For the past five hundred years, the Sith of the Bane line had eschewed selecting children as apprentices, finding it more advantageous to discover beings who had already been hardened or scarred by life.
Plagueis, though, had been an exception.
Del Rey's Star Wars team will continue posting mini-excerpts from upcoming novels on their Facebook page every Thursday. Darth Plagueis will be released on January 10th, 2012 from Del Rey Books.