WHATEVER HAPPENED TO JANIE?

In The Face on the Milk Carton (1990), Janie discovered that she was kidnapped as a three-year-old and adopted by the Johnsons, who believed her to be the child of their unstable daughter Hannah. Now, at 15, she moves in with her birth parents. Janie comes to like the Springs, but misses the Johnsons with a ferocity no one has predicted. There's ambivalence among all involved; her raucous birth family wants to be ``whole'' again, but finds Janie a somewhat petulant stranger who, as the only child of well-off parents, is accustomed to privacy and privileges. No one can figure out how to redress the wrongs—the Springs' lost years, the Johnsons' separation from the child they've loved so long. Readers will like Janie, who has all the less-than-noble afflictions of a real teenager. In fact, aside from a tacked-on attempt by Janie's birth siblings to find Hannah, the book is filled with characters making poignantly realistic decisions; perhaps the hallmark here is that nobody can win. Cooney avoids feel-good answers and wrestles with the issues; readers will be fascinated by the debate and saddened by the realization that—in this case—a happy ending is all but an impossibility. (Fiction. 11+)