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Among the Impostors by Margaret Peterson Haddix, ISBN 0-689-83904-9, Simon and Schuster Book for Young Readers, New York 2001. $16.00, 172 pages. Grades 8 through 12.

The main character is Luke Garner who is hiding in a boarding school under an alias of Lee Grant. Most of the other characters are secondary and enigmatic. Luke’s best friend Jen is referred to throughout the book, yet she died before the book begins. Mr. Talbot, Jen’s father, is also in the background for most of the book until he surfaces as an important adult figure at the end.

Plot:

Among the Impostors is an antiutopian account of how Luke is hidden in a boarding school and protected from his secret identity of being the third child, outlawed because of population issues in this futuristic nightmare world. The book is an account through Luke’s thoughts of his isolation and slow adaptation to the dangerous world he lives in. As with many science fiction books, major surprises happen at the end.

Touchy areas

Basically the book is wholesome in terms of language, and content. However, there are allusions to scary violent deaths of children and the book has an ominous feel throughout. With the popular culture of today, this book should provide very little problems in a middle or high school classroom.

Related Title:

The Giver by Lois Lowry; Among the Hidden, the first in this series, by Margaret Peterson Haddix. 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Boarding school books like A Separate Peace and Catcher in the Rye are related.

Movies include: Adult futuristic science fiction works like The Matrix or The Terminator series.

Boarding school movies; Dead Poet’s Society and School Ties.

Evaluation:

This is a spooky look at a future world where a government makes rules about the number of allowable children. The book feels claustrophobic since it is set in this dark and brooding boarding school. The thoughts of Luke, which is the overwhelming narrative, are filled with insecurities and fears. Most characters, including the adults at the school and Luke’s peers are one dimensional and scary.

The surprise ending offers some hope and decent adults but it takes the entire book to get there. I would recommend that this book would be best suited for a reading workshop setting for students who like this genre.

Rating…….5

Reviewed by

Hal Foster, University of Akron. hfoster@uakron.edu.