Margaret Peterson was born April 9, 1964 Haddix grew up on a farm near Washington Court House, Ohio. She graduated from Miami University (of Ohio) with degrees in English/journalism, English/creative writing and history. Before her first book was published, she was employed as a newspaper copy editor in Fort Wayne, Indiana; a newspaper reporter in Indianapolis; and a community college instructor and freelance writer in Danville, Illinois. Haddix has written more than 30 books for children and teenagers, and she earned the international reading association. Margaret Peterson came up with the idea for this book when one night her and her husband were talking about having more than one child in their house hold. This led to a conversation of overpopulation in the world, and the limited resources in the earth and the one child policy in china that prohibited families from having more than one child and consequence for that was mostly death to those kids they did this because they didn't want to run out of resources in china so they kept the population very small. This is where Mrs. Peterson got her idea of the among series her first book AMONG THE HIDDEN Margaret Peterson was mostly described as Jen in the story Jen was one of the main characters in the story they were alike because just like young Peterson Jen fought for what she thought was right. when Margaret was growing up everyone did the same thing, but she wanted to be different and do her own thing so she decided to take the career of becoming an author even though she had to over come many obstacles to do this she succeeded. This is similar to Jen because she wanted to fight for the rights of her friends and her so she did what ever it took to get that for them.
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Literary Analysis
The main characters of the story of the book are Luke Garner and Jen Talbot who were third children. The story takes place at Lukes house in his room in the (attic) because he parents didn't want the population police to find out about him. They lived in a farm by the woods Luke garner is a shadow child so he would bring grave danger to his family a (shadow child) is a third child forbidden by the population police. The Garners cared for the safety of Lukes life, but now that the housing department is replacing their family farm he is not allowed near the windows Luke isn't even allowed outside anymore. One day he sees a girls face in the window of a house near by which was strange because there were already two other kids living there and he had never seen her in his life before. He then runs over to her house when everybody is gone except for her, he finds out that her name is Jen and she has access to the internet, and that there are hundreds of people just like him (shadow children) that are hidden from the outside world also. Luke finds out that Jens father works for the population police than is really scared to comeback over to her house till he finds out her dad is trying to help the shadow children. Jen and Luke plot to go to the capitol building and rebel against the government with over 100 shadow children on the day of the rebellion Jen is excited and ready and Luke is nervous and scared and backs out when Jen gets there only about 40 children showed up, and everyone of them got shot. A couple days go by and Luke fears the worst that could happen to Jen he finally gets the guts to go over again and see what happened, and her father tells him that she was killed in the rebellion with the forty other children. Jens father offers Luke a fake I.D. and a new life as Lee Grant because he wants to help him and doesn't want Luke to end up the same way his daughter did Luke accepts and starts a new life at a boarding school.
THEMES AND SYMBOLS
There are three main themes in this story one of those themes was survival. Luke hid his whole life because he wasn't even supposed to be alive and if the government found out about that him and his whole family would've most likely been killed Luke had survived 12 long years in his house with out any outside interaction his family stop caring about the harsh laws of the government and just wanted to survive through the struggles and poverty they went through with their children Luke had to get a new identity from Mr. Talbot so he would be able to survive in the world but not even as himself he had to take the name of some one else just so he can be protected from the population police. The other theme through out this story was love love was shown in many ways in this book such as, Luke's parents love him so much that at the end of the book they let him leave so he can be free and safe from the government I know that it would be hard on any parent to let there child go especially if its their youngest child and hes only 12 yrs old, but they do what they have to for the safety of their child and that is a lot of love shown there. The last theme i found in this story was friendship Luke and Jen didn't really know each other that well, but their friendship was as stronger then some one knowing each other for at least 5 years i think this was because they could really relate to each other because they both were going through the same thing and hiding from the government. Luke put his self in so much danger numerous of times in order to go see Jen at her house, and when Jen went to the rally he spent all his time worrying about her. When Luke found out that Jen was killed he was overwhelmed by sadness, and guilt and blamed himself for her death because he was too scared of going to the rally and backed out at the last minute Luke wished he was as brave as Jen and that he had the guts to do what she did for the freedom of hundreds of kids that she didn't even know. These are the 3 main themes that i saw throughout the story and were shown many ways through out the Among The Hidden story.
Readers Journal
I enjoyed this book this book is probably at the top of the list for my favorites. I in general love all of Margaret Peterson's books because they just get me into the book right away I love the way she uses mystery and suspense to get her readers entertained through out the story from the beginning of the book to the end this is the only book i have ever read that after finishing the first series i wanted to read the other ones right away. When i read this book it didn't even feel like i was reading it made me feel as if i was in the book because in some of the sad parts such as when Jen got killed my heart just dropped because she was one of the main characters and you would have never seen that coming it just wasn't meant to be, and it made me feel like those characters were close to me. I feel as if they made this book into a movie it would be one of the greatest movies ever made because of how good the book was I like how the author helped me make relations with the characters for example when Luke had to stay inside for a long time i could relate with that because there are some days that i cant go outside because i'm in trouble or have to much homework so i can relate to how Luke feels about being inside all day it is the most boring feeling ever, and you just feel trapped. This book also helped me relate to our government and got me thinking what if this actually came to be and there was a law on how many kids you can have that would be awful i got to thinking of this because we are already half way overpopulated and many of us are going through poverty so what if the government just one day got this idea which would be really scary, so hopefully we don't come to that. This was a great book and I recommend many to read i'm sure they'd love it because I absolutely enjoyed it.