Thursday, May 29, 2008

Found: The Missing Book 1 - by Margaret Peterson Haddix



So I admit that I'm a fan of the Shadow Children series even though it dragged out a bit. As a reader, I've been spoiled by many clearly laid out series lately; I knew Harry would be at Hogwarts for seven years and there would be a novel for each year, I knew there would be 13 unfortunate novels about the Baudelaire orphans; so it drove me nuts to read a series in the making that would obviously have a big event that would end the series (The shadow children would revolt/be discovered and either be accepted or destroyed) but I had no idea how many books would be in the series so with each new release I wondered if that book would finally end it all or leave it hanging.

Well, maybe Haddix got tired of people asking her if each new book in the Shadow Children Series would end it all because I think of Found less as a complete novel and more of an intro to the entire series. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book, and I wasn't disappointed by the ending, but I'm more excited about what Haddix has mapped out next.

It begins with 13 year-old Jonah getting a mysterious letter in the mail that says, "You are one of the missing." Jonah has always known that he was adopted so he thinks the letter must be a prank from kids at school who also know Jonah's adopted. That is until his friend Chip gets an identical letter and discovers he was also adopted and his parents kept his adoption a secret. Neither boy can find any information about their birth parents except that an FBI agent's name and number is posted as a contact in each of their adoption files. By the time they each get a letter stating, "Beware! They're coming back to get you." they are both worried about what the truth might reveal and the plot only thickens as Jonah's 12 year-old sister, Katherine, helps them discover that their story involved an FBI cover up, a plane that appeared out of nowhere, 35 other kids, and people who appear and disappear.

How does Margaret Peterson Haddix do it? she can write mysterious sci-fi, historical fiction, fairy tales, even early-readers, and here she is with another series that's sure to be a another hit.

MAJOR PLOT SPOILER

I'm warning you, don't read the rest of this if you haven't read this book!

So the kids on the plane are 36 of the most famous kids missing from history and they can't stay in their modern lives with their adoptive families unless they fix the problems in history their disappearances caused. We know the group includes Virginia Dare, who vanished with the Roanoke Colony, the youngest children of Czar Nicholas II (Anastasia and Alexis), the Lindbergh baby, and we're starting off with Princes Edward and Richard, who disappeared from the Tower Of London in 1483. Wow! That is a major undertaking, and I can't even begin to imagine how much research it will take to write each of these books. Fans of this series are going to be learning a lot about history. I can't wait to learn more about each historical figure's life, and it will be interesting to see what goes wrong because of each disappearance and how Haddix will fix it.

Now when does book 2 come out?

4 comments:

ann cannon said...

I really enjoy looking at your blog!

Best wishes,

Ann Cannon

Stephanie Ford said...

Is that Ann Cannon as in the author A.E. Cannon? If so that is very cool, and if not, that is still very cool because that was a very nice comment!

Anonymous said...

i just finished reading this book and im super excited for the second and hopfully the third and fourth mabey even more :P. i thought it was a great book but was a little bit confused about what they were talking about near the end of the book about the "travel" stuff. but other than that it was an amazing book

Breana said...

I admit that I am also a fan of the Shadow Children series, though I thought it was drawn out with no end in sight sometimes. I picked up this book looking forward to it, but a little dubious at the same time... and I LOVED it! I couldn't put it down.. Just the right amount of suspense and thrill, coupled with such an interesting plot and characters you could really enjoy. August can't come fast enough!