The Voice on the Radio - Hardcover

Cooney, Caroline B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385322135 ISBN 13: 9780385322133

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 1996

Synopsis

The kidnapping is long past. Janie Johnson can never change what happened to her or to the families that love her. But finally life seems to be settling down for the Springs and the Johnsons.

The worst part of this new life for Janie is that Reeve Shields is away at college. Janie misses him terribly, no matter how many e-mails they send each other. As for Reeve, he's finding life at college overwhelming. He goes to work at the school radio station, hoping a late-night gig will give him what he craves--popularity and fame. Reeve gets his chance to be the voice on the radio, and when he tells the most fascinating story he knows, his show becomes a sensation. Reeve is so sure that Janie will never discover what's making his
broadcast such a hit that he doesn't stop himself. But what will be the price for Janie?

As Janie knew, the facts about the little girl on the milk carton had to be uncovered, no matter how much pain they caused. Now the truth about what Reeve is doing must come out. Whose voice will help Janie when she must face not only her incredible past, but also her unknown future?

With the page-turning suspense that made The Face on the Milk Carton and Whatever Happened to Janie? best-sellers, Caroline B. Cooney once again explores the meaning of betrayal, the power of words, and the intensity of love.

About this title

About the Author

Caroline B. Cooney is the author of Goddess of Yesterday (an ALA Notable Children’s Book); The Ransom of Mercy Carter; and The Face on the Milk Carton (an IRA–CBC Children’s Choice). She lives in Westbrook, CT.


From the Paperback edition.

Reviews

Grade 6-10?This companion to The Face on the Milk Carton (Bantam, 1990) and Whatever Happened to Janie (Delacorte, 1993) provides more intimate details about characters that readers have come to know and care about. Janie Johnson first saw her face on a milk carton one year ago. Reeve Shields, her boyfriend, is now a college freshman and dreams of being a talk-show DJ. As he stares at the microphone in the control room of the campus radio station, the story of Janie's kidnapping at the age of three begins to slide out of his mouth and into the airwaves of Boston. Janie, in the meantime, is trying to recover from six months of nonstop confusion in her life, having recently learned about her past. When she accompanies her newfound sister and brother on a trip to visit colleges (and see her boyfriend) in Boston, Reeve's voice on the radio makes their tumultuous lives veer in a completely new direction. The complexity of human thought and actions is vividly portrayed through the author's distinctive prose, and readers are drawn deeply into the minds and hearts of the characters. Teens who have never read about Janie's circumstances are brought up to speed by the seamless intertwining of former events throughout the story. Cooney's outstanding command of emotional tension has taken this novel to extraordinary heights.?Jana R. Fine, Clearwater Public Library System, FL
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Readers of Cooney's addictive The Face on the Milk Carton and Whatever Happened to Janie? can start licking their chops. This juicy novel serves up the further life and times of Janie Johnson, who in the previous works learned that she had been kidnapped at age three from one loving family and deposited with another. Cooney brings new readers up to speed ingeniously: Janie's boyfriend, Reeve, now a college freshman, is trying to make a name for himself at the campus radio station, and in desperation he resorts to brief installments of Janie's twisted history. He achieves almost instant popularity and fame, which help salve his conscience for betraying Janie's deepest confidences. Meanwhile Janie, a very private person, endures her senior year of high school, fending off incursions from reporters and curious classmates, and drawing closer to her birth family, the Springs. Janie hazards upon one of Reeve's broadcasts and is devastated; Cooney compensates for the predictability of this plotting with a few gorgeously timed surprises. What this novel (and its predecessors) lacks in credibility it makes up for in psychological accuracy and well-aimed, gossipy views of teens?Cooney seems to have a special radar for adolescent longings and insecurities, not to mention campus chic (one of Reeve's fellow deejays, for example, affects the on-air name Derek Himself). Janie's appeal is so believable that readers will want to believe in the story, too, especially in the tender scenes between Janie and her Spring mother. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Nonfiction
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Janie, who was kidnapped from her birth parents at age three and ended up with the Johnson family in Cooney's The Face on the Milk Carton (1990) and Whatever Happened to Janie? (1993), is finally coming to terms with her past. She's also recovering from years of intense media notoriety and wants to be a normal high school senior. Her biggest problem is missing her boyfriend, Reeve, away at college in Boston. Reeve isn't very happy either, but not because of Janie. On campus he's just another face in the crowd; in his quest for attention, he becomes a talk show host on the college's radio station. He has little to say at first; to avoid dead air he tells the one story he knows well, of Janie's kidnapping and the incredible events that followed. The show's a smash and so is Reeve- -until Janie finds out. Heavy on a plot that gallops along, this novel is weak on just about everything else--especially Reeve's characterization. Cooney tells readers how wonderful he is (and he was, in the first two novels), but he comes across as a weak and selfish rotter; Janie's forgiveness is a bit of a leap. Scenes of newfound understanding between Janie and her birth family keep the story afloat--just barely--but despite the flaws, Janie's fans will love it. (Author tour) (Fiction. 12+) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Gr. 7^-10. Readers will be pleased with this sequel to The Face on the Milk Carton (1990) and Whatever Happened to Janie? (1993). Having the same sense of impending betrayal, it is difficult to put down. Because readers know Janie's betrayer is her boyfriend, Reeve, the one person she trusts unconditionally, the wait for her to discover his treachery is even more suspenseful. Yearning for popularity, Reeve wrangles a job as a deejay at his college radio station but freezes at the mike. Desperate to fill the dead air, he begins to tell Janie's story, fully aware she will never forgive him for it. He spins the story out for several weeks, though, rationalizing that Janie will never know. However, when she accompanies Jodie and Brian on a college visit, the three hear Reeve tell two "janies" and a "hannah." Furious, they confront Reeve, who promises to quit but finds that almost as difficult as his realization that Janie cannot shrug off his actions. Janie unexpectedly discovers strength, the possibility of forgiving Reeve, and real love for the Spring family when she decides to tell Mrs. Spring of Reeve's betrayal. Readers will again enjoy Cooney's skillful use of multiple points of view, and a conclusion that promises real happiness for Janie and her families. Chris Sherman

