Since I got my reader around three or four weeks ago, I've spent hundreds of dollars buying books (every time there's a sale, I can't resist getting a few more that sound interesting) and I'm always itching to read, much more so than I used to when I only had print books. In fact, last Thursday night and Friday, all the way until 5AM Saturday morning, I was reading almost continuously and ignoring everything else, including lots of chores I needed to get done.
I had downloaded all 7 books of the Shadow Children sequence and read them back to back to back. I had actually read books 1,2,3 and 5 previously (I used to be a Junior High School teacher) but never got to finish so I was thrilled when I found them all available as ebooks. The trouble is, now I'm trying to catch up on work that I should have been doing then.
So I say again -- ebooks are dangerous. To my wallet and to my time. Even now I hear the siren call of my ebook reader with yet another book I'm in the middle of reading and want to get back to.
Oh, and for those wondering what it is, the Shadow Children series or sequence, as the author refers to it is a series of 7 books by Margaret Peterson Haddixx. The books are middle grade (i.e. written for the same age group as the Harry Potter series) and the focus is on third children. Very briefly, without giving away the whole plot, in some futuristic time, a country (we're never told which, but the local currency is mentioned as being dollars and the presidential mansion is mentioned as having a rose garden, so you be the judge) has suffered three years of severe drought resulting in famines and food riots.
After three years, the military takes over and imposes order, making sure people will no longer starve. However, in order to prevent the possibility of problems in the future, they pass the population law which says that no family may have more than two children. Anyone who has a third child will be subject to either a $5 million fine or death at the discretion of the judge and the child will be executed by the dreaded population police. The story begins by focusing on Luke, who is a third child and how he has to remain in hiding. He has all kinds of struggles in order to deal with the problems that come from that, but I won't say more since it may give away the plot.
I will say however that I love the way she has a great command of the human psyche. She shows you, in simple terms how certain ideas can develop in us as people. I especially liked the way she developed the end of the 7th book where she shows the danger of listening in sound bites instead of actually taking the time to learn all the details about an issue. I use a similar concept in my own novel and I often comment on that when I write about history. Especially in an era of television, most people can't be bothered to read what the facts actually are and instead love to focus on slogans and simple ideas. That said, the 7th book was the weakest of the bunch. . .but anyway, enough said. I need to try to get back to work instead of doing more reading.
Eric