Cooney, Caroline B. 1947-

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Cooney, Caroline B. 1947-

Personal

Born May 10, 1947, in Geneva, NY; daughter of Dexter Mitchell (a purchasing agent) and Martha (a teacher) Bruce; married (divorced); children: Louisa, Sayre, Harold. Education: Attended Indiana University, 1965-66, Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing, 1966-67, and University of Connecticut, 1968. Religion: Congregational. Hobbies and other interests: Playing the piano and organ, singing.

Addresses

Home—Westbrook, CT. Agent—Curtis Brown Ltd., 10 Astor Pl., New York, NY 10003.

Career

Author, 1978—.

Member

Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Mystery Writers of America.

Awards, Honors

Award for Juvenile Literature, American Association of University Women, North Carolina chapter, 1980, for Safe as the Grave; Romantic Book Award, Teen Romance category, 1985, for body of work; International Reading Association/Children's Book Centre Choice designation, Pacific States Award, and Iowa Teen Award, all for The Face on the Milk Carton; Best Young-Adult Fiction Books citation, Booklist, 1993, for Flight Number 116 Is Down; American Library Association (ALA) Notable Children's Book designation, 1990, for The Face on the Milk Carton, 2001, for The Ransom of Mercy Carter, and 2002, for Goddess of Yesterday.

Writings

YOUNG-ADULT FICTION

Safe as the Grave, illustrated by Gail Owens, Coward, McCann (New York, NY), 1979.

The Paper Caper, illustrated by Gail Owens, Coward, McCann (New York, NY), 1981.

An April Love Story, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1981.

Nancy and Nick, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1982.

He Loves Me Not, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1982.

A Stage Set for Love, Archway (New York, NY), 1983.

Holly in Love, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1983.

I'm Not Your Other Half, Putnam (New York, NY), 1984.

Sun, Sea, and Boys, Archway (New York, NY), 1984.

Nice Girls Don't, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1984.

Rumors, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1985.

Trying Out, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1985.

Suntanned Days, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1985.

Racing to Love, Archway (New York, NY), 1985.

The Bad and the Beautiful, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1985.

The Morning After, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1985.

All the Way, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1985.

Saturday Night, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1986.

Don't Blame the Music, Putnam (New York, NY), 1986.

Saying Yes, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1987.

Last Dance, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1987.

The Rah Rah Girl, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1987.

Among Friends, Bantam (New York, NY), 1987.

Camp Boy-Meets-Girl, Bantam (New York, NY), 1988.

New Year's Eve, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1988.

Summer Nights, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1988.

The Girl Who Invented Romance, Bantam (New York, NY), 1988, reprinted, Delacorte (New York, NY), 2006.

Camp Reunion, Bantam (New York, NY), 1988.

Family Reunion, Bantam (New York, NY), 1989, reprinted, Delacorte (New York, NY) 2004.

The Fog, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1989.

The Face on the Milk Carton, Bantam (New York, NY), 1990.

The Snow, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1990.

The Fire, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1990.

The Party's Over, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1991.

The Cheerleader, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1991.

Twenty Pageants Later, Bantam (New York, NY), 1991.

The Perfume, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1992.

Operation: Homefront, Bantam (New York, NY), 1992.

Freeze Tag, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1992.

The Return of the Vampire (sequel to The Cheerleader), Scholastic (New York, NY), 1992.

Flight Number 116 Is Down, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1992.

The Vampire's Promise (sequel to The Return of the Vampire), Scholastic (New York, NY), 1993.

Whatever Happened to Janie? (sequel to The Face on the Milk Carton), Scholastic (New York, NY), 1993.

Forbidden, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1993.

The Stranger, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1993.

Twins, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1994.

Emergency Room, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1994.

Driver's Ed, Bantam (New York, NY), 1994.

Flash Fire, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1995.

Night School, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1995.

The Voice on the Radio (sequel to What Ever Happened to Janie?), Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 1996.

The Terrorist, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1997.

Wanted!, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1997.

What Child Is This?: A Christmas Story, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Burning Up, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 1999.

Tune in Anytime, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 1999.

What Janie Found (sequel to The Voice on the Radio), Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 2000.

The Ransom of Mercy Carter, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Fatality, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2001.

Goddess of Yesterday, Delacorte (New York, NY), 2002.

Code Orange, Delacorte (New York, NY), 2005.

