Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Science Fiction, Adventure

Age 10-13

Grade 5-8

Pages 314, paperback

c. 2008

              Found is the first book in an eight book series dealing with famous children that died sometime in history. By time travel they have accidentally been brought into the 21^st century. One group’s plan, the Interchronological Rescue, was to travel back in time and bring these children into the future to be adopted by parents willing to pay a lot a lot of money for a famous child. To avoid trauma they used age reversal and brought the children into the future as babies. However bringing so many children from the past into the future caused ripples. This resulted in significant changes that could alter the present and the future.  Another group, led by JB, was trying to correct this time problem and bring the children back into their original time in history.

            Found opens when an unexpected plane arrives at an airport. Inside the plane are babies but no crew. Once the babies are taken off the plane it disappears. The babies are given to different adoption agencies and eventually adopted by families. All is well for thirteen years but then mysterious, unsigned letters start appearing in the mailboxes of the adopted children. “You are one of the missing.” “Beware! They’re coming back to get you.” Suddenly Jonas, and his new friend Chip, find their normal lives turned upside down. Getting any information about their adoptions proves very difficult but they are very persistent and clever and do manage to find out quite a lot. However it is only at the very end of the book that they discover they are the missing children of history.

            This is a suspenseful, action-and-adventure science fiction story. As the story progresses you are often faced with plot twists and cliff hangers that keep you turning the pages. Jonas, Chip and Jonas’s younger sister Katherine work together to gather information and support each other. Katherine is not adopted but despite normal sibling teasing really cares about her brother. The book ends with all the missing children trapped in a cave and faced with the choice of either being sent into the future or back into history, where it is possible that they may die. In either case they will be turned into babies again and forget the life they have known for thirteen years. During  a physical struggle over a time device in which JB is attempting to send a boy named Alex and Chip back to the the 15th century, Jonas and Katherine grab onto Chip and are sent back as well. 

            Margaret Peterson Haddix has a knack for coming up with interesting and unusual storylines. I have read many of her books and have liked them. I have read the entire Missing series and plan on blogging on all the books, probably in groups of two. Besides being filled with lots of action they also contain a lot of historical information. Some of the missing children include Virginia Dare, first child born of English parents in the Americas who vanished with the rest of Roanoke Colony, the British princes who vanished from the Tower of London in 1483, Anastasia and Alex, the two youngest children of Czar Nicholas II who disappeared during the Russian Revolution, and the kidnapped Lindbergh baby.