August 1, 2014
This apparently final installment of the Missing series plunges Jonah into a quandary: The villains Gary and Hodge have begun their master plan to steal all the children from history and sell them in the future, with the help of Charles Lindbergh. The action kicks off when Charles Lindbergh snatches Jonah's sister, Katherine, from their living room. Time agent JB takes Jonah and family friend Angela to a "time hollow" where they can monitor events, but soon they find themselves clinging to the outside of Lindbergh's plane as he flies across the Atlantic in 1927. They escape and begin an investigation of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping in 1932, eventually learning how Gary and Hodge have drawn the aviator into their scheme. The safety of time itself depends on Lindbergh's and Jonah's choices-and JB, Angela and Jonah's parents have all been "un-aged" into 13-year-olds. Jonah finds himself dragged to and fro in time, always fearful that he will destroy its flow. Haddix bogs the narrative down with explanations of the workings of time travel, and the story lacks the usual repartee between Jonah and Katherine, un-aged back to infancy. Still, if readers can unravel the mechanisms of time well enough to understand the ins and outs of the story, they finally will learn who Jonah really is. This long and intricate conclusion should satisfy fans, but it's not likely to win new ones. (Paranormal suspense. 8-12)
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September 1, 2014
Gr 9 Up-Jonah must save his town when famous pilot Charles Lindbergh captures his friends and turns all the parents into children. Haddix offers enough recap so that new readers can jump into this as a stand-alone novel, but most will want to start at the beginning. A must-buy where this series continues to draw in fans.
Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
July 1, 2014
Grades 5-8 In book seven of the Missing series, Jonah battles time bandits Gary and Hodge, who are blackmailing Charles Lindbergh into transporting babies stolen from the past into the future. The important people in Jonah's life (including sister Katherine) have been aged back to infants, time paradoxes and traps abound, and Jonah must discover the one path to prevent time from erasing everyone he loves. Plenty of well-integrated backstory lets this lively series continuation stand on its own. Repetitive character introspection sometimes slows the plot, and the time twists can be befuddling, but this makes for an entertaining and informative way to connect young readers to history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)
January 1, 2015
Charles Lindbergh kidnaps Jonah's sister Katherine as the surrounding adults are "un-aged" to thirteen. This seventh installment jumps in and out of the story of Lindbergh's son's kidnapping and sometimes bends the rules of the series' internal logic; but it also answers many of the series' big questions, including that of Jonah's original identity. A thorough author's note provides historical context.
(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)