Hit the Road, Delacorte (New York, NY), 2005.

A Friend at Midnight, Delacorte (New York, NY), 2006.

Enter Three Witches: A Story of Macbeth, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2007.

Diamonds in the Shadows, Delacorte (New York, NY), 2007.

"TIME-TRAVEL" NOVEL SERIES; FOR YOUNG ADULTS

Both Sides of Time, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 1995.

Out of Time, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Prisoner of Time, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1998.

For All Time, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Time Travelers, Volume One (contains Both Sides of Time and Out of Time), Laurel Leaf (New York, NY), 2006.

Time Travelers, Volume Two (contains Prisoner of Time and For All Time), Laurel Leaf (New York, NY), 2006.

OTHER

Rear View Mirror (adult novel), Random House (New York, NY), 1980.

Sand Trap (adult novel), Berkley (New York, NY), 1983.

Contributor of stories to periodicals, including Seventeen, American Girl, Jack and Jill, Humpty Dumpty, and Young World.

Adaptations

Rear View Mirror was adapted as a television movie starring Lee Remick, Warner Bros., 1984; The Face on the Milk Carton and Whatever Happened to Janie? were adapted as a television movie broadcast by CBS in 1995. Many of Cooney's books have been adapted as audiobooks.

Sidelights

A prolific author for young adults, Caroline B. Cooney has become known for her teen romances as well as for writing more edgy novels that explore the ways that the horrors of the world at large can infiltrate even the most mundane life of the average American adolescent. While she began her writing career focusing on adult readers, Cooney quickly learned that she had a gift for connecting with young adults, and this led her to "the type of writing that I could both be successful at and enjoy," as she once recalled. In addition to winning the respect of critics for their likeable protagonists, fast-moving plots, and relevant topical focus, her novels The Face on the Milk Carton, The Ransom of Mercy Carter, and The Girl Who Invented Romance are also considered must-reads by many teens.

Cooney began writing when she was a young home-maker raising three children. "Sitting home with the babies," the writer once commented, "I had to find a way to entertain myself. So I started writing with a pencil, between the children's naps—baby in one arm, notebook in the other." She had difficulty marketing her novel-length historical novels for adults, but found that the short stories she wrote for a young-adult readership were quickly accepted by magazines such as Seventeen. "Having already written eight books with no luck," Cooney once recalled, "I wasn't interested in wasting my time writing another unpublishable novel. So instead I wrote an outline [of a teen mystery novel] and mailed it along with my short story-resumé to a number of publishers, saying, ‘Would you be interested in seeing this’—knowing, of course, that they wouldn't. Naturally, when they all said ‘yes,’ I was stunned; the only thing to do was to quick write the book." That book was published in 1979 as Safe as the Grave.

Safe as the Grave, in which a young girl encounters a secret in the family cemetery, was followed up by Cooney with the adult suspense novel Rear View Mirror, the story of a young woman who is kidnapped and

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forced to drive two killers in her car. Michele Slung, reviewing Cooney's second novel for the Washington Post, called Rear View Mirror "so tightly written, so fast-moving, that it's easy not to realize until the last paragraph is over that one hasn't been breathing all the while." In 1984 Rear View Mirror was made into a television movie starring Lee Remick as the kidnapped woman.

Cooney returned to young-adult writing with An April Love Story, a romance novel published in 1981. Except for one more adult novel—1983's Sand Trap—her focus is now exclusively on a young-adult readership, and her original story ideas have been supplemented by plot suggestions from her editor as well as by her contribution to the "Cheerleader" and "Chrystal Falls" novel series. "It is exciting ‘to write to order,’" Cooney once explained. "It often involves an idea or characters I've never thought about before, and I have to tackle it cold like any other assignment. Editors have such good ideas! I also continue to write my own ideas, like The Girl Who Invented Romance. ‘Romance’ is a board game that Kelly designs and the board game [is] part of the book."

Though Cooney enjoys penning teen romances and stories of strong friendships such as the 2006 cross-generational novel Hit the Road, many of her books deal with serious topical issues that affect teens directly. In Operation: Homefront, a wife and mother with three children is called up for National Guard duty and shipped off to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, while Family Reunion focuses on a teen dealing with her parents' separation and divorce, as well as with her dad's remarriage. In A Friend at Midnight a teen must decide whether to betray a confidence when her older sister insists on inviting their abusive father to her wedding, while Burning Up finds an affluent Connecticut adolescent coming fact to face with prejudice after the inner-city church where she volunteers is torched by an arsonist. As Stephanie Zvirin noted in her Booklist review of Burning Up, Cooney excels at portraying both "the tentative boy-girl relationship between" her teen protagonists," and the "questioning and fervor that propels some teens to look beyond themselves and their families to larger issues."

