The+Face+on+the+Milk+Carton

Emily

My literature circle book was called The face on the Milk Carton and the author was Caroline B. Cooney. Overall, the book was not my favorite. It was rather perplexing to me and hard to follow. Also, it left you hanging too much and did not give very good explanations. One thing that made this book unique is that the author did use dialogue, but she also frequently went into the characters heads and it was all about what they were thinking.

The plot of this book was what made it so confusing. One day, the main character Janie was at lunch eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich, and she frantically needed a drink of milk. So, even though she is lactose in tolerant she went ahead and drank the milk. She then saw her face on the milk carton and realized that she had been kidnapped 12 years ago! As a result, Janie has to try and disentangle the mystery of who she truly is and what really happened when she was a mere 3 year old! I thought the idea of the plot seemed ok, but as I read farther and farther into the book I found that it was confusing and all over the place. One minute the characters are talking, the next you’re inside Janie’s thoughts. I don’t know what it would like to be kidnapped because Janie was. I was not kidnapped and I would never want to find out that I had been living with the wrong family for my whole life! The plot of this book is kind of like another book I read called Double Identity by Margaret Peterson Haddix. Both of these books are about a girl trying to ascertain who she really is…the only difference is that one was kidnapped and one is a clone.

There are many diverse characters in this book. The most main character’s name is Janie Johnson. Janie is the character that the book is mainly about. She is trying to figure out whether she was really kidnapped 12 years ago like she thinks she was. Janie is light, airy, and fun to be around. Janie and I are very similar personalities. We are light, sweet, airy and bubbly. When we are happy it’s like we’re floating on top of the world. When we are sad we try to hide it and act perfectly fine so we do not make other people worry or bring them down. She is confused about her life but she is good at hiding her emotions and dealing. Another character in my book is Reeve Shields. Reeve is Janie’s boyfriend and best friend. He is with Janie through all of her issues and she is the only one he confided in about her being kidnapped. Reeve is very straightforward and even a little bit pushy at times. Reeve is a pretty decent guy in my book. He treats Janie well and has a pretty good individuality. One thing I would change about Reeve is I would like him to give 100% in school. Both Janie and Reeve feel and love deeply. There’s also Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. They are Janie’s parents and they are very close with Janie and treat her very sweetly. I don’t see how it’s possible for them to have kidnapped Janie. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson treat her so well! I find it hard to believe that they would do anything to hurt her. Then there are Mr. and Mrs. Shields who are like Janie’s second parents. They are Reeve’s biological parents and they have brought him up well. Mr. and Mrs. Shields are kindhearted people with good intentions. The Shields seem like good people and they give off good emotions and good energy. There is also Sarah-Charlotte, Pete, Adair, and Jason. They are Janie’s closest friends and they are funny, nice souls. I like Sarah-Charlotte over all but she is too boy obsessed and not very supportive at times. Adair seems nice and friendly, also very outgoing and understanding. Pete and Jason are well…Pete and Jason are boys! They all seem like good friends to Janie. Good friends that someone like Janie would need. Also, one of the mentioned people in this book is Hannah. Hannah is the Johnson’s daughter. I personally do not think very highly of Hannah. She is selfish and spiteful to herself and others. Furthermore, she is in a cult and you would have to be pretty dim-witted to get yourself into something like that. In contrast, the last mentioned people in this book are the Spring family. They seem like good all around individuals. They have fun and have faith and hope. I still think Janie really relates to Bethany from the book Double Identity because they are both hunting for clues to find out who they really are. The plots are similar as well, the books and characters can really relate more than any others, I think. I find it also really sad that Janie was kidnapped because that customarily doesn’t happen in the real world and when it does the kidnapped is usually hurt or killed so they wouldn’t have to live their whole rest of their life not knowing their real parents. That would be really sad to go through.

I don’t think I would propose this book to any other readers. I know I didn’t really enjoy the book because of how confusing and moderately boring the book was. I wouldn’t want make others think the book was phenomenal, because it wasn’t, it was only okay. If I had to recommend this book I would recommend it to people who had a gargantuan attention span and were really into boring/ slow moving half romance mystery books. But other than that, I would have a hard time suggesting The face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B. Cooney to any other readers.

The book name is “The face on the milk carton” by Caroline B. Cooney. I did not really like the book. One unusual thing about it is that Hannah Jaine's mom kidnapped her and gave her to her parents. Another unusual thing is why her grandparents never told her about her parents.

Janie is a 16-year-old girl that doesn’t really know who her parents are. The people who she thought were her parents were her grandparents. Her mom is somewhere in the world. I did not like the plot because it never really made a lot of sense. A connection I have with this book is Sometimes I don’t really feel like I control my life. A connection to another text is this book is like a Harry Potter book because it is always so confusing.

Janie is a smart girl with long brown hair. Reeve is Janie’s boyfriend. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson are Janie grandparents. I did not like how Reeve couldn’t stay focused on one thing for 2 seconds. I don’t really stay focused all the time. Hermione is sort of like Janie because she is smart as well and has long brown hair. Ron is just like Reeve because he doesn’t really stay focused for a long time.

I would recommend this book to people who enjoy mysteries because it is a very strange book. Another reason is because it is complicated. Also I think if you read the first one you would have to read the sequel What ever happened to Janie. I would recommend this to my dad.

