The Lost Children

I was drawn to this book while at the library. I didn't really read the synopsis so I had no expectations going into it. So I was pleasantly surprised with a plot that involved time travel and travel to other worlds.

Josephine
Honestly, I wasn't sure if I liked this character at times. She seemed too weak and indecisive. She didn't seem to have that inner voice that told her that things were off or wrong. She would rather blindly hope things and people were good.

Ida
Now Ida was the strong heroine that I wanted. She was determined to save herself and her friends. She was skeptical when things were too good to be true and would try to find out people's real motives.

Fargas
Poor Fargas learned to get by without talking after what he had been show more through. He was harder to decide if I liked him or not. However, I decided that he was sweet and just took time to like him.

Ned
Ned seemed to be a strong character. He was determined to help others and do the right thing. I really liked him and was glad that he had a decent part in the story.

Leopold Reginald Russing
Now this was an odd little characters. Nobody liked him and he was determined to keep things that way. He forced people to do what he wanted and he cared about no one else.

The lost children
I felt bad for them. The reader doesn't really get to know them but you get the impression that they are suffering more than anyone.

The Ending
Yeah, I totally wasn't expecting that ending. It explained so much.

Overall
I really enjoyed this book and I would definitely read another book by this author. show less

Full disclosure: I received this book from the author through Member Giveaways.

Cohagan's done an excellent job creating her three main characters - Josephine, Fargus, and Ida - and the adventures she sends them on are sad and exciting and scary and wonderful. Josephine is charmingly independent and tough, and though she's thrust unexpectedly into a totally unfamiliar and overwhelming situation, she acquits herself admirably and the reader is more than happy to follow her to the end of her adventures. Unlike a lot of books I've read lately, The Lost Children doesn't tip its hand too soon with respect to key plot points, and Cohagan does a great job of making the reveals feel organic rather than forced or too heavily foreshadowed.

This is show more a really enjoyable book. It's probably a little frightening for very young readers, but I think by the time most kids are ready for a book at this level, they're ready to handle the frightening bits as well. While it's YA-appropriate, it's also interesting and intelligent enough to hold an adult's interest as well, no mean feat. I would definitely recommend this for older elementary and middle-grade kids all the way up to adults. show less

The city of Gulm has been ruled by the master, a mysterious child that rescued them from a war by surrounding lands. Since then, all of the children are taken to stay with the Master, never to be seen again. Josephine is just a normal girl from a normal world who has somehow fallen into the world, and while she desperately wants to find her way home, she becomes entangled in Gulm's troubles with her two new friends, Fargus and Ida. Now, together, they have to find a way to save themselves as well as the other lost children of Gulm.

Have you ever picked up a novel and started reading it and got a few pages in and realized it was not going to be what you expected? This is one of those for me. I picked it up and started reading about Miss show more Josephine and how she lead a relatively inoffensive life, wearing gloves, suffering at the part of her peers, living with her silent father and reading voraciously, and though, "ah, it's going to be a cutesy little story about a girl who goes on and adventure." Half of that thought was right. It is, in fact, no cutesy little story. As soon as Josephine gets through, we are thrust into a dirty, creepy orphanage run by two dirty creepy people. We see her locked in a pigeon roost, dirtier with every description. Then we're introduced to the brothers.

The Brothers are the Master's strongmen, as it were. Well, they would be, if they were men, but instead they are creatures said to come from the Dark World, monsters with spikey fur, gooey yellow eyes and no mouths. This creeped me out just as much as it creeped out Josephine, locked away in her pigeon hole, with no idea as to what the heck is going on.

But yes, this is the dark world she arrives in. All the children are gone and the day is ruled by the brothers, and the night by the fear of the Master. And I really enjoyed it--the tension is maintained well, with disappearances and danger and so on, building and running and falling and stumbling and rushing and then suddenly--blammo. End. Sort of. Actually, for those in the know, it's the denoumount that fails us. But I can't really say more without giving too much away.

Cohagan has three lovely main characters and a few charming side characters [not to mention a moderately terrifying baddie], a couple of subtle cliches worked in well enough that they are inoffensive to any but the most cranky of readers, all rolled into an interesting read. If you're looking for a young, possibly sensitive, reader, though, you might want to skim just a little first. show less

Lovely little tale that will completely take you by surprise in all its workings. Starts off with the story of a little girl, Josephine, who is utterly ignored by her father and the rest of town for a silly situation concerning gloves. Sounds boring? Well the story takes a jump, twist and skip into a whole other world that pushes you right into a town that is being dictated over by a mysterious figure known as "Master". Interested now? Good, because it gets good, and it gets crazy, and makes you want to hit yourself on the head when you remember that you thought this would be a boring recount of sad little girls who get ignored. No, this story has an adventure and secrets uncovered behind ever crack. It was good. I really enjoyed it show more once I got into it and wanted to know all the secrets for myself. It could be considered a book for a younger audience, but I'm a teen and I liked it. So pick up the book if you're in the mood for something you certainly haven't heard before.! show less

The strongest thing that this book has going for it is its characters. They stand out as real, vivid individuals. And a great deal of the plot is interesting and moves along pretty well. The concept that starts off the book, however, feels unresolved, and the end makes little sense.

Josephine Russing lives a lonely life with her rather strange father and so is intrigued when a strange boy appears from their tool shed. She follows him into the shed and finds herself in a different and rather frightening land. She teams up with the boy, Fargas, and his friend Ida to escape from the orphanage whilst avoiding ‘the brothers’, who, they believe, eat children.
This is an unpredictable adventure story with some lovely language and a sometimes scary plot. Recommended for readers 10 and up.

I enjoyed reading this book very much. It is written for young adults, but even an old adult (who, me?) would enjoy it as much. It is a page-turner and very well written. I can't wait for the author's next book.