While teens encounter divorce, prejudice, and separation within their own families and personal interactions, other, more abstract issues are made equally personal in several of Cooney's timely works of fiction. In The Terrorist, for example, she deals with the sobering subject of international terrorism, and, in the opinion of a Publishers Weekly contributor, "combines heartpounding suspense with some sobering reflections on the insular attitude characteristic of many Americans both at home and abroad." Terrorism of a different kind is the focus of Code Orange, a novel written in response to the nation's state of heightened vigilance following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on its shores. While conducting research for a school paper on smallpox, slacker prep-school student Mitty Blake discovers an old envelope tucked into a book that contains 100-year-old smallpox scabs. As the Manhattan teen researches the highly contagious infectious disease, he realizes that he may have infected himself; in fact, he may be a danger to everyone he has contacted since first opening the envelope. Panic turns into a bumbling attempt to solve the problem as Mitty ultimately contacts both Federal authorities and inadvertantly attracts the notice of a terrorist group that has far darker motives. Praising Code Orange in Horn Book, Jeannine M. Chapman noted that Mitty's growing resourcefulness "is believably conveyed," as the "lighthearted tone" at the beginning of the novel builds to a "thrilling climax (with a twist)." A Publishers Weekly wrote that the author's "rat-a-tat delivery and hairpin turns keep the pages turning," and Booklist contributor John Peters cited the novel's "profoundly disturbing premise" and "its likable, ultimately heroic slacker protagonist."

Perhaps Cooney's most widely read novel, the critically acclaimed The Face on the Milk Carton, deals with the topic of child abduction. Janie Johnson is kidnapped when she is three years old by Hannah, a teenaged cult member; unaware of her past, she is raised by Hannah's parents. Janie's picture, displayed on a milk carton as that of a missing child, leads her to uncover her past. Cooney continues Janie's story in the novels What Ever Happened to Janie?, The Voice on the Radio, and What Janie Found, which follow the efforts of Cooney's determined young heroine to discover the truth about her family and her true identity. Citing Cooney's "skilled writing," a Publishers Weekly reviewer noted of The Face on the Milk Carton that the book's likeable protagonist and "suspenseful, impeccably-paced action add to this novel's appeal" among teen readers. "Cooney seems to have a special radar for adolescent longings and insecurities," noted another critic in the same periodical during a review of The Voice on the Radio. While the Publishers Weekly critic also noted the plot's lack of believability, this quality is more than outweighed by

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the novel's "psychological accuracy and well-aimed, gossipy views of teens," according to the reviewer.

Somewhat of a departure from her other books, Cooney's novel Among Friends features a unique structure. Six students have been given an assignment to write in journals during a three-month period. The entries from those journals, providing a variety of points of view, make up the novel. This approach, stated Mitzi Myers in the Los Angeles Times, provides "a more rounded interpretation than any single character could supply." Myers concluded: "It is a pleasure to find a book for young readers that not only individualizes characters through their writing but also has wise words to say about how writing offers very real help in coping with the problems of growing up."

Cooney mixes romance with science fiction with her "Time-Travel" novel series, which includes Both Sides of Time, Out of Time, Prisoner of Time, and For All Time. In Both Sides of Time readers meet high school graduate Annie Lockwood, whose romantic perspective would have made her better suited for life in the past. When Annie gets her wish and winds up in 1895, however, her twenty-first-century attitudes and expectations make her realize that living in the past means dealing with far more than long gowns, lavish balls, and dapper, respectful young gentlemen. However, when she falls in love with Strat, her link with the past is forever cemented, and she must learn to balance both her worlds. After revealing Annie's secret to his father in Out of Time, Strat is dismissed as insane and sent to a mental asylum. Despite the family problems in her modern life, Annie must now risk everything to return through time and bring her beloved to safety in her (for him) futuristic world. The series takes a new twist in Prisoner of Time, as Strat's sister Devonny finds herself betrothed to an unpleasant English noble and requires her brother's help in breaking the engagement. Surprise turns to romance when Annie's brother Tod Lockwood answers the call back through time. The series concludes in For All Time, as Annie's effort to control her travel through time misfires and she winds up at the right place but the wrong time … the very wrong time. Transported back into ancient times, Annie finds herself trapped in a Egyptian city. Meanwhile, her beloved Strat awaits her in the same city, three thousand years in the future, unaware of his time-traveling girlfriend's fate. In a review of Both Sides of Time for Horn Book, Sarah Guille deemed Cooney's story "suspenseful and poignant," noting that her heroine matures while learning an important lesson: "that real love has consequences and obligations that fantasies don't." Dubbing the series "a breathlessly romantic whirl through the centuries," a Publishers Weekly reviewer added that readers will be carried along by Cooney's "characteristically breezily, intimate style."

