must stay in hiding in order to escape certain death at the hands of the Population Police. Many characters return, including Mr. Talbot and Nina, and some of the plot elements of previous books reappear. While there is little character development, the book is fast paced, opening with a raid on the Niedler School that forces Matthias, Percy, and Alia to run for their lives. The two younger children are injured and Matthias inadvertently becomes a member of the Population Police. Issues of trust and loyalty will appeal to readers as will the twists and turns of the action. This book also contains many references to faith in God and the need to believe. The protagonist often finds solace and strength in thinking of the advice given to him by his surrogate father, Samuel, a man of great faith. This one is strictly for fans of the previous books. 

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Gr. 5–8. Each title in the Shadow Children series reveals a different aspect of a dystopian future in which illegal "third children" are hunted by ruthless Population Police. In the sixth installment, Haddix zooms in on Matthias, the eldest of the three friends Nina allied with in (2001). While seeking help for Alia and Percy, both gravely injured during their escape from the latest Population Police raid, Matthias impulsively saves the life of an officer and must then pose as an aspiring recruit. Suddenly Matthias is hailed as a hero and whisked into the heart of police headquarters, where he finds unexpected camaraderie with his former archenemies and must contend with feelings of confusion, guilt, and grief as he uses his position to aid undercover rebels. The top-level authorities' instantaneous embrace of Matthias may bother some readers, but the brisk, efficient pacing facilitated by occasionally abrupt plot turns is precisely what has cemented Haddix's strong following among both avid and reluctant readers. Series fans and newcomers alike will devour this whole. 

*"Enough games," the man said, raising the gun yet again. "And enough of the Population Police, I say."

This time he cocked the gun and aimed carefully.*

This is real,  This is really going to happen.

Luke Garner is a third-born in a restrictive society that allows only two children per family. Risking his life, he came out of hiding to fight against the Population Police laws. Now, in the final volume of Margaret Peterson Haddix's suspenseful Shadow Children series, Luke inadvertently sets off a rebellion that results in the overthrow of the government. The people are finally free. But who is in charge now? And will this new freedom be everything they had hoped?

With all of the plot twists and excitement Haddix's fans have come to expect, brings the Shadow Children sequence to a chilling conclusion.

In a future where the Population Police enforce the law limiting a family to only two children, Luke has lived all his twelve years in isolation and fear on his family's farm, until another "third" convinces him that the government is wrong.<

In a future where the law limits a family to only two children, third-born Luke has been in hiding for the entire twelve years of his life, until he enters boarding school under an assumed name and is forced to face his fears.<

Für Jonas und Katherme beginnt eine erneute Reise durch die Zeit. Gemeinsam mit Andrea, die wie Jonas ein verschollenes Kind der Geschichte ist, landen sie im North Carolina des 16. Jahrhunderts. Dort wurde Andrea alias Virginia Dare einst als erstes Kind englischer Kolonisten geboren. Doch von der ursprünglichen Siedlung stehen nur noch Ruinen und es gibt einiges, das den drei Reisenden ausgesprochen merkwürdig vorkommt. Wer sind zum Beispiel die beiden Jungen, auf die sie unvermutet treffen und die seltsam deplatziert wirken? Sind Jonas, Katherine und Andrea überhaupt in der richtigen Zeit gelandet? Plötzlich scheint alles aus den Fugen und sie müssen rasch handeln, um eine Katastrophe zu verhindern ...

After helping Chip and Alex survive 15th century London, Jonah and Katherine are summoned to help another missing child, Andrea, face her fate. Andrea is really Virginia Dare, from the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Jonah and Katherine are confident in their ability to help Andrea fix history, but when their journey goes dangerously awry, they realize that they may be in over their head. They've landed in the wrong time period. Andrea doesn't seem that interested in leaving the past. And even worse, it appears that someone has deliberately sabotaged their mission…<

As he demonstrated in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a canine murder mystery from the point of view of an autistic boy, former children's book author and illustrator Mark Haddon has a gift for reaching inside the inner world of characters whose minds should prove difficult to penetrate.

