Shade's Children — Garth Nix

THE KEY TO SURVIVAL RESTS IN THE HANDS OF SHADE'S CHILDREN

In a futuristic urban wasteland, evil Overlords have decreed that no child shall live a day past his fourteenth birthday. On that Sad Birthday, the child is the object of an obscene harvest resulting in the construction of a machinelike creature whose sole purpose is to kill.

The mysterious Shade--once a man, but now more like the machines he fights--recruits children fortunate enough to escape. With luck, cunning, and skill, four of Shade's children come closer than any to discovering the source of the Overlord power--and the key to their downfall. But the closer the children get, the more ruthless Shade seems to become. . . .