The Books That Rock the Cradle

Libertarian themes in children's fiction.

Stuart Anderson from the January 2006 issue

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The fear is for good reason. Among the Hidden introduces early on the dreaded Population Police, who monitor phones and computers, and possess unlimited authority for search and seizure. The children they apprehend are executed. This frightening context is tempered by the down-to-earth portrayals of Luke and his neighbor Jen, another third child. While Luke knows little of the outside world except that he is forbidden to participate in it, Jen is worldly to the point of recklessness, engaging in online chats and nascent activism with other third children. She teaches Luke to question authority and derides the government at every turn. Luke learns that Jen is more than mere bluster when she asks him to attend a protest rally she has planned with other third children in front of "the President's House." Part of Luke wants to go, but he's too worried that a public demonstration would be fraught with peril.

Parents should note that this book is hardly a Disney film with cute kids easily besting the grownups. After days go by without hearing from Jen, a worried Luke comes upon Jen's father. He relates to Luke what happened at the rally: "They shot her. They shot all of them. All forty kids at the rally, gunned down right in front of the President's house. The blood flowed into his rosebushes. But they had the sidewalks scrubbed before the tourists came."

The aftermath of the protest means Luke can no longer hide in safety with his parents, and must instead go to a school formed by dissident adults to protect the identities of third children. The seven-part series--Haddix has just completed the final two--follows Luke and other kids as they cope with betrayal and the fear of government authorities, moving from battling to stay alive to sowing the seeds of rebellion.

Haddix says the idea for Among the Hidden came after discussing with her husband whether to have a third child themselves. She started thinking about the one-child policy in China and its impact on individuals and families. As research, she read Paul Ehrlich's 1968 book The Population Bomb, in which Ehrlich stated: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." Haddix notes that she read the book already years past the deadline for that dire prediction, so it was easy to take Ehrlich's warnings with a grain of salt.

In popular works, particularly movies, environmentalists are often portrayed as selfless do-gooders fighting evil corporate executives for the good of society. (Think Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich.) Given the fears of overpopulation still found in certain segments of the environmental movement, it shouldn't be surprising that Haddix has a more skeptical view. In her book Running Out of Time (1995), a young girl comes upon a man to whom she later refers as "the fat environmentalist." The man says to her: "It's not like I care that much about losing weight. It's for my wife. She keeps asking, 'Isn't there something hypocritical about being a fat environmentalist? Using up all the world's resources?' "

In that novel's clever premise, eugenicists turn a Williamsburg-like tourist attraction into a virtual prison. They plan to sacrifice the inhabitants, using an epidemic, for medical research purposes, supposedly to help humanity. The young Jessie must escape this fabricated 1840 world and find help in modern America, or else her family and friends may die. She comes to understand the danger posed by those determined to impose their ideas for how to live on the rest of us.

The Among the Hidden series has sold more than 800,000 books, making it one of Simon and Schuster's best-selling children's titles each year, according to company spokesperson Tracy van Straaten. For parents, perhaps the strongest part of Haddix's books is her willingness to be blunt about two inescapable truisms: People in power sometimes lie, and things presented as "facts" may not reflect how the world actually works. "I think it's very important for kids to learn critical thinking skills," she says. She declines to state any political alignment. (Lowry, a resident of Massachusetts, says she voted for John Kerry.)

There is enough information in Haddix's books to ensure that young readers understand that it is not necessary to curtail population growth to feed people or save the environment. Moreover, the forged documents prevalent in her novels caution readers about the misuses of national ID cards.

While it is often difficult to pinpoint the impact of specific books, with so many copies sold and available in libraries, it's clear that Lois Lowry and Margaret Peterson Haddix are exposing millions of children to ideas vital to the functioning of a free society. They offer young readers a world where individuals need not be sacrificed for the sake of those who quest to expand both the reach of government and their own personal power.

But what makes the work of Lowry and Haddix so effective is that neither writes to achieve a specific political end. In fact, in conversation neither seems political at all. Instead, they want to tell stories that encourage young readers to question what they're told, especially if the information is presented as part of a vision that requires individuals to give up their liberties in the name of safety or equality. It's a lesson many adults could learn as well.