The Missing (novel series)

The Missing is a series of young adult novels written by Margaret Peterson Haddix. It tells the story of famous children from history stolen from their place in time by futuristic time travelers and accidentally sent to the 21st century as babies. Jonah Skidmore is one of the stolen children, and he, along with his non-adopted sister Katherine, must help return the missing kids to their rightful places in history and fix time before it is destroyed. The first book in the series, Found, was published on April 22, 2008. The series continued with book titles Sent, Sabotaged, Torn, Caught, Risked (originally intended to be titled Kept), and Revealed. The eighth and final book, Redeemed, was released on September 8, 2015. There are also two ebook short stories, Sought (which takes place before Risked) and Rescued (which takes place between Risked and Revealed). Haddix originally intended the series to consist of only seven books. However, she stated that she had trouble closing out the series in seven books; leading to her decision to write Redeemed.

Books Found

A thirteen-year-old boy named Jonah Skidmore had always known that he was adopted and had never thought much of it until he began receiving strange letters sent to his house. When Jonah's friend Chip, who received the same letters, learns that he is also adopted, Jonah, Chip, and Jonah's sister, Katherine, set out to find out the truth about their origins. They end up in the middle of an FBI investigation, people appearing and disappearing, and a strange tale from a woman named Angela DuPre, who saw a plane appear (and later disappear) with 36 babies on board. The three come to realize that Jonah and Chip are important missing children from history who were transported to the 21st century by baby smuggling time travelers, Gary and Hodge. Later, the trio are unknowingly lured into a cave, known as a time hollow, with all but one of the other 36 missing children in an attempt by the smugglers to take them to the future. After they have defeated the smugglers, another time traveler from the future known to them as JB (Janitor Boy) decides to send Chip and another boy, Alex Polchak, back to the 1480s, where they were originally taken from. While trying to stop him, Jonah and Katherine are accidentally taken along for the trip as well, leaving it up to them to save their friends and return to the 21st century. This sets the plot and the title for the following book in the series.

Sent

Jonah, Katherine, Chip, and Chip's biological brother, Alex, have one warning of disaster before they are sent back to the Tower of London in the 15th century, with the promise that they can return to their home in the 21st century if they can repair history. They quickly discover that Chip and Alex's true identities are Edward V (king of England) and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, respectively. But before Chip can enjoy being the King of England, they discover that they are virtually prisoners—and that the boys' uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, wants them dead.

The four teenagers foil an attempt by two men to kill Chip and Alex, but then must hide. The next day, they decide to cross the Thames to Westminster Abbey, where the boys' uncle, Richard of Gloucester, is being crowned King Richard III of England. Posing as angels, they terrify King Richard by telling him that his murder of his nephews means that he is condemned to hell, leaving him with a burden of guilt and terror of damnation that lasts throughout his reign. They visit the queen, their mother, in sanctuary at Westminster, intending to convince her of Chip and Alex's death, but instead Chip and Alex rejoin their tracers (which mark out the events of original time) and Jonah and Katherine are removed from time to a time hollow, where they and JB watch the next two years, from 1483 to 1485. Jonah and Katherine are sent to the Battle of Bosworth Field and manage to convince King Richard to give up his crown in favor of Edward (Chip), but he is killed in battle and Chip and Alex are almost killed before Jonah and Katherine manage to convince them to come home. They return to the time cave, and then go home. JB soon shows up at Chip's house and explains to him, Alex, Jonah, and Katherine that Chip was never meant to be king and that Richard III was meant to be a villain for the sake of furthering humanity's moral development, as the incident with his nephews had made the murder of children no longer acceptable as an option for those involved in governance. JB then tells the four that he wants Jonah and Katherine to help the next missing child, Andrea Crowell, return to her place in history.

Sabotaged

In the third volume of the series, Jonah and Katherine return Andrea, identified as the missing child Virginia Dare, to 1600; she had been kidnapped while in the process of burying the people and animals of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, as per Croatoan Indian custom. To preserve time, she had to finish the job, otherwise the island's legacy would poison relations between the Jamestown colonists who would be arriving in a few years and the local Native Americans, causing the colony to fail.

