The Lost Children by Carolyn Cohagan

I picked up The Lost Children by Carolyn Cohagan because the author will be presenting a Young Writers' Workshop at the Tattered Cover this Tuesday.  I read it with my six-year old.

Take a look at the book trailer:



I like the colorful drawing of the gloves, but my first reaction to the trailer is that The Lost Children seemed much more than "gently" creepy -- even taking into consideration that my daughter is significantly younger than (what I assume is) the target audience.  There is a fair bit of violence and what I would probably call torture (holding a candle to someone's hand until they talk, for example).  Near the end of the book one of the main characters does renounce violence after his experience being violent himself.

Josephine's relationship with her father is very sad and I wasn't sure how I felt about the quick and neat redemption of said relationship at the end of the book.  Almost like the dad was getting off too easy and everyone else should just be thrilled to carry on, with a now improved relationship.

I usually really like time-space continuum/parallel worlds/time travel kind of stuff but this book just did not draw me in.  My daughter seemed fairly satisfied with it.  I am still looking forward to the workshop.