In The Ransom of Mercy Carter, Cooney offers readers another departure from her contemporary-theme novels: a historical fiction based on the 1704 raid on the English settlement at Deerfield, Massachusetts, when Kahnawake Mohawks destroyed the village and took more than 100 captives back to Canada. The novel focuses on young Mercy, a captive whose growing respect for the Native American culture into which she is forced must ultimately cause her to question her loyalty to her own family. Calling The Ransom of Mercy Carter a "gripping and thought-provoking account," a Publishers Weekly reviewer added that, though Cooney oversimplifies some historical elements, "the immediacy of Mercy's dilemma comes through." In her Kliatt review, Sally M. Tibbetts praised the author's detailed research, calling the novel "a great story about a young girl who learns to adapt and survive." Noting that Cooney raises "excellent questions" about how different cultures view what it means to be civilized or savage, Booklist contributor Gillian Engberg deemed The Ransom of Mercy Carter a "vivid, dramatic novel."

Another travel back through time is offered to readers of Goddess of Yesterday, which transports readers back to the classical world and the years leading up to the Trojan War. When readers meet Anaxandra, the six year old is living on an island in the Aegean sea until she is sent as a hostage to the King of Siphnos. Six years later, her life is again thrown into turmoil when the king's palace is attacked and all are killed. By assuming the identity of the king's daughter, Callisto, Anaxandra is accepted at the palace of Sparta's King Menelaus, whose young wife is destined to become the fabled Helen of Troy. Charged with caring for the king's two-year-old son, Callisto/Anaxandra soon learns of the clandestine romantic affair between the boy's mother and Paris, prince of Troy. As the political tensions between Sparta and Troy mount, Helen's jealousy of her grows, forcing Callisto/Anaxandra to navigate the shifting allegiances in order to survive. Her destiny alters once again when she is ordered to accompany Helen and her young son on the deceitful queen's pivotal journey to Troy. There, in the company of her lover, the ill-fated Trojan prince Paris, one of the most dramatic battles of the ancient world will play out. Reviewing the novel for Horn Book, Kristi Elle Jemtegaard described Goddess of Yesterday as "by turns gruesome, dramatic, and tenderly domestic." In Booklist, Frances Bradburn praised Cooney for the "fresh perspective" from which she spins her "exciting, complex adventure story," although the critic added that the plot might confuse teens unfamiliar with the history of the Trojan War. In the opinion of Kliatt contributor Claire Rosser, Goddess of Yesterday stands as one of Cooney's "most ambitious" books for teen readers. Through the book's likeable fictional heroine, the novel "will make the ancient Greek world" come alive for teens, Rosser added, especially the actual men and women who figure in the tragedies preserved through the literary works of "Homer and the Greek dramatists." Noting that Cooney refashions the classic tale as a "grand adventure with a heroic girl at the center," Angela J. Reynolds predicted in School Library Journal that her "fine-tuned adventure … may leave middle-schoolers asking to read Homer."

History again mixes with literature in Enter Three Witches: A Story of Macbeth, which a Publishers Weekly contributor dubbed a "compulsively readable, behind-the-scenes peek into the rise and fall of Lord and Lady Macbeth." In bringing the Shakespearean drama to life for teens—revealing portions of the bard's text begin each chapter—Cooney mixes the play's characters with fictional ones such as Lady Mary, the fourteen-year-old ward of Lady Macbeth's until her father falls from grace and she is promised in marriage to a ruthless friend of the Scottish king. In her "engaging" retelling of the tragic story of how the lust for power can destroy lives and torment the soul, Cooney crafts prose with what School Library Journal reviewer Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan described as an "elevated tone." "While it may be difficult at first," the critic hastened to add, Cooney's text is "interesting and appropriate" enough to sustain reader interest. Although noting that fans of the original drama can most fully appreciate Cooney's "fascinating, humanizing" insight into each familiar character, Phelan added in Booklist that the likeable teen at the center of Enter Three Witches will engage fans of historical fiction and even inspire some to track out Macbeth in the original.

