The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney

Janie Johnson is just a regular girl who dreams of an exotic life filled with adventure -- and, boy, does she get it. One day, as Janie and her friends are eating lunch in the school cafeteria, the kids all joke about the missing children ads on their milk carton. Janie picks up her friend's carton, drinks the milk, then realizes in a flash of memory that the girl on the carton is her.

Stunned, Janie begins to question everything around her. Who are these people who have said they were her parents? Are they crazy? Could these caring, nurturing people be dangerous? Haven't they already broken the law?

When she finds a cache of old papers with the name "Hannah" on them and the dress from the milk-carton photograph, she finally confronts her parents.

Their answers pacify her...until new, unsettling questions arise to poke holes in their story.

A twisting mystery that brings up some of the most unsettling feelings; What if the life that seemed so normal was merely a sham?

Intrigued by the title, I delved in and couldn't put this book down. Disturbing and gripping.

Bibliotherapeutic value: This is a novel about a child "owning" her story, about finding out the truth, even when the truth may be uncomfortable. In order to get what she wants. Janie has to confront people with buried memories that some would prefer stayed buried.

Cooney, Caroline. The Face on the Milk Carton. New York: Laurel Leaf Books, 1991.

ISBN: 0440220653. $6.99.

The Missing Girl by Norma Fox Mazer

To the five Herbert girls, life is messy and unpredictable. Dad’s been laid-off; Mom’s a sensitive, overweight wreck; Fancy, the special needs one, just won’t stop talking; Stevie’s mean; Beauty just can’t wait to escape the family and the town. To the stranger, they are perfect, a joyful flock of girlish energy. He watches. He waits. He won’t act – or will he?

A story of teen/tween angst – or family turmoil and romantic longing – turns into a quite different story of abduction, of decisions that could make the difference between life and death.

This book was selected as our school’s book club book for May 2010; I was intrigued by the cover image of swirling hair on a white background and became hooked when I read the predator’s haunting take on the girls as he passes them to work every day.

Bibliotherapeutic value: A story about how true mental illness can reside in a completely normal-looking person, it shows surface normalcy can be deceiving (that someone perfectly innocent and boring-looking to a teen might be a real threat). It’s also a tale about strength and self-preservation – and about recovering from trauma.

Mazer, Norma Fox. The Missing Girl. New York: HarperTeen, 2008.

ISBN: 0066237769. $16.99.