A young adult novel by author Caroline B. Cooney The Face on the Milk Carton is, first published in 1990. Part of The Janie Johnson series, it was later adapted into a film for television. It is about a teenaged girl who thinks she was kidnapped as a toddler and tries to find her parents. The novel can be summarized as under:
The Face on the Milk Carton is a book about Janie Johnson, a 15-year-old student in Connecticut. One day at lunch she looks at the missing child picture on her friend's milk carton and recognizes the girl in the picture — it is her. The milk carton says the girl, Jennie Spring, was kidnapped in a shopping center as a little girl. Her memory from the day of the kidnapping is of herself and a family shoe shopping. She became angry and stormed off, and a woman bought her an ice cream and took her for a ride. However, she didn't know who this woman was. She couldn't believe that her parents would have kidnapped her, but she couldn't come up with any other explanation.
Janie goes to the attic and goes through the boxes. She finds old school papers with the name Hannah J, and the pink dotted dress she had seen on the milk carton. When Janie angrily screams at her parents with this information, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson explain that Hannah is their daughter, and Janie is Hannah's daughter; so, Janie is really their granddaughter. Hannah was deeply disturbed from a young age, finally joining a cult and marrying a male cult member. One day, she showed up at her parents' house with Janie. Hannah returned to her cult, and the Johnsons were left with Janie, moving to a different state, and even changing their name from "Javensen" to "Johnson," fearing that the man would try to get her back. Janie is relieved that the people she believed were her parents were not kidnappers.
However, Janie cannot get the picture on the milk carton or the memories of another family out of her mind. She researches the Spring kidnapping. She comes to the conclusion that her parents are probably insane or lying and actually did kidnap her, but she still loves them. Janie and her boyfriend Reeve skip school the next day and to go to Jersey to see the Spring family with their own eyes. She witnesses Mrs. Spring and her twin boys, with bright red hair, just like her's, and which none of the Johnsons have. It's proof that Janie can't ignore, but she tries to anyway. She writes the Spring family a letter, but she doesn't mail the letter because she is still unsure about what to do. While at school, Jamie loses the letter she was writing to the Springs and the decision of whether to tell or not is taken out of her hands. She and Reeve go to her parents and tell them everything they've learned. Reeve's sister, Lizzy, figures that Hannah was probably the one who kidnapped Janie; they also decide that someone must call the Spring family. At the end of the book Mrs. Johnson calls the Spring family and Janie talks to a woman who might be her real mother. The last words of the book are "Hi. I'm your daughter. I don't know if you remember me. But it's me. Jennie."
You would like to read the novel again and again many times.
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