Just Finished Reading Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods by Suzanne Collins

Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, from 2005, is the third of five books in Suzanne Collins Underland Chronicles children's fantasy series, predating her more famous Hunger Games undertaking. In it young Gregor, living in poverty conditions in his New York City apartment with his working mother, incapacitated father and two sisters, once again is drawn back down deep underground into a strange world of large, intelligent and talking animals...including bats, rats, cockroaches, and mice...as the humans dwelling there have presented the next of their centuries-old prophecies: they have an uncanny way of including Gregor, known down below as The Warrior.  In this story, the warmblooded creatures, including the humans, have suffered a serious outbreak of plague and a prophecy enlists Gregor's help in rescuing them from it.  This time he goes down, not only with his baby sister Boots (who's always with him on these adventures) but also with his mother, who insisted on accompanying them this time.  Once down there she gets infected and Gregor's mission suddenly gets very personal.  The plan is to go deep into a dangerous jungle full of predatory plants, quicksand and other hazards to find a special plant thought to cure the disease.  As in the first two books of this series, the ending turns everything on its head, this time with rather dark and foreboding consequences...and foreshadowing the kind of heartless manipulation of people by leaders that Collins would later portray in The Hunger Games.  I liked the book, which like its predecessors is relatively short...but naturally you'd want to go through the first two before tackling this one for yourself.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this all plays out in the final two series volumes, expecting more sobering revelations about base human nature to surface as well...