Nina, a secondary character in Among the Imposters, is falsely accused of treason and imprisoned. In this third installment that began with Among the Hidden, "the author delivers more than enough suspense to keep fans hooked and to intrigue new recruits as well," said PW. Ages 9-14. (Aug.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Gr 5-9-Haddix continues her science fiction dystopian tale about illegal third children in this sequel to Among the Hidden (1998) and Among the Imposters (2001, both S & S). Nina is imprisoned by the Population Police for being an illegal child. She is given the opportunity to save herself by spying on the other three children who are in the jail cell with her. Nina finds herself both drawn to them and fearful for her own life. When she has a chance to escape, she decides to take them with her and is surprised at their survival skills as they fend for themselves in the wild. Then, Nina is captured again. This time, though, she has an even harder decision to make-will she put her life in danger in order to save her friends? In a surprising ending, Nina finds that the children she rescued and the man from the Population Police who arrests her the second time are part of a group dedicated to saving third children like herself. While the book could stand alone, it is much more interesting and meaningful when read after the two previous volumes. As a character, Nina is well drawn and believable but it is the agonizing moral decisions that she must make that elevate the book beyond the average tale. Haddix is a superb storyteller and her view of a future world short of food that allows only two children per family is both scary and plausible.-Janet Hilbun, formerly at Sam Houston Middle School, Garland, TX Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Billed as a companion to Among the Hidden (1998), this addition to Haddix's burgeoning series about an Orwellian future in which third children are hunted down and killed follows the moral dilemma of a peripheral character from Among the Impostors (2001). The Population Police has captured Nina because of her involvement with a supposed plot to expose third children. An undercover third child herself, she is offered a deal: confirm the illegality of three other suspected third children imprisoned along with her, and she will go free. As she gets to know these children and sorts through her own sense of betrayal at the hands of her former boyfriend, she must choose between saving them and betraying them. There are no real surprises here; readers familiar with the previous novels will recognize the patterns of duplicity, and Nina's own eventual moral decision is never truly in doubt. This text's strength, in common with its predecessors', is its ability to imagine the bizarre and surreal experiences of its protagonists. Nina has been confined and hidden since birth; this is borne in on the reader with telling details: " 'The sun rises?' Nina asked. She'd never thought about how it got up into the sky. In pictures and on TV it was just there, overhead." But by the third time around, there is a certain sameness to the revelations of the end, in which it is revealed that Nina's ordeal has been an elaborate plot to test her fitness for membership in a resistance to the government's restrictions on third children. Along with Nina and Luke (who makes a cameo appearance from the other titles), the reader may be justified in asking, just how much longer before the Revolution? (Fiction. 9-14)