During Jonah, Katherine, and Andrea's time journey, the device used for their time travel, called an Elucidator, is lost, causing the children to arrive at Croatoan Island in 1600 and uncertain as to where or when they are. They discover that a man visited Andrea and wrongly convinced her to type in a code on the Elucidator which made it disappear, telling her it would take her back to the day her parents died, so she could rescue them. Eventually, they discover that they made it to Roanoke Island in 1600, and go to Croatoan Island. In the process, Andrea saves a man from drowning, whom they discover is her grandfather, John White. Jonah, Katherine, and Andrea find that their attempt to fix time by sending Andrea back is being thwarted by a man who calls himself Second. Second is a projectionist (computer simulation and prediction specialist) for the time agency that may have messed up time forever. Along the way they meet two of the other missing children, Brendan and Antonio, who were mysteriously sent back to their original time by Second. While on Croatoan Island, Andrea changes time itself and is reunited with her grandfather as Virginia Dare. It turns out Brendan and Antonio are adopted Native Americans; Brendan is an African boy dumped off a Spanish slave ship, and Antonio is an orphaned Spaniard fled from service as a cabin boy,. They were both taken in by the Croatoan tribe and became excellent artists. Virginia Dare/Andrea completes her task and buries the bones on Croatoan Island, saving it from being a reminder of the plague that killed the Roanoke colonists and Croatoan Indians. Second appears and Jonah and Katherine are saved by JB, only to be hurled into another time (1611).

Torn

Jonah and Katherine land on the decks of Henry Hudson's ship, called the Discovery, moments before a mutiny in the early 17th century. JB reveals that John Hudson, one of the kids stolen from history and Henry Hudson's son, is missing completely, and Jonah will have to play his part. Jonah and Katherine must survive being on the 17th century boat, with unlikely help from two of the sailors. Hudson is trying to find the Northwest Passage that would connect Europe and Asia by way of the Americas. During the mutiny, Jonah and Katherine, along with Hudson and his officers, are banished into the cold bay; but instead of the original version of history they remember, the boat returns for them, led by the first mate. When they find out that Second has disguised himself as Hudson's first mate and has murdered one of them, Jonah and Katherine have a harrowing time, and then relive the mutiny and banishment, except time splits, showing one version that they already lived (the return of the ship) and one that they live now (continued banishment, the original version). They escape the boat after a docking and manage to get into the Damaged Time of 1605. They save their friends Brendan, Antonio, Andrea, JB, and John White when Jonah rescues everyone from a fire in the Indian village of 1605. It then turns out that Second sent John Hudson to 1605. John Hudson, called Dalton Sullivan in the 21st century, was already in 1605, living in England. JB then concludes that Second unraveled time from 1605 to 1611, made his own new, alternate universe and is sealing it off completely from others. JB then sends everyone to the 21st century, where they can live in peace, for a while.

Caught

Jonah and Katherine are in school when time freezes. They are subsequently transported to Albert Einstein's apartment in Bern in August 1903, just before his wife Mileva enters with a telegram from her parents in Novi Sad, Serbia informing them that their daughter Lieserl, who was left with Mileva's parents, is very ill with scarlet fever. As Mileva enters the apartment, she bumps into Jonah, who has commanded his Elucidator to make him and Katherine invisible; he drops the device, which has made itself look like a compass to disguise itself, and Mileva picks it up. Jonah and Katherine, still invisible, poke through the Einsteins' private papers after they go to bed, and then follow Mileva through the streets of Bern onto the train to Novi Sad in the morning. On the train, Mileva becomes aware of their presence. They then follow Mileva to her parents' house and conceal themselves in Lieserl's room. Then Emily, one of the other girls from the time cave, appears in the room, telling Jonah and Katherine she was sent back by JB, who told her she would find out what she needed to know when she arrived at her destination. Just before Mileva enters the room, Jonah persuades Emily to merge with her tracer as Lieserl in order to conceal herself. Mileva, demanding that Jonah and Katherine cure her daughter, takes Lieserl and leads them out into the nearby woods; she uses the Elucidator to render them visible and is chagrined to find they are only children. Emily, unable to endure Lieserl's high fever and shortness of breath any longer, then separates from the tracer, causing Mileva to go into hysterics until Jonah tells her that Lieserl is not dead, and introduces Mileva to Emily as Lieserl. When Mileva tries to show Albert the 13-year-old Emily, time freezes in 1903 as well, but not Mileva, since she skipped time to when Albert arrived. They are all sent, along with Emily, to a place outside of time, called a time hollow. Mileva freezes everyone there using the Elucidator and then watches her whole life, Emily's life, and learns English to understand how time travel works. Then she unfreezes only Jonah and allows him to come with her and save time. Jonah lets Mileva keep the Elucidator when she returns to her time, which allows her to later send her schizophrenic son, Tete Einstein, to the future as a baby, where he is cured of his illness and grows up to become JB.

Risked

The Missing (novel series)

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