Readers will be pleased with this spring's crop of further adventures. In what Suzanne Collins is calling the "penultimate" adventure in her Underland Chronicles, Gregor and the Marks of Secret, the mice in the Underland begin to disappear, and queen Luxa enlists Gregor to help her find out why. (Scholastic, In the spine-tingling wrap-up to her Shadow Children series, Among the Free by Margaret Peterson Haddix, Luke Garner, the third-born hidden child in a society that allows only two per family, unintentionally begins a rebellion that ends in anarchy. Ages 9-12. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Gregor and Boots travel back to the Underland, where their mother is still recovering from the plague. Anticipating a calm summer taking echolocation lessons from Ripred, the rat, Gregor first senses trouble when he is reintroduced to the Bane, the baby rat whose life Gregor once spared. The Bane has transformed into an "eight foot mountain of white fur." He has killed and eaten his caretaker, manifests mental instability, and is rapidly gathering followers. Ripred recommends that he be killed immediately to avert further trouble. But it is already too late. When Queen Luxa receives a message from the mice asking for help, she and Gregor set out secretly, only to discover that entire mouse colonies have been obliterated. The rats, led by the Bane, intend to exterminate the whole mouse race by any means possible and then attack the humans of Regalia. This fourth book in The Underland Chronicles seems primarily transitional,: identifying possible genocide, hinting at prophecies, and leaving Regalia arming to fight an onslaught of giant rats. While Gregor and Luxa brave renegade rats, volcanoes, and scorpions to save the mice, they are forced instead to watch hundreds of them die, unable to help. Gregor faces the unavoidable consequences of his decision to allow the Bane to live. He begins to mature from a boy into a warrior, almost loses his sister a second time, and even falls in love. Fans will be panting for this next installment that follows Gregor and the Curse of the Warm Bloods (Scholastic, 2005/VOYA October 2005). VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined asgrades 7 to 9). 2006, Scholastic, 336p., Ages 11 to 15.
—Nancy K. Wallace
Gr 5-8-No good deed goes unpunished in the fourth installment in the popular series. Gregor and his sister Boots are regular visitors to Underland, where their mother is slowly recovering from injuries incurred in the previous episode. Gregor is supposed to be studying echolocation with his rat friend, Ripred the Gnawer, but he's doing very badly. Ripred has his own problems, largest of which is Bane, the once-sweet little baby Gnawer whom the protagonist refused to kill in Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane (Scholastic, 2004). Bane, now a half-grown monster of a rat, is surprisingly charismatic yet emotionally stunted and easily controlled by the forces of evil. When Queen Luxa gets a message that the mice that saved her life in the jungle are in trouble, she and Gregor head out to investigate, accompanied by her cousin Howard, several bats, Gregor's sisters, and a brave cockroach named Temp. The breathless pace, intense drama, and extraordinary challenges will leave fans clamoring for the conclusion of this fine series.-Mara Alpert, Los Angeles Public Library Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
In this, the penultimate volume in "The Underland Chronicles," Collins begins to gather herself for the grand finale. Gregor has been taking echolocation lessons with Ripred, the charismatic and violent outlaw rat, and after one session he introduces Gregor to Bane, the white-rat pup Gregor spared in defiance of prophecy (Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, 2004). Bane is now some eight feet tall and still growing, and thoroughly, dangerously mad. Shortly after this introduction, both Ripred and Bane go missing, and Queen Luxa discovers that the mice who succored her in the jungle (Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, 2005) have also disappeared, leaving only one enigmatic Mark of Secret. Flying bat-back into the depths of the Underland go Gregor and Luxa, Luxa's cousins Howard and Hazard, Gregor's little sister Boots and the faithful cockroach Temp. A customarily eventful trip through Hades Hall to the Firelands leads the band to both the mice and Bane, who has his own Final Solution in mind for the entire mouse race. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers gasping as Gregor goes chasing another prophecy, the direst yet. (Fiction. 9-14)
Kirkus Starred
In this penultimate volume in "The Underland Chronicles," Collins begins to gather herself for the grand finale. Gregor has been taking echolocation lessons with Ripred, the charismatic and violent outlaw rat, and after one session he introduces Gregor to Bane, the white-rat pup Gregor spared in defiance of prophecy (Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, 2004). Bane is now some eight feet tall and still growing, and thoroughly, dangerously mad. Shortly after this introduction, both Ripred and Bane go missing, and Queen Luxa discovers that mice who succored her in the jungle (Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, 2005) have also disappeared, leaving only one enigmatic Mark and Hazard, Gregor's little sister Boots and the faithful cockroach Tornp. A customarily eventful trip through Hades Hall to the Firelands leads the band to both the mice and Bane, who has his own Final Solution in mind for the entire mouse race. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers gasping as Gregor goes chasing another prophecy, the direst yet.
Horn Book
Suzanne Collins Gregor and the Marks of Secret: Book Four in the Underland Chronicles
341 pp. Scholastic 5/06 ISBN 0-439-79145-6 $16.99 g
(Intermediate)
"So this is how a war starts.... Not with two armies facing off, waiting for the signal to charge.... It begins much more quietly. In a room, on a field, in a remote tunnel when someone who has power decides the time has come." In this fourth installment, twelve-year-old Gregor returns to the bizarre subterranean land of archaic violet-eyed humans and giant rodents, bats, insects, and other creatures. He and his fellow Underland battle veterans set out to answer a call for help from the mice, and their quest leads to some grim discoveries -- including an abandoned mouse colony, symbols of death etched in stone and blood, and, most gruesome of all, a mass grave. Collins keeps the tension and the stakes high;
vivid description, expert pacing, and subtle character development all enhance this gripping fantasy adventure. At the conclusion, we leave Gregor heading into what promises to be an interspecies conflict of epic proportions. "Who would he be...if he survived?" Readers will have to wait for the fifth (and final?) book to find out. K.F.
