Found

Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Haddix opens this new series with her usual intrigue. Jonah and Chip are friends. Jonah has always known he was adopted, but Chip only finds out that he is adopted when both boys start receiving ominous letters indicating that they are the "missing." It turns out that they were part of a planeload of babies that landed thirteen years ago, and then disappeared after the babies were taken off the plane. Jonah and Chip, and Jonah's sister Katherine, try to find out all they can about their mysterious connections to the planeload of babies. As usual with Haddix, the characters are likeable and well-developed. She also doesn't disappoint as she takes us twisting and turning through problems encountered in their identity search to the perfect set up for the next book. Certainly a must read for middle school.



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Fever Crumb

Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Fever Crumb was the adopted daughter of Dr. Crumb. He has often told her the story of how he found her in a basket and knowing he could not take her to the orphanage destroyed by the Skinner riots, he took her to his home. Fever grows up in a man's world of engineers. Her head is shaved and she is taught not to give into sentimentality. She must think and behave like an engineer, suppressing emotions. When she is sent on her first job to help Kit Solent on a secret archeology project, she has to travel the streets of London, where she is mistaken for a "Scriven", a mutant race of speckled people. The Scriven were virtually destroyed by bands of "Skinners" years before, but the fear of the race still exists among the Londoners. Solent rescues her from this first encounter, but the head of the Skinners has decided that she must be captured and destroyed. Fever has to elude her captors and in the process discovers who she really is. The story is actually the prequel to the "Hungry City Quartet," Reeves masterful steampunk series. I did not know this until after I read the book, proving that the book is truly a stand alone.



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