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booksmellz 's review for:
The Face on the Milk Carton
by Caroline B. Cooney
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
When Janie sees the girl on the back of her friend’s milk carton at lunch, she instantly remembers wearing that dress in the photo, she remembers the itchiness of the fabric against her skin. That little girl with pigtails is her! But how could that be?
As Janie starts to piece together everything, nothing makes sense. Are Mr. and Mrs. Johnson really her parents? Why does she remember other children? Who exactly is she?
I honestly don’t remember why this basically lived in my checkout shelf on Libby for nearly 6 months (yea, I just kept renewing it/putting a hold on it). I think it had to do with it being a banned book for sexual content, challenging authority, and inappropriate for age group. Janie is fifteen and she found out her parents aren’t her biological parents and has been not only lied to, but kidnapped… I think she’s gained the right to be “challenging authority”.
Now, all that being said, did I find this book to be the best written novel in literature? No. Would I have probably enjoyed it a lot more if I read it younger? Yes. By the end of the book, Janie was slightly getting on my nerves and I was also annoyed that I didn’t know if I could trust what the parents said, cause it all sounded CRAZY! Oh, and then I found out this series has FIVE more books?!
Overall, I think young adults would still enjoy reading this. I especially think they would enjoy seeing how kids did their research “back in the day” as Janie tries to find out the truth.