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.

Kin: The Good Neighbors, Book One by Holly Black and Ted Naifeh

A Graphic Novel by Holly Black; illustrations by Ted Naifeh


Rue Silver’s mother has disappeared and, though she’s still hanging out with her goth-punk friends, she’s also beginning to see strange things – sticks turn into human shapes, people pop up with pointy ears and very strange ways.

When her father is arrested for the murder of his student and the presumed murder of his wife, a sinister parallel world of faeries (aka “The Good Neighbors”) begins to crawl out of the shadows. Is Rue crazy, or is the thin veil of normalcy in her everyday world being pulled aside so that she can see things as they really are?

Sharp and dark, the entire book is drawn in a hypnotic black and white. The creepy alternative dreamworld is repulsive and seductive at the same time.

In the post-Twilight era, teens were flocking to Black's Tithe series -- a gritty book about faeries. The cover image of this graphic novel is pretty alluring. And goth-punk faeries? Pretty fun stuff.

Bibliotherapeutic value: Rue begins the book with a tough (“no worries”) attitude, but she soon realizes that she has plenty to worry about. The intensity of this graphic novel is nicely paired with Rue’s tough-as-nails approach; this story captures the feeling that many teens have that they are living in a strange world in which they are not understood by anybody, and in which their parents might not be the people that they’ve always imagined.

Black, Holly and Naifeh, Ted. The Good Neighbors: Kin. New York: Graphix, 2008.

ISBN: 978-0-439-85562-4. $16.99