Customer Reviews

What Janie Found (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

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"What Janie Found" by Carolyn B. Cooney

WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NOT READ "THE FACE ON THE MILK CARTON", "WHATEVER HAPPEND TO JANIE" AND "THE VOICE ON THE RADIO ", THIS BOOK REVIEW COULD GIVE AWAY IMPORTANT HIGHLIGHTS IN THE BOOKS ABOVE. DO NOT READ FARTHER!

Janie Johnson, or shall I say Jenny Spring? Janie, the name that she chooses to keep, finds out that her parents aren't realy her true parents, but they are the only parents that she has ever known. "What Janie Found" is the fourth book in the Janie series. In this book, Janie's curiosity and hatred toward Hannah (her kiddnapper) leads her to try and find Hannah. Her father had fallen into a coma, and Janie had to help with the bills, cleaning up, and other chores. While she searches through the bills, she finds a file labled "HJ". She knew that this simply means one thing: Hannah Johnson. She peers into the folder and finds a check with an address. That's where Hannah is! All this time her father had been supporting Hannah. Janie had thought that Hannah was dead, in a cult somewhere, in a bad situation, but atleast she was out of there lives! One thing: Janie knows something about the place where Hannah is. This is where... this is the place I shall stop, or I will give it all away. Read this book to find out what happends.

"What Janie Found" was one of the 3 sequels to the book "The Face on the Milk Carton". It is once again about Janie. Some other characters are Reeve, Janie's ex-boyfriend, Mrs. Johnson, Janie's "mother", Stephen, Janie's older brother, and Brian, Janie's other, younger, brother. This time, Janie's father as had a heart attack / stroke and is in the hospital while Janie handles the buisness afairs. Janie finds something that she wants to get to the bottom of, something having to do with H.J. A foulder (dun, dun, dun!). Now Janie goes to Blouder, NC to do some work while "visiting" her brother, Stephen. She goes with Reeve and Brian. They meet Stephen there (because that's where he goes to college) and he's with his annoying girl friend, Katherine, who always wants to know more about Janie and what happened with the kidnapping. I think the book "What Janie Found" was a very good book becuase once again, Caroline B. Cooney brings the character of Janie alive for ME. She makes Janie fun to read about, too. I think that anyone who likes the idea of suspence and reading should read this book because it is very suspenceful and the end of the chapters makes you want to read more and more. :) reading "What Janie Found" was fun for me...I liked the book very much and I think you should read it, too!

"What Janie Found" is another good book in "The Face on the Milk Carton" series, but I don't think the series should be over yet!

The series starts in "The Face on the Milk Carton" when Janie finds that she was kidnapped as a child, by her "parents'" daughter. Then, in "Whatever Happened to Janie?" she tried living with her birth family. Her boyfriend, Reeve, betrayed her by telling her story on his radio show, in "The Voice on the Radio, and now, in this book, there is another turn of events.

When Janie's "father" has a heart attack and a stroke, she helps out by becoming his secretary and sorting his bills. However, she notices a simple folder labled "HJ". "Hannah Johnson", she immediately knows, and she wants to find out why there is a folder for her. She thought Hannah was dead and free from hurting them again, forever!

This was a good book, though rather short and unfinished, compared to the other books in the series. I'd recommend it to any young adult fan of these books, however! Be sure to read the others in the series, first, and you may also enjoy the TV movie, "The Face on the Milk Carton".

This well written, excellent book really gives a conclusion to the Janie saga. While some sequels are not as good as the original, this one is. It has all of the adventure of the first three books, plus more. Anyone who reads this book can really get sucked into Janie's struggle, from the beggining to the last page.

We already know Janie, or Jennie, was kidnapped by Hannah Javenson. What we didn't know is that Janie's father, Mr. Johnson, has secretly been supporting Hannah by sending her checks every month. Janie finds this out when she is put in charge of the bills because her father has a stroke. Janie decides to go find Hannah at the postal box the checks are sent to. She creates a plan to go visit her brother, Stephen, at college in Colorado. When she gets there, however, her friend Reeve and her younger brother Brian dissuade her from going to find Hannah. Luckily, she doesn't go, and making that decision helped her a lot. I thought this book was good, but not great. I would, though, recommend the book for those who enjoyed the first three books.

The main reason I thought this book was just okay but not wonderful was because I liked the other three books better. Since this book was the last in the series, I was hoping for more excitement than ever. I was a bit disappointed that this novel was not as suspenseful or interesting as I had hoped and expected. For example, while other characters in the book didn't know that Hannah was being supported by Mr. Johnson, Janie and the reader did. I wished that, like the other three books, the reader would be just as confused as Janie and the other characters.

On the other hand, there were reasons that I liked this book. I was really glad that Caroline B. Cooney kept the same characters with the same personalities as in the previous books. I fell in love with all the characters in the first book, and I continued to love them throughout the whole series. In the third book, she added a lot of new characters. In this novel, however, she only incorporated one new character, which was Stephen's girlfriend, Kathleen. The characters in this book related to the other books. For example, the author uses phrases like, "...keeping her kidnap name, living with her kidnap family, and you're all agreeing to this!" This phrase and others like it relate back to the first three books.

Another reason that I did like this book was because I thought the problem was very creative. Even though the plot development was slow and a bit boring, I still liked the problem - Janie had to decide whether or not to continue supporting her kidnapper. The problem created major stress for Janie, Reeve, and Brian. "She could not stop thinking about the law," is an example of Janie's stress over the problem. I really like the reality of the problem and the characters' reactions to it.

In conclusion, the novel What Janie Found, the fourth book in the Face on the Milk Carton series, by Caroline B. Cooney was a good book. It wasn't great because it was a bit boring, but I did like the characters and the problem. That is what I found in What Janie Found.

C. Chaudhury

Caroline B. Cooney has done it again. As a huge fan of Ms. Cooney's writing, I bought this book as soon as I could make my way over to a bookstore. As a Janie fan, reading this book, you're updated on her life and it is the conclusion to her drama. All of the Springs and Johnsons have found their own peace in this conclusion. No exception to Caroline B. Cooney's usual writing, this book is excellently detailed and written.

I've read this book. It was very well written, to me that is. It's sad that Reeve and Janie aren't together, but they get back together in the end! Hehe. This book is full of adventure, suspence, romance, and it's just mesmerizing. You can't put it down until you've finished it. It is really a good book. It ended just the way I wanted it to. It was a very happy story. And Janie shows a whole lot of emotions in this book, as she always does in the other books. This book will surely please you. It sure pleased me. And it only took me four days to finish it!

To go as far as the last two books but then not confront and punish the malefactor Hannah made this book and its predecessor a waste of time to read. Cooney started with a great idea but ran out of steam after "Whatever Happened to Janie?" Stick with that book and "Face on the Milk Carton" and you won't go wrong.

This book is awesome, if you like to read mysteries. It's mystery after mystery. I liked this book because I really like to read mysteries. This book was also one of the best books that I have read so far. I also liked this book because it felt so real. Some of the things that happened to Janie I could totally relate to. This book was a book that several different people could and probably would relate to. If you lik mysteries than this is one of the best mysteries to read. I would reccomend that someone 12 years and older could read this book because anyone younger may not understand it as well.

I quite enjoyed the book, but it certainly wasn't as good as the first one of the Janie series. It's pretty sweet when she makes up with her boyfriend and finds out the truth. But the ending just isn't powerful enough. It's like one of those books where it holds you in suspense for the first twenty-nine chapters then on chapter thirty the end line is something like, "And I woke up and it was all a dream". *sigh* If you really have nothing to read, then go ahead and buy this book.