Girl, Missing
Encyclopedia
Girl, Missing is a children's
novel
by Sophie McKenzie, published in 2006.
It won the 2007 Bolton Children's Book Award
, the 2008 Manchester Book Award
and the 2007 Red House Children's Book Award
for Older Readers, as well as being longlisted for the Carnegie Medal
.
It was also one of the books picked for the Richard & Judy Children's Book Club
.
for homework
entitled Who am I?, in which she has to write about her personality and her life. Eager to find out about her past, Lauren goes on Missing-Children.com, and finds an American girl of her age named Martha Lauren Purditt, who went missing less than two months before Lauren was adopted.
After comparing the photograph
of Martha with a photograph of Lauren as a toddler
, Lauren finds that she and Martha look alike. Lauren's friend James 'Jam' Caldwell comes round, and compares Lauren's face to the age-progressed photograph of Martha. They find that the two girls look alike. Lauren thinks she may be Martha, and finds out information about her adoption is in her adoptive mother's diaries
. Whilst Lauren's mother
is visiting Jam's mother Carla, Lauren finds her mother's diaries in the attic
, and discovers she was adopted from Marchfield Adoption Agency in Vermont
, USA.
After persuading her family to go on a holiday to a theme park in America, the family go to America (albeit leaving Lauren's adoptive father
behind, and taking Jam in his place). While Lauren's mother and Rory are waiting to change planes, Lauren and Jam sneak off and get a plane to Burlington
.
Once the plane lands, Lauren and Jam get a bus
to Marchfield, where Lauren has a meeting with Taylor Tarsen, the owner of the agency. He refuses to show Lauren her adoption file, but when Lauren mentions Sonia Holtwood, a woman from her mother's diaries, Taylor tells Lauren she was looked after by Sonia before her adoption, and gives her $150 so she and Jam can stay in a motel
. Jam informs Lauren that he found out where Lauren's adoption file is, and the two stay in a motel for the night.
That night, Lauren and Jam break into Marchfield and find Lauren's adoption file, but all that is in it is an address
on a scrap of paper. Unfazed, Lauren and Jam go to an 24-hour taxi firm and get a taxi to the address. When they arrive at what they believe to be Sonia Holtwood's flat, they find that a young Spanish
woman
now lives there. However, they meet an old woman named Bettina, who used to babysit Lauren when she lived in the flat with Sonia.
Lauren and Jam set out to find Sonia but end up cold and worried so when a "Police officer" comes up to Lauren and offers to take them to their destination Lauren accepts. After a brief discussion with Jam he accepts and he goes with her. The officer tells them who she really is and they find out she is Sonia Holtwood and she is trying to kidnap them. She gives them orange juice which is drugged so they both fall into a deep sleep and wake up hours later to find they are still in the car. Lauren pleads with Sonia to let them out and she does: in the middle of nowhere, twenty miles from the nearest place with a name. So Lauren and Jam start walking through the woods where they have an argument. Jam storms off so Lauren just lies down in the snow. She hears voices then goes back to sleep.
The next day she wakes up in a log cabin. She sees Jam and asks him what has happened. He says they were rescued by a man called Glane who took them to his log cabin. He then takes them to a motel for them to stay at because he was going home to Boston. Lauren goes on the internet to find out more about Martha Lauren Purditt. Her parents were Annie and Sam Purditt who lived in Evanport. Lauren decides she will hitch hike to get there but Glane won't hear of it so he takes them there himself. On the way Lauren is worrying about how she looks but Jam says she looks beautiful and he wants to ask her something.
