As I've been wanting to since spring, I've finally read The Missing Girl. It did not disappoint. Now, I'm in my forties, but when I was a true tween/teen I read another Mazer book that had a big impact on me, Saturday the Twelfth of October.
In The Missing Girl, we meet the five Herbert sisters: Beauty, Mim, Stevie (formerly Faithful), Fancy and Autumn. They range in age from 18 to 11 and are already dealing with changes in the family when suddenly, one of them disappears. At this point you and your teen readers are probably already hooked. Mazer tells her tale from the viewpoints of three of the sisters, as well as the disturbing middle-aged kidnapper. The view into his world is truly chilling. The POV of the abducted girl is written in the second person, which further helps the reader to empathize
with her.
Saturday... was also fascinating to me those many years ago. This description is from memory, so please excuse any errors. Zan (Alexandra) is a city girl who somehow unintentionally travels back through time and finds herself among a "primitive" people. Unwillingly to be among them at first, she is taken in and learns their ways, including how to trust the feelings in her belly, rather than her brain. This book addresses changes in a girl's body and at the risk of sounding corny, helped me feel positive about physically becoming a woman. I remember the People have a myth about a maiden whose menstrual blood drops create scarlet flowers wherever they fall. It also seems to me that Zan has a dream where she swallows a stone and it moves inside her like a child. These were mysterious, beautiful and stirring images for me. Just what I needed at the time.
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