The Voice on the Radio (Janie Johnson Series #3) »

Caroline B. Cooney is the author of Goddess of Yesterday (an ALA Notable Children’s Book); The Ransom of Mercy Carter; and The Face on the Milk Carton (an IRA–CBC Children’s Choice). She lives in Westbrook, CT.

The Voice on the Radio, now in paperback, is the highly anticipated companion to The Face on the Milk Carton and Whatever Happened to Janie?, by best selling author Caroline B.  Cooney:

Janie's life finally seems to be settling down.  But she really misses Reeve Shields, her boyfriend who is away at college.  Reeve is overwhelmed by his new college life, and when he is asked to host a late-night radio show, he cannot turn it down.  But he is stressed, and he finds himself spilling Janie's secrets on the air, certain that Janie will never find out.  But will Janie have to pay for Reeve's lapse in judgement?

Publishers Weekly

Readers of Cooney's addictive The Face on the Milk Carton and Whatever Happened to Janie? can start licking their chops. This juicy novel serves up the further life and times of Janie Johnson, who in the previous works learned that she had been kidnapped at age three from one loving family and deposited with another. Cooney brings new readers up to speed ingeniously: Janie's boyfriend, Reeve, now a college freshman, is trying to make a name for himself at the campus radio station, and in desperation he resorts to brief installments of Janie's twisted history. He achieves almost instant popularity and fame, which help salve his conscience for betraying Janie's deepest confidences. Meanwhile Janie, a very private person, endures her senior year of high school, fending off incursions from reporters and curious classmates, and drawing closer to her birth family, the Springs. Janie hazards upon one of Reeve's broadcasts and is devastated; Cooney compensates for the predictability of this plotting with a few gorgeously timed surprises. What this novel (and its predecessors) lacks in credibility it makes up for in psychological accuracy and well-aimed, gossipy views of teensCooney seems to have a special radar for adolescent longings and insecurities, not to mention campus chic (one of Reeve's fellow deejays, for example, affects the on-air name Derek Himself). Janie's appeal is so believable that readers will want to believe in the story, too, especially in the tender scenes between Janie and her Spring mother. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Nonfiction