The Face on the Milk Carton

Paperback, 208 pages

English language

Published May 21, 2012 by Ember.

ISBN:: 978-0-385-74238-2

The face on the milk carton looks like an ordinary little girl: hair in tight pigtails, a dress with a narrow white collar, a three-year-old who was kidnapped more than twelve years ago from a shopping mall in New Jersey.

As fifteen-year-old Janie Johnson stares at the milk carton, she feels overcome with shock. She knows that little girl is she. But how could it be true?

Janie can't believe that her loving parents kidnapped her, until she begins to piece together clues that don't make sense. Why are there no pictures of Janie before she was four? Her parents have always said they didn't have a camera. Now that explanation sounds feeble. Something is terribly wrong, and Janie is afraid to find out what happened more than twelve years ago.

The face on the milk carton looks like an ordinary little girl: hair in tight pigtails, a dress with a narrow white collar, a three-year-old who was kidnapped more than twelve years ago from a shopping mall in New Jersey.

As fifteen-year-old Janie Johnson stares at the milk carton, she feels overcome with shock. She knows that little girl is she. But how could it be true?

Janie can't believe that her loving parents kidnapped her, until she begins to piece together clues that don't make sense. Why are there no pictures of Janie before she was four? Her parents have always said they didn't have a camera. Now that explanation sounds feeble. Something is terribly wrong, and Janie is afraid to find out what happened more than twelve years ago.

1 edition

nerd teacher [books] reviewed The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney (Janie Johnson, #1)

Excruciatingly dull.

2 stars

I generally really like narratives that are driven by characters, where the focus is primarily on the characters themselves and how one little thing can upend their whole lives... but this book so, so dull.

Also, I wanted to like it because the concept is interesting (a kidnapped child who is unaware that they were kidnapped as a toddler and discovers it because of one small constant "Missing Person" reminder? Intriguing).

Part of the problem is that, as with many books where the characters are teenagers, the author has seemingly forgotten who teenagers are and how to relate to them. And while I'm quite aware that teenagers are prone to being silly and doing goofy things (as everyone is prone to being), a lot of the moments felt distinctly like the ways that adults view teenagers rather than the ways that teenagers actually are. The conversations felt stilted …

I generally really like narratives that are driven by characters, where the focus is primarily on the characters themselves and how one little thing can upend their whole lives... but this book so, so dull.

Also, I wanted to like it because the concept is interesting (a kidnapped child who is unaware that they were kidnapped as a toddler and discovers it because of one small constant "Missing Person" reminder? Intriguing).

Part of the problem is that, as with many books where the characters are teenagers, the author has seemingly forgotten who teenagers are and how to relate to them. And while I'm quite aware that teenagers are prone to being silly and doing goofy things (as everyone is prone to being), a lot of the moments felt distinctly like the ways that adults view teenagers rather than the ways that teenagers actually are. The conversations felt stilted and fake, the relationship structure felt fake... It just... nothing felt genuine.

If anything, I'd attribute that to this book really needing to be... a novella, at most. Definitely a short story. The character focus felt less like something the author wanted to do and more like a way to build up fluff, the way a person would do for an essay that has a wordcount they can't meet.