Customer Reviews

The Face on the Milk Carton

5 star:		(367)
4 star:		(169)
3 star:		(51)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The Face on the Milk Carton is one of the best books I've read, and I read a lot! The plot starts right away when 15 year old Janie picks up a milk carton and glances at a "missing" ad of a little girl. No big deal... until she recognizes the picture. It is herself, years before. Janie and her boyfriend, Reeve, try to get to the bottom of the complicated story. She can't imagine her kind parents being kidnappers... but who else could it be? What happened? The plot of this book was very creative and exciting, and I couldn't put it down! I recommended it to all of my friends, because it has it all - romance, mystery, drama... And they all loved it! I would recommend this book for everyone ages 12 and up! Also, if you liked this, be sure to read the sequels, Whatever Happened to Janie?, The Voice on the Radio, and What Janie Found.

I gave The Face On The Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney four stars. I'm not an avid reader, but when I picked this book up I couldn't put it down. It had a believable, tension filled plot with action and suspense. In the book Janie Johnson, recognizing her own three year old, two inch face on her milk carton, starts an emotional trip that takes her from her high school lunch room to the truth about her identity. Janie unravels the mystery of her birth. She tries and succeeds in finding out if her parents are her real parents or if she was kidnapped ten years ago as a young child. The only reason I didn't give this book five stars is because it kept jumping around, getting off the subject it was trying to explain, then coming back to it a couple pages later. I really liked The Face on the Milk Carton and I would recommend it to any teenager or adult.

After seeing the made for TV movie based on The Face on the Milk Carton, I knew the book would be great. I had heard of Caroline B Cooney before, but never read any of her books, and decided to give her a try.

Janie Johnson thinks her name is boring, her life too generic, and wants an adventure, she wants to be someone else. As she sits in school and actually plans another life for herself, she knows it will never come true. But then, when her friends are all sitting around drinking milk from the school cafeteria, Janie can't believe her eyes. The picture of the missing child placed on the carton is herself. She remembers how she had her hair in pigtails, the dress she was wearing, everything.

Janie is taken on an emotional rollercoaster ride, not trusting her mom and dad anymore, not telling her best friend (oddly named Sarah-Charlotte), and at the same time fighting romantic feelings towards her friend - and neighbor - Reeve. Throughout the book Janie confronts her fears, aquires Reeve as more than a friend, and finds out what happened when she was three years old - and whisked away from her home and family, to a new, loving group of people.

This book is awesome, and I can't wait to read the next in the series, but this is definately not a book for kids under age 12. There is much talk aboud underaged, unmarried sex, and plenty of creepy - possibly frightening - nightmares that Janie suffers from.

Overall grade - A

Janie Johnson was a normal tenth grade girl. She had loving parents and friends. She did everything fifteen-year-olds usually do. Then one day, something out of the ordinary happened. Janie came across a picture of a missing child on the side of her friend's milk carton. She looked closer and began to realize that the little girl was actually her. Over time, the clues start to piece together. Memories come back to Janie in "Daymares". She starts to worry that her parents might not really be her parents after all. She wonders if the people that brought her up had kidnapped her. She doesn't want to believe it, and tries to forget it all, but the clues keep coming and she keeps seeing memories. Suddenly, Janie's life isn't so normal anymore. Her friends notice that something is wrong, but Janie won't tell anyone what's going on. She decides to do some research of her own to get to the bottom of this, leading up to the suspenseful ending.

I would definitely recommend this book to all teenage readers. There is always something exciting happening, which made me want to read more every time. I enjoyed reading about people my age and being able to relate to some things. It kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the entire book. It was always unpredictable what would happen next. I liked this book because it was suspenseful and action packed. I've never wondered what it would be like to not know where I came from, and if my parents were really who I think they are. This made it interesting to read a story about it. I enjoyed reading about something I've never thought of before. It was definitely a good book and I'm sure other people will enjoy it to.

Have you ever thought that maybe your parents weren't really your parents? Well Janie Johnson is starting to see this as more and more of a real possibility. She wonders why there are no pictures of her from the time she was born until she was five years old in her house. Why won't her mother show her, her birth certificate? She starts getting flashbacks from when she was little that don't include her parents. Her realization of these peculiarities starts one day at lunch.

Janie Johnson is your average fifteen year old. She goes to high school, has two best friends, a crush on her neighbor, and a milk allergy. She despises this recently acquired allergy; it makes it especially tiresome to eat peanut butter sandwiches. On one fateful October day, Janie decides to break her dieting rules and have a sip of her friend's milk. Glancing at the carton, she notices a picture of a girl on the side of the carton where they show kidnapped children. It was Janie. This boggles her mind. Her parents are nice people. They couldn't have kidnapped her. But what else could explain her picture on that milk carton and these strange daydream-flashbacks she is having? It will take sacrifices as well as the help of her neighbors to figure out her heritage.

I love the idea for this story. It is something everyone must have considered once in his or her life. What if my parent's weren't really mine? I also admired the lesson in this book. It showed that even if your parent's aren't yours biologically, it doesn't mean they can't love and care for you just as much. Something that disappointed me about The Face on the Milk Carton was the ending. They leave you hanging, and in order to figure out what happens to Janie, you have to read the sequel. I would've been happier with a longer story and no second book. On the whole though, I was very thrilled with the mystery and excitement of this novel.

