[Book of choice assignment :  Challenged Book Review

       : The Face of the Milk Carton / by Caroline B.Cooney]

by. Caroline B.Cooney (164 page)

 Minryeong Lee

 1st class 

     The book 'The face on the milk carton' a 164 paged book, wrote by Caroline B.Cooney was one the best book I have ever read. This book is about a girl named Janie and mysteries of her parents and the conflicts with herself. She's a girl with a happy family with this gorgeous red hair. To this beautiful girl, all of her conflicts and mystery starts from a milk carton. Actually, she wasn't supposed to drink that milk. Both for her health because of her milk allergy, and both for her future fate. But she chose to drink it. And that decision was the key to unlock the mystery of her life, which could have never been open.

     Janie was a girl who was living a perfectly ordinary life waiting for something exciting to happen until she saw the girl on the milk carton. She immediately got the feeling that the girl in that picture was her. She starts to get these memories of herself with a women which she thinks is her real mother and gets confused. The kid and herself shared some similarities like her red hair, eye color, and the first name. But their last name was different by 'Spring' and 'Johnson'. And she found out that Janie Spring was kidnapped in a mall located in Texas. But still, she tried to deny that the girl in the milk carton was her. But after discovering trunk full of some girl named Hannah's stuff and the same polka-dot dress in the picture in the attic, she started to loose belief in her parents. After then, suspicious things came up to her. Her mother refused to show her the birth certificate of her. And the fact that her parents didn't have any pictures of her before her age 5. Then she starts gathering information about the kid in the milk carton. She puts the polka-dot dress in her closet, and looks for some video clips about the kidnap of 'Janie Spring'. And during all that, she makes a boyfriend named Reeve who she knew from long ago and is a neighbor next door.

     If I lay down the story like this, it seems like she handled this problem pretty well. But actually during the story, she daydreams, goes crazy, lives a half-dead life, and has conflicts with herself every day. One day, she cuts school and goes to address from the milk carton which is in New Jersey just to check their faces, and if their real living person. She thought visiting them was the best way to calm her down, but it just made a conclusion of her mental being torn apart among her four parents. In the end, all this tangled yarn of story gets all straightened out by the help of Reeve.

     I truly loved this book because it has it's own charm of pulling the readers in. This book was a true page-turner for me with it's combination of mystery, a little bit of romance, and full of confusion. All these were very well harmonized. I had nothing to complain while reading this story so by that, I would like to recommend this story to everyone I can. After reading this book, the first thing I thought was that I should recommend this book to my daughter if I have one in the future. Not because of the reason that I want to scare her, but I just want her to know that reading is this fun and how words can make you sit in the same place for such a long hour.

     After having that much fun with the book, I couldn't believe they banned/challenged this book. After some research, i found out that this book was banned/challenged because of some sexual contents. In my opinion, I think this book shouldn't be banned/challenged. The main characters did talk about sexual contents, and for a small amount of time, but the book didn't have any contents that would seriously be a bad influence to the readers. This book has a story that makes the readers actually enjoy the time to read the book, and never makes the readers bored. Has great explanation about the conflicts and confusion of Janie's and even can imagine what's happening right in front of your eyes! I think they should get this book in the recommended list not the challenged/banned book list so more people can enjoy this book too.