The Shadow Thieves

This book is called The Shadow Theives  by Anne Ursu. This is the story Of Zee and Charlotte.The story begins in London with Zee. Ever since Zee's grandma died all of his friends have been falling under a mysterious sickness. Zee wonders if it involves the well-dressed pale men who he notices every once and a while. Fearing for his sanity his parents let him stay in America with his cousin Charlotte. She enjoys having someone her age to hang out with besides her friend Maddy. Charlotte soon finds out that almost every girl in the ENTIRE school has a crush on Zee including her friend Maddy. Maddy a girl who is never absent even when sick wasn't at school. Maddy didn't come back for the entire week. Zee knows that it is the same mysterious sickness that he dealt with in London. He noticed a similarity in the sickness. One day while he was walking home he saw one of those pale guys taking a black thing from a kid. Zee tells Charlotte about his theory. They go visit Maddy one of many with the mysterious sickness. Charlotte brings Maddy her homework she turns on the light to find out Zee's theory was right. Those weird men were stealing shadows. On the way home they were attacked by Footmen, those weird pale guys. Their English teacher Mr. Metos saves their lives. They find out that the grandson of Posideon, Philocrenon, Is trying to create a shadow army to overthrow Hades. So Mr. Metos tells them how to get into the underworld. They get into the underworld and the story takes a twist for the worse . Will they survive? Will they save the shadows of their friends?

I would give this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars. It was a great story, I personally thought it was great. I would reccomend it for 5th grade through maybe 9th grade because it might be too scary for younger ages. It had a very good plot throughout the whole story. The beginning is the only  dry part but otherwise it was fine.