I could not stop reading this "page-turning" book! This book should have been named "Who is Janie Johnson?" In the book The Face on the Milk Carton, 15-year-old Janie Johnson is unfortunately lactose intolerant. Despite her condition, she takes a sip out of a half-pint milk carton at school. To her shock, she finds her face from when she was three years old on the carton reporting that she was kidnapped.
"Kidnapped!" the thought of being kidnapped races through Janie's mind. All different kinds of questions pop into her head like "Who are my parents?" "Where do I really live?" The date saying she was born on the milk carton tells her that she is a year younger than what she believed to be her age. Everything in Janie's life is thrown upside down, leaving her with life-changing questions, but no answers.
When Janie tells her believed to be parents what she finds out, they are terrified. They knew that this day would come but they never told Janie anything about what had happened to her.
The book leaves you with an ending that makes you have to read the second book in the series. It seems like Janie has all these roads put in front of her and she does not know which one to run down. Her life is about to unfold into a journey she never expected to take.

The Face on the Milk Carton , by Carolyn B. Cooney, is a story about a fifteen-year-old girl named Janie Johnson. One day while Janie is drinking milk, she discovers that her picture is on a milk carton for missing persons. Janie then realizes she might have been kidnapped. This makes her confused because her parents may not be her real parents. It also makes her want to find out the truth. Janie's mission affects her relationship with her friends and her boyfriend.

My favorite scene in the book is when Janie sees herself on the milk carton. One reason I liked this scene is because this incident begins the story. Another reason that I enjoyed this scene, is because it makes Janie an exciting character. Lastly, without this scene the story would not be very interesting.

In conclusion, I recommend this book to students in seventh grade and older. The main character, Janie, faces many problems that most teens can relate to. The main problem Janie faces is unique but makes the book interesting. I give this book four and one-half stars.

This book was about a girl named Janie. One day at school while she was eating lunch she saw a picture of a little girl on the back of a milk carton that had been missing. She had a strange feeling that the girl was her when she was young. She had no idea how it could be her, but she decided to do some research on it anyway. She got shocking results. Was the little girl actually her? I liked this book because you never knew what was going to happen next, and the characters seemed so real I felt like I knew them. This would be a good book for teens, but other ages too.

I read The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B. Cooney. It is a realistic fiction novel. It is about a girl named Janie who one day sees a picture of herself on the back of a milk carton that says she is missing. She has loving parents, and cannot believe that they would kidnap her. She starts having memories of the past, with who she thinks might be her "real family." She also finds the dress from the picture on the milk carton, in her attic. She goes to her boyfriend Reeve, but does not have the heart to tell her parents. She had always wondered where any baby pictures were, and where her birth certificate was. Is this the reason? Does she really have another family? What will happen to Janie Johnson?

I liked this book very much. It was suspenseful and kept you guessing what would happen. I think this book is best suited for people who like sadder stories, and people who like to guess what will happen next.

The Face on the Milk Carton
By Caroline B. Coonie
Date of review 9/20/02

I read the fascinating book, The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Coonie. This book is about a girl who saw her face on a milk carton under the missing ad and realizes the parents she knows and loves must not be her parents. Could they have possibly kidnapped her? Janie is the main character; she is the girl who spots her face on the milk carton. While trying to keep it a secret, she tries to figure out this mystery but at the same time she tears her self esteem apart. Reeve is Janie's boyfriend and next door neighbor, he helps Janie out along the way because he is the only one who knows Janie's secret. Sarah-Charlotte is Janie's best friend who doesn't understand what is going on because she doesn't know the secret. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson are the people who Janie thought were her parents for all these years. Caroline B. Coonie's message in this book is not to take your life for granted. Janie was always trying to write her name differently because she thought her name was boring. When Janie figured out her name really wasn't Janie Johnson she wished it was. Caroline B. Coonie's style of writing is making you want to read more and more by making you hang in suspense at the end or even the middle of a chapter.

The most important event in this book is when Janie eats a peanut butter sandwich and needs milk afterwards. So Janie steels Sarah-Charlotte's milk and drinks it even though she is allergic to milk. That is when Janie notices the picture on the milk carton and wishes she had never drank that milk. The second important event is when Janie and Reeve skip school to drive to New Jersey to see if the people who are her parents (according to the milk carton) are really her parents. Janie discovers they look just like her. My favorite line from this book is "Janie held Sarah-Charlotte's empty milk carton and stared at the photograph of the little girl. I was kidnapped." This line is my favorite because it starts the mystery and story line of the book. My favorite character is Reeve. I like Reeve because he is very funny and friendly. He is always making jokes or helping someone out, like Janie.

The book, The Face on the Milk Carton was one of my favorite books, it will keep you reading until you finish the book, and when you do, you'll have to go back for the two sequels, What Ever Happened to Janie, and The Voice on the Radio. The reason I liked this book so much is because it keeps you wondering the whole time, what's going to happen to Janie? Did her parents really kidnap her? A mystery reader would definitely like this book because the whole book is an unpredictable mystery. Even if you don't like mysteries this book is still a good book for you. It's exciting, interesting, and much more. This book is an important book to read because it teaches you friendship, and how to deal with difficult situations. To find out what really happened to Janie, read The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B. Coonie, you're sure to like it!