Found

Because her mother cannot afford to keep her, Ren tries to survive along with other homeless persons who are united in their determination to care for an abandoned baby.

Grade 6-8. This British import introduces a future world in which social organization has deteriorated to a depressing level. In the cities, workers sit in front of computer screens and earn minimal wages. The streets are inhabited by wanderers who steal and scavenge in order to survive. In the ravaged countryside, a few lost souls roam, living in caves and abandoned structures. Ren, the child of a computer worker, is sent away because her mother can no longer support her. Alone and frightened, she soon meets Brocket and Lil. This unlikely young trio takes on the responsibility of caring for an abandoned baby whom they name Found. They discover an enemy in the form of a crazed woman who seeks to take Found away from them. Their lives are further complicated when the infant becomes seriously ill. This is an interesting story, but the unknowns are many. How did the world get to such a low point? What hope do these vagabond children have beyond their own intrepid resourcefulness? Without much supporting background and with only a vague sense of hope, the story exists in something of a vacuum. Oldham's stark prose style is as bleak as the society she describes. The characters learn to survive by relying on one another and through relentless determination. These are excellent qualities for readers to understand, but they may be so put off by the uncompromising presentation that they never make it to the end of the book.?Bruce Anne Shook, Mendenhall Middle School, Greensboro, NC
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A riveting novel. In the frightening, believable 21st-century England Oldham envisions, middle-class office workers live at their jobs and are taxed on their children, while street people are beaten without question by the police. When Ren's mother is pregnant with a second child, she shuttles Ren off to live with a friend in the deserted countryside. Connections are missed, and Ren, who has only eaten TV dinners and viewed the world through a video screen, bravely tries to live on her own in a secret cave. Salvation arrives in the unlikely forms of Lil, a teenage street person, and Found, an abandoned baby. Chance meetings with a pair of young men (Brocket and Hilary) and the elderly Mrs. Gimmer solve the problems of feeding and clothing the child: Their mutual cooperation is good for the child--and good for each other, as well. When Found is kidnapped and, later, gravely ill, the four young people risk their own lives to protect the baby. Oldham's characters are very human; while it is shocking when Lil murders an elderly woman to save Found, her motivations and actions are honestly and authentically rendered. The theme of civilization crumbling into chaos is a smartly played riff on most readers' fears of divorce and family separation. While the ending is cautiously optimistic, an undercurrent and violence warns of the consequences, should self-interest prevail over concern for the common good. (Fiction. 10-14) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.