After Lauren moves in with Shelby and Madison, her two sisters, she realises that Annie is a bit extreme in her emotion with Lauren. Lauren likes Sam much better than Annie, but the person she likes best is her grandmother, who understands her much better than either Sam or Annie. One day, Lauren finds Shelby twisting a knot in Madi's skin. Lauren sees many bruises there and is shocked. Lauren stops Shelby and comforts Madison. When she goes back to her room, she finds her phone with a bullying text message supposedly from Shelby, saying to keep quiet or die. She receives another of these later. One night while Lauren is downstairs making hot chocolate, she sees an intruder at the door. She recognises him as Jam, and lets him in. He proposes that they run away together but Lauren hesitates and says that she needs time to think about it. She, Jam and Madi all go down to the marine so they can talk. Jam gets mad when Lauren says that she doesn't want to leave her real family, and storms off. Then she gets another text. She thinks its from Shelby, but it's from Sonia Holtwood saying that her sister will die unless she goes to Sam's boat, 'The Jospehine May'. There she finds Madi gagged and Sonia and a paid criminal called Frank. Lauren kicks Frank in an attempt to escape, and he tries to slap her. He is stopped by Sonia, who says that they have to found unharmed so that it looks like an accident. Later, Madi annoys Sonia and gets hit by her, sending her flying across the room and causing her to crack her head on a hard shelf. Sonia and Frank then leave the boat, after Lauren lies to Frank saying that she hasn't got her cellphone. Madi and Lauren have been wedged into the room by the Sonia and Frank, but then Jam appears and rescues them.
The next chapter is in the hospital, where Madi has still not awoken after smacking her head. Annie and Lauren are with her when she awakes, and the two share a true mother - daughter moment. Back at Sam and Annie's house, Lauren meets her adoptive parents at the door, they say that they have been released from jail and have been invited there by Sam and Annie. All of them have a conversation and Lauren is asked who she wants to live with: Sam and Annie or her adoptive parents. She replies that she chooses bothee.
The adoptive daughter of the Matthews and the biological daughter of the (then nineteen year olds) Sam and Annie Purditt. The biological sister of Shelby Annabelle Purditt (Shelbs) and Madison Gloria Annabelle Purditt (Madi).
James (Jam) Caldwell
Lauren's best friend, who is fifteen and goes with her on her journery. He later becomes her boyfriend.
Madison (Madi) Purditt
Lauren's favourite younger sister. Aged six. Madi is physically and emotionally bullied by Shelby.
Sam and Annie Purditt
Lauren's real parents whom she was stolen from at the age of three.
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Sophie McKenzie, published in 2006.
It won the 2007 Bolton Children's Book Award
Bolton Children's Book Award
The Bolton Children's Book Award is an annual award given to works of children's literature published in paperback during the previous year. The award is sponsored by Bolton Literacy Trust, The University of Bolton and Page Nation.-List of Prize Winners:...
, the 2008 Manchester Book Award
Manchester Book Award
The Manchester Book Award is a project run in Manchester, UK, organised by School Services at the Manchester Library & Information Service; it is funded by the Working Neighbourhoods Fund. The project is currently in its fourth year....
and the 2007 Red House Children's Book Award
Red House Children's Book Award
The Red House Children's Book Award is a series of literary prizes for works of children's literature published during the previous year. The prize was known as the Children's Book Award from its inauguration in 1981...
for Older Readers, as well as being longlisted for the Carnegie Medal
Carnegie Medal
The Carnegie Medal is a literary award established in 1936 in honour of Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and given annually to an outstanding book for children and young adults. It is awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...
.
It was also one of the books picked for the Richard & Judy Children's Book Club
Richard & Judy
Richard & Judy was a British magazine/chat show which was presented by married couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan. It originally aired on Channel 4 from 2001 to 2008 but later moved to digital channel Watch in October 2008. It featured the world's most famous stars, along with their Book Club...
.
Part One: Finding Martha
The main character is 14 year old Lauren Matthews, who lives in London with her adoptive parents and her adopted parents' son, Rory. Lauren is doing an essayEssay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
for homework
Homework
Homework, or homework assignment, refers to tasks assigned to students by their teachers to be completed outside of class. Common homework assignments may include a quantity or period of reading to be performed, writing or typing to be completed, problems to be solved, a school project to be built...
entitled Who am I?, in which she has to write about her personality and her life. Eager to find out about her past, Lauren goes on Missing-Children.com, and finds an American girl of her age named Martha Lauren Purditt, who went missing less than two months before Lauren was adopted.
