Tween Tuesday-Margaret Peterson Haddix

I love the Shadow Children series by Margaret Peterson Haddix. One of my favorite genres is dystopian novels, and this series of seven books was fantastic. The first book, Among the Hidden, is about a boy named Luke. Luke was born in a future where society was on the brink of starvation. The government created the Population Police and made a low that families could only have two children. Luke is the third child in his family and has to stay hidden from everyone. He soon meets another "third" child staying hidden in a house nearby. The whole series introduces other third children and the several underground organizations that are fighting for freedom for everybody. It's easy to sell tweens on these and they are in constant circulation in my library.

Another, older, dystopian series for the tween set is the Tripods series by John Christopher. I read these right after I graduated from college and loved them. He wrote several series in the 60's, but this was by far my favorite. I bought them for my library last year and so far haven't gotten many kids interested in them, but after the new year I will give them another push. These are about a future where aliens (called the Tripods0 have taken over and enslaved humanity. The great thing about this book is that when you start reading you aren't sure whether it takes place in an alternate reality or the future. There is a point where you do find out when our protagonists go through the ruins of a city that you know, but it's fun guessing until then.

The recent years have brought several high quality dystopian novels for tweens and young adults to the bookstores and libraries, but these two series are a great introduction to this genre, without being too terrifying about humankind's future!