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Gregor And The Marks Of Secret, Vol. 4 | ||
| Author: | Suzanne Collins | ||
| ISBN: | 0439791456 | ||
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It's only a few months since Gregor and Boots returned from the Underland, leaving their mother behind to heal from the plague. Though Gregor's family receives frequent updates on her condition, they all know Gregor must return to fulfill his role as the warrior who is key to the Underlanders' survival. Accompanied by his now-talkative, potty-trained little sister Boots, still considered the honorary "princess," Gregor joins forces with another princess -- 12-year-old Luxa -- and Ripred the rat to defend the Underlanders and the vulnerable "Nibblers" or mice, from the rat army led by (cont'd) Gregor and the Marks of Secret (Underland Chronicles #4) FROM THE PUBLISHER It's only a few months since Gregor and Boots returned from the Underland, leaving their mother behind to heal from the plague. Though Gregor's family receives frequent updates on her condition, they all know Gregor must return to fulfill his role as the warrior who is key to the Underlanders' survival. Accompanied by his now-talkative, potty-trained little sister Boots, still considered the honorary "princess," Gregor joins forces with another princess - 12-year-old Luxa - and Ripred the rat to defend the Underlanders and the vulnerable "Nibblers" or mice, from the rat army. FROM THE CRITICS Publishers Weekly 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. Kirkus Reviews 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)
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