Sent

Book #40: The Missing: Book 2 Sent by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Ok, I read the first book in this series when I student taught and loved it. That's where my author crush began. I decided to make it my first read aloud when I began teaching (I would have done it as a book group but don't have enough copies). My students absolutely loved it. When we first began reading I told them it was the first book in a series and the second one came out at the end of August. When we finished Found, my students begged me to go buy Sent, the even offered to each bring in a dollar so I would have enough money for it. I told them no but they were welcome to go buy it or check it out and read it.

A few days later, I broke down and had to buy the second book, Sent. I am so glad I did.

At the end of Found, Jonah and Chip, who are both thirteen-year-olds, are trying to contemplate the news that they're both missing children from history, kidnapped from their proper time period. Before they can fully absorb this revelation, a time purist named JB zaps Chip and another boy, Alex, back to the fifteenth century, where they supposedly belong. Because Jonah and his sister Katherine do not want to lose their friends they grab Chip's arms just as he's being sent away. As a result Jonah and Katherine also end up in the fifteenth century, where they do not belong.

Chip's true identity is Edward V, king of England, and Alex is his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York. But Chip is convinced that his uncle, Richard of Gloucester, plans to kill them and seize the throne for himself.

JB promises that if the kids can "fix time," he will allow them to return to the present day. But how can they possibly return home safely when history claims that Chip and Alex were murdered?

Now that I have read it I'm really wanting to read it to my students because it takes place in the Middle Ages (one thing I have to cover with my 6th graders) and it's just as riveting as the first. I'm stuck. I wanted to make sure I read a different genre each time I do a read aloud but now I'm torn. This book is more difficult to categorize than the first. It obviously has elements of science fiction (time travel) but it also has historical fiction (the entire story takes place from 1483-1485). Maybe I'll just call it historical fiction and read it to them.