One day, Hannah showed up at the Johnson's house with Janie, and left her there before returning to the cult. According to her parents, Hannah was a confused teen who had joined a Hari Krishna style cult at a young age and was married off to one of the men in the cult. Janie's parents explain that Hannah is their daughter, and that Janie is Hannah's daughter, making them her grandparents. After finding school papers with the name 'Hannah Javensen' and the dress worn by the girl on the milk carton, Janie confronts her parents. Although Janie refuses to believe that her loving parents could have kidnapped her, she begins having flashbacks that do not fit in with her current life.Īfter her mother appears reluctant when she asks to see her birth certificate, Janie searches her home’s attic for any information that could shed light on her flashbacks. The child is identified as ‘Jennie Spring,’ a girl who was kidnapped from a New Jersey shopping mall when she was three years old.

While at lunch on a typical day of school, Janie Johnson’s life is upended after she picks up a friend’s milk carton and recognizes herself as the girl in a missing person photo on the back of the carton. The book has also received several awards, including the Colorado Blue Spruce Book Award (1996) and the Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Readers Choice Award (1993). The book was number 79 on the most frequently challenged books in the US for 1990-1999 and number -2009 for references to kidnapping, cults, challenges to authority, and sexual activity. The Face on the Milk Carton, which contains themes including the exploration of self-identity, relationships with parents and peers, and individual responsibility, has been used in young adult classrooms to encourage readers to explore these themes in their own lives.

The idea for the novel originated from the regular practice in the 1980s and 1990s for milk cartons to feature photographs of missing children. These suspicions come after Janie recognizes a picture of herself on a milk carton under the heading ' Missing Child.' Janie's life gets more stressful as she tries to find the truth while hiding the secret from her parents.

The book is about a 15-year-old girl named Janie Johnson, who starts to suspect that her parents may have kidnapped her and that her biological parents are somewhere in New Jersey. The first in the five-book Janie Johnson series, it was later adapted into a film for television. The Face on the Milk Carton is a young adult mystery novel written by author Caroline B.

Janie face on the milk carton