Risked by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Risked by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Science Fiction, Adventure, Historical Fiction

Age - 10-13

Grade 6-8

350 pages, hardcover

c. 2013

     Risked, the 6^th book in The Missing Series, departs from the other books in that we now know what happened to Anastasia and Alexei Romanov, the missing children from history. However, when Haddix started writing the series in early 2007 there was still no conclusive evidence that they had been killed along with the rest of the family. New discoveries in the summer of 2007 and 2009 confirmed that they did die in 1918 with the rest of the family, but were buried in a different spot. However, this is a work of fiction which allows the author to imagine some intriguing possibilities.

            Very shortly after meeting Daniella, who is really Anastasia, Jonas, Katherine, and Chip are kidnapped by Gavin, who is really Alexei. Gavin is working for the original time kidnappers, Gary and Hodge, who have just escaped from time prison. Gavin thinks he is bringing them all into the future where he will be adopted by a family, as promised by Gary and Hodge. However they all land in Russia in 1918. While traveling to the future Jonas manages to tell the Elucidator, device from the future, to send then back to their correct time. He means the 21th century but the correct time for Anastasia and Alexei is 1918, the day before the entire Romanov family will be killed.

            After landing in 1918 Gavin and Daniella are captured by the Russian guards and returned to the house where the rest of the family is being kept as prisoners. Using the Elucidator Chip, Jonas and Katherine are able to become invisible. They begin to plan how they will rescue not only Daniella and Gavin but the entire family. The rescue plan is extremely complicated and made more challenging by the unexpected arrival of Gary and Hodge who still want to take all the children to the future as babies to be adopted by wealthy parents. During the following battles both Jonas and Gavin, who is a hemophilic, are wounded. Meanwhile, time travelers from the future are having a meeting about how to deal with the Romanov situation and protect time and history.

            Haddix does change some of the actual historic events in the end of the story so that some members of the Romanov family are saved as well as Jonas, Katherine and Chip. In the process of the rescue there is much heroic and self- sacrificing action as well as quick thinking. Haddix also includes many historical details in the story, such as the stuffed grizzly bear on the landing of the house and the diamonds the Romanov sisters sewed into their clothes, as well as the historical notes at the end of the book.