Among the Betrayed: Shadow Children Book 3 by Margaret Haddix

Grade Level: 4-5 | AR Points: 5.0

Among the Betrayed

What if you were arrested for a crime you did not commit?  The punishment for the crime you are accused of is death.  Just as you are resigned to be executed, you are given a reprieve if only you agree to betray three others.  Your betrayal will cost them their lives, but will save yours.  What would you do?

At the beginning of the Shadow Children books, Among the Hidden, we meet Luke Garner.  He is an illegal third child in a society that limits families to only 2 children, under penalty of death.  Luke was able to play in the woods around his house and still be hidden, until the Government forces his father to sell the woods for a housing development.  He meets another third child, Jen Talbot, whose father works for the dreaded Population Police.  In the second book, Among the Imposters, Luke is given a fake ID and sent off to school as Lee Grant.  He meets Jason and Nina and learns terrible secrets.

Now, in this third book, Nina tells her story after she is arrested by the Population Police for betraying her country by accusing children of being illegal with fake IDs.  They even play a tape of Jason, her first love, accusing her of plotting the whole thing trying to save his own life.  Nina is moved to a cell with Matthias, Percy, and Alia and is told they were manufacturing fake IDs.  She is to find out how they were doing it and who they were working with before the Government put them to death.  In exchange, she would be allowed to live.

She has several hard decisions to make when she has a chance to escape, either alone or with her new cellmates.  Why should she help them when nobody has come to help her.  Her three cellmates don’t trust her, so why should she trust them?

The author continues this thought-provoking tale with even more suspenseful moments that keep the book in the reader’s hand and eyes glued to the pages for hours.

Share on Facebook