After comparing the photograph
Photograph
A photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...
of Martha with a photograph of Lauren as a toddler
Toddler
A toddler is a young child, usually defined as being between the ages of one and three. Registered nurse, midwife and author, Robin Barker, states 'Any time from eight months onwards your baby will begin to realise he is a separate person from you...
, Lauren finds that she and Martha look alike. Lauren's friend James 'Jam' Caldwell comes round, and compares Lauren's face to the age-progressed photograph of Martha. They find that the two girls look alike. Lauren thinks she may be Martha, and finds out information about her adoption is in her adoptive mother's diaries
Diaries
As a proper noun, Diaries, the plural of diary, can refer to:*Diaries: 1971-1976, an 1981 documentary by Ed Pincus*Diaries 1969–1979: The Python Years, a 2006 book by Michael Palin...
. Whilst Lauren's mother
Mother
A mother, mum, mom, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally...
is visiting Jam's mother Carla, Lauren finds her mother's diaries in the attic
Attic
An attic is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building . Attic is generally the American/Canadian reference to it...
, and discovers she was adopted from Marchfield Adoption Agency in Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
, USA.
After persuading her family to go on a holiday to a theme park in America, the family go to America (albeit leaving Lauren's adoptive father
Father
A father, Pop, Dad, or Papa, is defined as a male parent of any type of offspring. The adjective "paternal" refers to father, parallel to "maternal" for mother...
behind, and taking Jam in his place). While Lauren's mother and Rory are waiting to change planes, Lauren and Jam sneak off and get a plane to Burlington
Burlington, Vermont
Burlington is the largest city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the shire town of Chittenden County. Burlington lies south of the U.S.-Canadian border and some south of Montreal....
.
Once the plane lands, Lauren and Jam get a bus
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...
to Marchfield, where Lauren has a meeting with Taylor Tarsen, the owner of the agency. He refuses to show Lauren her adoption file, but when Lauren mentions Sonia Holtwood, a woman from her mother's diaries, Taylor tells Lauren she was looked after by Sonia before her adoption, and gives her $150 so she and Jam can stay in a motel
Motel
A motor hotel, or motel for short, is a hotel designed for motorists, and usually has a parking area for motor vehicles...
. Jam informs Lauren that he found out where Lauren's adoption file is, and the two stay in a motel for the night.
That night, Lauren and Jam break into Marchfield and find Lauren's adoption file, but all that is in it is an address
Address (geography)
An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used for describing the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along with other identifiers such as house or...
on a scrap of paper. Unfazed, Lauren and Jam go to an 24-hour taxi firm and get a taxi to the address. When they arrive at what they believe to be Sonia Holtwood's flat, they find that a young Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
woman
Woman
A woman , pl: women is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent...
now lives there. However, they meet an old woman named Bettina, who used to babysit Lauren when she lived in the flat with Sonia.
Lauren and Jam set out to find Sonia but end up cold and worried so when a "Police officer" comes up to Lauren and offers to take them to their destination Lauren accepts. After a brief discussion with Jam he accepts and he goes with her. The officer tells them who she really is and they find out she is Sonia Holtwood and she is trying to kidnap them. She gives them orange juice which is drugged so they both fall into a deep sleep and wake up hours later to find they are still in the car. Lauren pleads with Sonia to let them out and she does: in the middle of nowhere, twenty miles from the nearest place with a name. So Lauren and Jam start walking through the woods where they have an argument. Jam storms off so Lauren just lies down in the snow. She hears voices then goes back to sleep.