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Derek Himself stared incredulously. Cal, a deejay, and Vinnie, the station manager, who were the other two guys at the station tonight, looked up from their paperwork. All three began to snicker, and then actually to snort, with laughter, although background noise was forbidden when the mike was on; it would be picked up and broadcast. Once upon a time? A beginning for kindergartners. A beginning for fairy tales and picture books.

Reeve would never live it down. He really would have to transfer.

He pictured Cordell laughing at him. Laughed at by a roommate stupider and smellier than anybody on campus? He imagined the guys in the dorm yelling Loser! Loser! Guys he wanted to be friends with but hadn't pulled it off yet. Guys who would not be polite about how worthless Reeve was.

"Once upon a time," he repeated helplessly, stuck in horrible repetition of that stupid phrase.

And then talk arrived, like a tape that had come in the mail. For Reeve Shields really did know a story that began with "Once upon a time."

"I dated a dizzy redhead. Dizzy is a compliment. Janie was light and airy. Like hope and joy. My girlfriend," he said softly, into the microphone. Into the world.

"You know the type. Really cute, fabulous red hair, lived next door. Good in school, of course, girls like that always are. Janie had lots of friends and she was crazy about her mom and dad, because that's the kind of family people like that have."

Never had Reeve's voice sounded so rich and appealing.

"Except," said Reeve, "except one day in the school cafeteria, a perfectly ordinary day, when kids were stealing each other's desserts and spilling each other's milk, Janie just happened to glance down at the picture of that missing child printed on the milk carton."

His slow voice seemed to draw a half-pint of milk, with its little black-and-white picture of a missing child. It was almost visible, that little milk carton, that dim and wax-covered photograph.

"And the face on the milk carton," said Reeve, "was Janie herself."

He deepened his voice, moving from informative into mysterious. "They can't fit much information on the side of a half-pint," said Reeve, "but the milk carton said that little girl had been missing since she was three. Missing for twelve years."

In radio, you could not see your audience. Reeve could not know whether he really did have an audience. Radio was faith.

"Can you imagine if your daughter, or your sister, had disappeared twelve years ago? Twelve years have gone by, and yet you still believe. Surely somehow, somewhere, she must be waiting, and listening. You haven't given up hope. You refuse to admit she's probably dead by now, probably was dead all along. You believe there is a chance in a million that if you put her picture on a milk carton, she'll see it."

Beyond the mike, Reeve imagined dormitories--kids slouched on beds and floors, listening. Listening to him.

"Well," said Reeve, "she saw it."

Edition details

• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385322135
• ISBN 13: 9780385322133
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192