Title: The Face on the Milk Carton
Author: Caroline B. Cooney
Release Date: 1st April 1991
Publisher: Laurel Leaf Library
Re-released by Ember on 22nd May 2012
with a stylish new cover!
The little girl on the milk carton stared back
at Janie… an ordinary little girl, three-year-old who had been kidnapped twelve
years ago from a shopping mall in New
Jersey
Fifteen-year-old Janie can’t believe that her
loving parents had kidnapped her, until she begins to piece together things
that don’t make sense. Why are there no pictures of Janie before she was four?
Why is the dress in the photo in her house?
Something is terribly wrong and Janie is almost
too afraid to find the truth.
This book found itself on the returned today shelf at my
library the other day and despite knowing the story, having read the book years
before, I was intrigued about what made this book appeal to a new generation of
teenager readers. The story is essentially very simple, outlined in the blurb,
so no surprises there. But what makes this story great (and made me want to
reread) is that you live the story along with Janie, finding out what has
happened piece by piece and asking the same questions she does.
Also, Janie is an average girl, she has a family that love
her, friends that (sometimes) don’t really ‘get’ her and a relationship with
the boy next door that becomes increasingly more racy as the book progresses
(in a really nice innocent way, not a seedy way!). Her life is then thrown upside
down when she sees her younger self on a milk cartoon missing advert. What
grips me as a reader is that this could be me, or my best friend, or anyone (It
couldn’t be me though, I’ve checked and there are baby photos of me with my
Mum!)… Janie has never doubted her family unit and yet this one thing throws
her life into turmoil. From then on in the story, Janie tries to unravel her
past, while not being able to believe that her loving parents would kidnap her
and questioning her own sanity.
I can identify with Janie as a character and have the same
curiosity she does with regards to revealing her past. Her relationship with
Reeve (the boy next door), isn’t key to the story but adds meat to the bones,
showing their strained relationship as Janie pursues her desire to know what
has happened. As young people, they are just beginning an intimate relationship
and the book delves into the passion and desire they feel as well as the awkwardness
that comes with exploring sexual feelings. This building of Janie and Reece’s
characters allows you to take a step back from the intensity of the kidnap
story and just enjoy the characters that Caroline B. Cooney has created.
Just a warning, this book does end on a cliff-hanger and you
will be desperate to read the next book so make sure that you borrow/buy the
series together and not just the first book (a major mistake I made!). Caroline
B. Cooney has always been one of my favourite authors for her point horror
titles and I remember this was what first drew me towards ‘The Face on the Milk
Carton’ all those years ago. If you haven’t read anything by this author before…
give it a go. You are missing out otherwise!
9/10 Despite this being an old(er) title, it still resonates
with me and grips from the beginning