Christina Reinhard When Janie picked up that milk carton her entire life changed. __The Face on the Milk Carton__ and __Whatever Happened to Janie__ by Caroline B. Cooney tells the tale of Janie’s new life. I would recommend this book to people who boast mysteries. The book leaves you hanging at the end of nearly every chapter. I am giving it the rating of an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. It can be foreseeable at some parts and the story drags on at some points, but overall it was ok. To continue, the plot of the book is all about Jennie Spring’s kidnapping. One day at lunch Janie finds what seems to be a portrait of herself on a milk carton as a missing child. Janie starts to become worried and doesn’t think her parents would do that. Her parents are nice people and wouldn’t dare to abduct any child. Well, it turns out they are not her parents at all. Her parents think that they are her grandparents. Their genuine daughter, Hannah dropped Janie off at her house when she was three. But Hannah is not even related to Janie. Oddly, she has a whole other set of parents that were wondering where she was for 12 years and her real name is Jennie Spring. Janie can’t deal with this stress and needs to find someway to make it better. She decides to call her real mother. Janie and Mrs. Spring work out an agreement. Janie is going to New Jersey to live with her real family and she may not have contact with her old parents and friends. In addition, the major characters of this story are Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, Janie, Reeve, Mr. and Mrs. Spring, Jodie, and Stephen. My favored character was Janie. I liked her the best because she did some unpredictable things. It was fun to see what she would do next. Janie is confused and misunderstood during the books. She sees a picture of herself 12 years ago and she starts to think that everything she knows is a lie. Her whole world gets turned upside down when she has to move to her real parents house. There is a lot of adjusting to be done and she does things she probably shouldn’t have. Stephen was my least favorite character. I didn’t like him because he did not even try to like Janie. He already said in his mind that he would never accept her and was very unwilling to try to have a relationship with her. He seemed very spoiled and rude. Furthermore, the settings of these books are in Connecticut and in New Jersey. Connecticut is where Janie lived for 12 years with her pretend parents. There she was an only child and had her own room. Her bedroom was perfect in everyway and her parents were perfect too. New Jersey is where Janie’s real parents lived and where Janie had 3 brothers and 1 sister. The house was too pocket-sized for everyone but they managed. Janie had to divvy up a room with her sister, Jodie, and she didn’t like it. I liked the setting because it showed how far away Janie had to travel. It showed how far away Janie was from her old parents and how much she must have missed them. The setting was also in Janie’s 2nd year in high school. I liked how the time affected the book because it shows the struggles a person who was not yet an adult dealt with the stress. Moreover, the theme of this story is that wherever you go your parents and loved ones will still love you no matter what you do and they want you to be cheerful. Mrs. Spring, Janie’s actual mother, wanted Janie to be happy so she allowed her go back home to the Johnsons. Also, now that Janie is living with the Johnsons, Mrs. Spring still loves her and writes to her daily about her life and children. In conclusion, I would definitely recommend the book to all readers. It was amusing to read about Janie’s thoughts and what would be going through the mind of a kidnapped child. Also, this book would be enjoyable to people who adore mysteries and shows like “Law and Order.” The book has the same vibe as the show except Janie is figuring out what happened to her by herself.

Danielle Sawyer

=
__The face on the milk carton__ by Caroline B. Cooney was a breathtaking book. To start off I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes mysteries. In addition I would probably give this book a 10. I thought this was a really good book and I think that whoever reads it will really enjoy it too. Also this book was good because it kept you reading and in suspense. ======

=
The plot in this book was layed out really well, I thought it flowed very well. First of all, in the exposition, it says Janie Johnson is a sophomore in high school. She has long beautiful red hair and she loves changing her name. Janie lives with her “parents” who love and adore her very much and could never hurt her. Then as we move up to the rising action Janie had a big-time crush on her neighbor, Reeve Shields. Her and Reeve started hanging out some more and then they started going out. Also during this time Janie asked her parents to see her birth certificate. Her mom kept saying it was in the bank and that she would get it soon but she never did. One day Janie went in the attic and found an aged chest with a whole lot of stuff that said Hannah. Later Janie found out that Hannah was her “parents” daughter. During the climax Janie was sitting at lunch with all her friends eating a peanut butter sandwich when she needed some milk. Even though Janie is allergic to milk she still drank it because she thought it tasted good with peanut butter. That is when Janie noticed a picture of a missing girl on the milk carton, IT WAS HER! It was a picture of when she was three. Janie didn’t know what to do so she told her friends. Then Janie decided to tell her parents. That is when they told her all about Hannah. During the falling action Janie had asked Reeve to take her to the Springs so she could tell them she is all right. But then she wanted to go home, she didn’t want to talk to them. She had him taking her back and forth all the time and her parents started getting worried. Then in the resolution the Springs took Janie back and she didn’t like that at all. She started to miss her other parents and she wanted to go back horribly.======

=
To continue, the main character is Janie. She was my favorite. She has long beautiful curly red hair. I like her because she is going through this whole misunderstanding very well. She is trying her best to become friends with the Springs but it wasn’t quite working out. She always missed her additional family and friends and when she said she wanted to go home they wouldn’t let her. In addition my least favorite is Stephen. He has short red hair like Janie’s. I don’t like him because every time Janie would try and tell a story that involved her other parents he wouldn’t let her talk. He was really low and didn’t want anything to do with the Johnson’s.======

=
First of all there are a couple settings to this book. The first setting is at Janie’s house where she hangs out with friends and family. The second setting is by the Springs house where Reeve always took Janie to talk with her real parents. I think the author did a really superb job at describing the setting. I felt like I was really there and I could see everything in my head just like a dream. She uses very descriptive words also.======

=
In addition the theme of this book is if you believe in yourself you can do anything. For example Janie wanted to find the Springs and when she kept trying she finally found them. Another example is when Janie had to live with the Springs she really didn’t want to but she stuck with it and got through it all. This shows that you can do anything you put your mind to. Even if you really don’t want to do something you can always do it if you believe in your self.======

=
In conclusion I would defiantly recommend this book. This is a great book for anyone who likes mysteries. Just to let you know once you pick up this book you wont want to put it down. Also you will want to keep reading all the books after it. That just shows how awesome all these books are and I think you should read them too.======