Suzanne Collins' debut novel, Gregor the Overlander, the first book in The Underland Chronicles, received wide praise both in the United States and abroad. The series has been a New York Times bestseller and received numerous accolades. Also a writer for children's television, Suzanne lives with her family in Connecticut.
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 cha
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