A Spot of Bother is Haddon's second novel aimed at adults, and again he writes his characters with great affection despite the fact that they're deeply flawed. Or, in the case of Bother's protagonist, George Hall, deeply insane.

The Halls are a family of people preoccupied with their own problems, largely centred around preparations for a backyard wedding. His daughter, Katie, is marrying a man no one, including Katie, thinks is good enough for her. Wife Jean is having an affair with one of George's former colleagues and struggling to plan the on-again, off-again wedding of her stubborn daughter. Son Jamie's reluctance to invite his boyfriend to Katie's wedding destroys that seemingly stable relationship.

Poor George finds his family falling apart and lacks the emotional tools to deal with the chaos head on. "Talking was, in George's opinion, overrated… The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely."

Newly retired George's own issues are an extreme example of the fretting the rest of his family – in fact, the rest of the world – exhibits. When he discovers a lesion on his hip, he leaps to the conclusion of cancer, and contemplates suicide. He gets caught up in the details of the how, discarding each method, including getting blind drunk and crashing the car – because what if he encountered another car?

"What if he killed them, paralyzed himself, and died of cancer in a wheelchair in prison?" George wonders.

The whimsical humour of the escalating hyperbole reveals a man who ponders the worst case scenario to an amusingly absurd degree. As the novel progresses, however, it becomes clear that this is no momentary flight of imagination or coping mechanism. George's insanity often escalates his worries beyond the point of reason.

The novel follows George's almost-logical reasoning. The spot could be more than eczema. The doctor didn't express himself with perfect certainty. He'd misdiagnosed Katie once. But George takes it several steps beyond reason.

Haddon doesn't inflict George with the cute insanity some fiction falls into, but the true-to-life confusion of being and dealing with someone who can seem no more odd than the average person on occasion, then lapses into genuine, over-the-top insanity.

A Spot of Bother is an often sweet, often heartbreaking story of a family falling apart and coming together. It's a deceptively funny, easy read with genuine poignancy. These compelling characters fumble their way through mental illness in the family the same way they fumble through their romantic relationships – sincerely, humorously, and ineptly.

"El curioso incidente del perro a medianoche" es una novela que no se parece a ninguna otra. Elogiada con entusiasmo por autores consagrados como Oliver Sacks e Ian McEwan, ha merecido la aprobación masiva de los lectores en todos los países donde se ha publicado, además de galardones como el Premio Whitbread y el Premio de la Commonwealth al Mejor Primer Libro. Su protagonista, Christopher Boone, es uno de los más originales que han surgido en el panorama de la narrativa internacional en los últimos años, y está destinado a convertirse en un héroe literario universal de la talla de Oliver Twist y Holden Caulfield.

A sus quince años, Christopher conoce las capitales de todos los países del mundo, puede explicar la teoría de la relatividad y recitar los números primos hasta el 7.507, pero le cuesta relacionarse con otros seres humanos. Le gustan las listas, los esquemas y la verdad, pero odia el amarillo, el marrón y el contacto físico. Si bien nunca ha ido solo más allá de la tienda de la esquina, la noche que el perro de una vecina aparece atravesado por un horcón, Christopher decide iniciar la búsqueda del culpable. Emulando a su admirado Sherlock Holmes el modelo de detective obsesionado con el análisis de los hechos-, sus pesquisas lo llevarán a cuestionar el sentido común de los adultos que lo rodean y a desvelar algunos secretos familiares que pondrán patas arriba su ordenado y seguro mundo.

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. Routine, order and predictability shelter him from the messy, wider world. Then, at fifteen, Christopher’s carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbor’s dog, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing. Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer and turns to his favorite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. But the investigation leads him down some unexpected paths and ultimately brings him face to face with the dissolution of his parents’ marriage. As he tries to deal with the crisis within his own family, we are drawn into the workings of Christopher’s mind. And herein lies the key to the brilliance of Mark Haddon’s choice of narrator—the most wrenching of emotional moments are chronicled by a boy who cannot fathom emotion. The effect is dazzling, making for a novel that is deeply funny, poignant, and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing is a mind that perceives the world literally. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is one of the freshest debuts in years—a comedy, a heartbreaker, a mystery story, a novel of exceptional literary merit that is great fun to read. <