Simon Sort of Says

Ender's Game

The Shadow Throne: The Ascendance Trilogy

Operation Do-Over

Loyalty

Unleashed

The True Meaning of Smekday

The Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra

Prisoners of Peace

The world is at peace, said the Utterances. And really, if the odd princess has a hard day, is that too much to ask?

Greta is a duchess and crown princess—and a hostage to peace. This is how the game is played: if you want to rule, you must give one of your children as a hostage. Go to war and your hostage dies.

Greta will be free if she can survive until her eighteenth birthday. Until then she lives in the Precepture school with the daughters and sons of the world’s leaders. Like them, she is taught to obey the machines that control their lives. Like them, she is prepared to die with dignity, if she must. But everything changes when a new hostage arrives. Elián is a boy who refuses to play by the rules, a boy who defies everything Greta has ever been taught. And he opens Greta’s eyes to the brutality of the system they live under—and to her own power.

As Greta and Elián watch their nations tip closer to war, Greta becomes a target in a new kind of game. A game that will end up killing them both—unless she can find a way to break all the rules.

Discover Your Child's Next Read

Simon Sort of Says

Erin Bow, 2023

Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card, 1985

The Shadow Throne: The Ascendance Trilogy

Jennifer A. Nielsen, 2014

Operation Do-Over

Gordon Korman, 2022

Loyalty

Avi, 2022

Unleashed

Amy Mcculloch, 2021

The True Meaning of Smekday

Adam Rex, 2007

The Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra

Jason Fry, 2013