Margaret Peterson Haddix.  Found.  Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2008.  314 pages.  Age 9 to 12.

[ Apparently I only read novels starring adopted kids now? ]

Found starts with a question that could have hundreds of answers.  An airplane appears out of nowhere and is filled with unattended babies…what?!  Awesome.  There’s no way to saunter through this novel without pondering at least a few theories.  Mine involved space travel, none of them right.

BEGIN SPOILER ALERT.

I have two roadblocks to my ability to suspend disbelief:  musical theater (spontaneously bursting into song does not work for me) and time travel.  I make exceptions on the latter, especially if it’s TARDIS-related, but I’m extremely skeptical of any time travel theory.  This one is particularly deficient in plausibility.

• Reportedly, no one got hungry or had to use the bathroom in the “outer nothingness.”  They’re all walking around, talking and breathing, feeling pain…but their digestive systems are disabled?
• The people from the future “wrote the letters back in the 1990s, on ancient computers programmed for automated printout” and “routed their messages through the mail rooms of large corporations [ . . . ] through machines set up to automatically stuff envelopes with bills or credit-card offers”?
• Doing so damaged time?
• The people from the future can only return to the time of the novel through specific areas where time was damaged?
• And they were able to orchestrate all the missing kids moving within three towns of each other, without actually returning to that time?

END SPOILER ALERT.

This may not seem to follow from the previous paragraph, but I can’t wait for the next book!  I knew this would happen, after being hooked on the Shadow Children series.  Here comes the inevitable comparison.  One of the best aspects of the former series—that good and evil are depicted as two shades of gray—is present here.  Some people have good intentions, others have motives, and it doesn’t pay to be naive about it.  A notable difference is that this story takes place in contemporary America, not the future or some alternate reality, so it has a modern sense of humor and can make cultural references.  It’s every bit as engaging.  Perhaps moreso as a first installment.  Among the Missing had me yawning through the first half (like a watered down, poutier Anne Frank) but I got really into the second half.  Enough to read six more volumes, anyway.  This series appears to promise the same drive.

Quotable:

I think it’s the use of the nickname “Buster”:

I’m not much for product placement, so I won’t quote directly, but I’m a fan of the first paragraph on page 72.

I’m convinced that sanity is mostly about enjoying the ride:

“In spite of himself, Jonah grinned.  His brain was a mixed-up, bizarre place, but at least he could amuse himself sometimes.” (p. 78)

other reviews (some with spoilers):
Charlotte’s Library | A Fuse #8 Production | Jen Robinson’s Book Page | The Reading Zone | A Year of Reading

[ Posted in » Book Review Channel :: Fiction Reviews ]