The next day she wakes up in a log cabin. She sees Jam and asks him what has happened. He says they were rescued by a man called Glane who took them to his log cabin. He then takes them to a motel for them to stay at because he was going home to Boston. Lauren goes on the internet to find out more about Martha Lauren Purditt. Her parents were Annie and Sam Purditt who lived in Evanport. Lauren decides she will hitch hike to get there but Glane won't hear of it so he takes them there himself. On the way Lauren is worrying about how she looks but Jam says she looks beautiful and he wants to ask her something.
Part Two: Finding Lauren
At the house, Lauren is met by a girl aged thirteen, called Shelby who does not believe Lauren. Then a lady comes out and asks who Lauren is. Lauren repiles she is Martha. Lauren meets the other relatives, her real father Sam and a sister who is six. She stays with them for a while but starts missing her own family. Lauren finds out that her parents have been arrested and are in prison and after a phone call from her parents' lawyer, she has a row with Annie and storms off, prompting Annie to run after her. Lauren slams her bedroom door and when Annie storms in, the two have a furious confrontation. However, Annie apologises and angrily vows that she will never stop loving Lauren and fiercely hugs her, later showing her some baby photos and delights Lauren by showing her some affection.After Lauren moves in with Shelby and Madison, her two sisters, she realises that Annie is a bit extreme in her emotion with Lauren. Lauren likes Sam much better than Annie, but the person she likes best is her grandmother, who understands her much better than either Sam or Annie. One day, Lauren finds Shelby twisting a knot in Madi's skin. Lauren sees many bruises there and is shocked. Lauren stops Shelby and comforts Madison. When she goes back to her room, she finds her phone with a bullying text message supposedly from Shelby, saying to keep quiet or die. She receives another of these later. One night while Lauren is downstairs making hot chocolate, she sees an intruder at the door. She recognises him as Jam, and lets him in. He proposes that they run away together but Lauren hesitates and says that she needs time to think about it. She, Jam and Madi all go down to the marine so they can talk. Jam gets mad when Lauren says that she doesn't want to leave her real family, and storms off. Then she gets another text. She thinks its from Shelby, but it's from Sonia Holtwood saying that her sister will die unless she goes to Sam's boat, 'The Jospehine May'. There she finds Madi gagged and Sonia and a paid criminal called Frank. Lauren kicks Frank in an attempt to escape, and he tries to slap her. He is stopped by Sonia, who says that they have to found unharmed so that it looks like an accident. Later, Madi annoys Sonia and gets hit by her, sending her flying across the room and causing her to crack her head on a hard shelf. Sonia and Frank then leave the boat, after Lauren lies to Frank saying that she hasn't got her cellphone. Madi and Lauren have been wedged into the room by the Sonia and Frank, but then Jam appears and rescues them.
The next chapter is in the hospital, where Madi has still not awoken after smacking her head. Annie and Lauren are with her when she awakes, and the two share a true mother - daughter moment. Back at Sam and Annie's house, Lauren meets her adoptive parents at the door, they say that they have been released from jail and have been invited there by Sam and Annie. All of them have a conversation and Lauren is asked who she wants to live with: Sam and Annie or her adoptive parents. She replies that she chooses bothee.
Epilogue
Lauren says that she now partly lives with Sam and Annie, and that she spends the school term in England with her adoptive parents. She and Jam are together and Shelby has stopped being horrible to her and Madi. Lauren adds that she never spends more than a few weeks away from either family, and she ends by saying that she was asked to write another 'Who am I?' essay. She then says that it was easy because she finally knows who she is.Characters
Lauren Matthews (nee Martha-Lauren Purditt)The adoptive daughter of the Matthews and the biological daughter of the (then nineteen year olds) Sam and Annie Purditt. The biological sister of Shelby Annabelle Purditt (Shelbs) and Madison Gloria Annabelle Purditt (Madi).
James (Jam) Caldwell
Lauren's best friend, who is fifteen and goes with her on her journery. He later becomes her boyfriend.
Madison (Madi) Purditt
Lauren's favourite younger sister. Aged six. Madi is physically and emotionally bullied by Shelby.
Sam and Annie Purditt
Lauren's real parents whom she was stolen from at the age of three.