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Zusatztext "This conversation-starting first in a series is a penetrating science-fiction thriller that adroitly explores the issue of prejudice." Informationen zum Autor Margaret Peterson Haddix is the author of many critically and popularly acclaimed YA and middle grade novels, including the Children of Exile series, The Missing series, the Under Their Skin series, and the Shadow Children series. A graduate of Miami University (of Ohio), she worked for several years as a reporter for The Indianapolis News. She also taught at the Danville (Illinois) Area Community College. She lives with her family in Columbus, Ohio. Visit her at HaddixBooks.com. Klappentext A twelve-year-old girl raised in a foster village is returned to her biological parents, and discovers home is not what she expected it to be.Children of Exile CHAPTER ONE We weren’t orphans after all. That was the first surprise. The second was that we were going home. “Home!” my little brother, Bobo, sang as he jumped up and down on my bed, right after the Freds told us the news. “Home, home, home, home . . .” I grabbed him mid-jump and teased, “Silly, you’ve never even been there before! How do you know it’s worth jumping on the bed for?” “I was born there, right?” Bobo said. “So I do know, Rosi. I remember.” He blinked up at me, his long, dark eyelashes sweeping his cheeks like a pair of exquisite feathers. Bobo was five; he had curls that sprang out from his head like so many exclamation points, and his big eyes always seemed to glow. If he’d known how adorable he was, he would have been dangerous. But there was a rule in Fredtown that you couldn’t tell little kids how cute they were. It was kind of hard to obey. “How could you remember being such a tiny baby?” I asked. “You were only a few days old when you arrived in Fredtown. None of us were more than a few days old, coming here.” I tried to keep my voice light and teasing. I was twelve; I should have known better than to look to a five-year-old to answer my questions. But no one else had given me the answers I wanted. And sometimes Bobo heard things. “Edwy says home is where we belong,” Bobo said, stubbornly sticking out his lower lip. “Edwy says we should have stayed there always.” “Oh, Edwy says,” I teased. But it was hard to keep the edge out of my voice. Of course Edwy has an answer, I thought. Even if he just made it up. Even if he knows it’s a lie. Edwy was twelve, like me—we were the oldest children in Fredtown. We were born on the same day. And we were the only ones who were moved to Fredtown on the very day of our birth, instead of waiting a day or two like everyone else. The Freds always told us it had been too “dangerous” for us to stay with our parents then. For the past twelve years, they’d said it was too “dangerous” for any of us children to go home. I was maybe three the first time I asked, But isn’t it dangerous for our parents, too? Why didn’t they come to Fredtown to be safe with us? The Freds always said, They are adults. You are children. Adults have to take care of themselves. It is our job to take care of you. I didn’t think that counted as a real answer. That was why Edwy and I had decided when we were ten—back when we still talked to each other—that we were probably orphans and the Freds just didn’t want to make us sad by telling us that. We’d argued about this a little: I said surely the newest babies of Fredtown weren’t orphans. Surely their parents were still alive. “But there haven’t been any new babies in my family since me,” Edwy said fiercely. He always got fierce when the only other choice was sounding sad. “And none in yours since Bo...
