9 out of 10 for "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix

An A for

Found

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2008.

ISBN 9781416954170

1416954171

Pretend just for a minute that time travel is possible and that people could be stolen out of the past and adopted into the future. Pretty cool idea--you could save babies get killed in burning buildings or who were left out in the cold to die by their parents, while providing people in the future with babies. Now pretend that some of those babies got misplaced and sent to the wrong future. And now you have Found. Jonah and his friend Chip are two of those children. They got lost in time and adopted into the wrong families. And now they've ruined time, but they don't know that. They, along with Jonah's not-adopted sister Katherine, spend the book unraveling this mystery as well as their own identities, the meaning of family and friendship, and the quirks adoption can throw into any kid's life.

So I may have just spoiled the end of the book, but it's still worth reading. It is a well-written, richly-descriptive, vocabulary-improving young adult novel that does not revolve around an impossible romance with a vampire (not that I didn't read those books too, because I did and I enjoyed them). Haddix covers serious topics like identiy, family, friendship, and adoption. She portrays the characters as normal for wanting to know who they are and who they should become, but has them explore within the context of loving, guiding, supportive parents, who allow their children freedom to test the waters without throwing them to the sharks. Which is where the family comes in: as the protangonist, Jonah, becomes more and more confused about his own origins, he also questions his place in his adopted home. He wonders if he really belongs and what life would be like with his birth family. Again, Haddix portrays Jonah as normal for wondering these things and allows him the freedom to explore these ideas, but brings him back in the end to realize that family is family no matter if he was born into it or not. Jonah also learns that friendship is vital to the survival of just about any thirteen-year-old and his friends can be like family and his family can be his friend. Through Jonah, Chip, and Katherine's characters, Haddix gives young readers a safe place to explore their identities, families, and friendships and leads her readers to understand that adoption is normal and does not exclude anyone from being 100% part of a family just as a non-adopted family member and that friends are there to support and help when you are unsure of your future.

While Found is exceptionally well-written, intriguing, and has tons of those hidden messages teachers love in books, I think the best use of this book in the classroom is as a book club or book report type book. I would not have my whole class read the book. I envision breaking the class into groups of four or five and having each group read one book with similar themes, ideas, or topics. Because of the one element in the conclusion of the book that I did not ruin, I may put this book with other historical fiction books, or based on themes previously discussed, with books dealing with identity and friends like The Outsiders or Stargirl. Or, my personal favorite, with mysteries. If put with the historical fiction books, the final project could be a research paper or a spin-off story, that would require some research, telling about who Chip and Jonah really were before they were kidnapped from time. If put with the identity novels, the class could enjoy lots of great discussion on including others and being true to yourself, which could be followed up by an autobiographical sketch (written or drawn) of oneself. With other mysteries, the readers become detectives and must solve the problem of time travel and write proposals of how having Chip and Jonah disappear from time caused a nearly irreversible bubble in time; this would, of course, require of some research on the famous children Jonah and Chip might be (oops, I gave away the one thing in the climax that I hadn't spoiled). With any of these groupings, Found lends itself well to discussion of a variety of topics as well as multi-layered projects that could involve research, writing, thinking and other forms of expression so that the students can wonder like Jonah and Chip, who am I and am I really that important?

And so I give Found a 9 out of 10. It lends itself well to classroom use, while covering topics of interest to adolescents in a way that does bore in them like the classics do, but intrigues them like, say, Harry Potter...which one is it with the vampires? So read it.