Sent: The Missing, Book 2 (by Margaret Peterson Haddix)

At the end of Found, Alex and Chip discover they are really princes from the Middle Ages, and they are returned there just in time for their murders, with Jonah and Katherine tagging along to try to prevent them. But messing with history is tricky business, especially when you're not all that clear on what is supposed to happen, and when the central event is, in fact, an historical mystery. Jonah and Katherine must find a way to let the princes die while saving their friends -- who do not want to be saved.

The first book in The Missing series, Found, was a page-turning suspense thriller. This second book has moments of that too, but they are broken up by lengthy exposition. Given the obscure (for children) historical setting and the importance of the real events to the plot, some exposition was certainly necessary, but author Margaret Haddix, who is brilliant at suspense, is less successful here, with explanations that are sometimes confusing and go on too long.

Nevertheless, that very complex and mysterious historical context gives this novel its fascination. It's like a deeper and more serious version of the '80s TV series Voyagers!, in which history must be corrected. Time travel, suspense, and deeply researched and thought-out historical complexity are a potent combination, and with 36 children trapped out of their times, this series should have a future nearly as long as its past.

Author: Margaret Peterson Haddix
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: August 1, 2009
Number of pages: 313
Hardcover price: $15.99
Read Aloud: 10
Read Alone: 11