When Cooney started her writing career, she wrote in a spontaneous fashion. "I never used to know what was going to happen in the story until I wrote it," she once observed. "Then I began doing paperbacks for Scholastic and they required outlines, largely just to ensure that two writers didn't waste time and effort on similar ideas. Before, I'd always allowed the story to develop out of the characters, but the outlines demanded that the plot and characters evolve together at the same time. Now I wouldn't do it any other way."

Cooney's decision to create novels with compelling, high-energy stories, interesting protagonists, and strong, upbeat resolutions has been prompted by her observation that young people want stories that end on an upbeat note and a future that looks positive. "They want hope," she explained, "want things to work out, want reassurance that even were they to do something rotten, they and the people around them would still be alright. No matter what it is that they're doing, I don't think they want to have to read about it. Teenagers looking for books to read don't say, ‘Oh, good, another depressing story.’"

Biographical and Critical Sources

BOOKS

Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 10, 2000, Volume 11, 2000.

Carroll, Pamela Sissi, Caroline Cooney: Faith and Fiction ("Scarecrow Studies in Young-Adult Literature" series), Scarecrow Press (Metuchen, NJ), 2002.

Drew, Bernard A., The One Hundred Most Popular Young Adult Authors, Libraries Unlimited (Englewood, CO), 1996.

St. James Guide to Young-Adult Writers, 2nd edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

PERIODICALS

ALAN Review, winter, 1994.

Booklist, March 15, 1993, review of Flight Number 116 Is Down, p. 89; June 1, 1994, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Driver's Ed, p. 1809; November 1, 1995, Susan Dove Lempke, review of Flash Fire, p. 464; February 15, 1996, Sally Estes, review of Out of Time, p. 1004; July, 1997, Anne O'Malley, review of The Terrorist, p. 1810; June 1, 1998, Sally Estes, review of Prisoner of Time, p. 1745; December 1, 1998, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Burning Up, p. 661; April 1, 2001, Gillian Engberg, review of The Ransom of Mercy Carter, p. 1481; September 15, 2001, Debbie Carton, review of For All Time, p. 215; June 1, 2002, Frances Bradburn, review of Goddess of Yesterday, p. 1704; September 1, 2005, John Peters, review of Code Orange, p. 124; March 15, 2006, review of Hit the Road, p. 46; De- cember 15, 2006, Jennifer Mattson, review of A Friend at Midnight, p. 44; March 1, 2007, Carolyn Phelan, review of Enter Three Witches: A Story of Macbeth, p. 73.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, July-August, 1986, review of Don't Blame the Music, p. 205; April, 1991, review of The Party's Over, p. 187; December, 1992, review of Operation: Homefront, p. 108; September, 1994, review of Driver's Ed, p. 10; October, 1995, review of Both Sides of Time, p. 50; May, 1996, review of Out of Time, p. 296; November, 1999, review of Tune in Anytime, p. 87; March, 2000, review of What Janie Found, p. 241; November, 2001, review of For All Time, p. 97; July, 2002, review of Goddess of Yesterday, p. 397; June, 2006, Deborah Stevenson, review of Hit the Road, p. 448.

Horn Book, November-December, 1995, Sarah Guille, review of Both Sides of Time, p. 745; November-December, 2003, Kristi Elle Jemtegaard, review of Goddess of Yesterday, p. 774; September-October, 2005, Jeannine M. Chapman, review of Code Orange, p. 574.

Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 1993, p. 783; September 1, 2005, review of Code Orange, p. 970; March 1, 2007, review of Enter Three Witches, p. 218.

Kliatt, March, 1993, p. 4; May, 1993, p. 4; March, 2003, Sally M. Tibbetts, review of The Ransom of Mercy Carter, p. 21; September, 2003, Barbara McKee, review of For All Time, p. 24; January, 2004, Claire Rosser, review of Goddess of Yesterday, p. 16; September, 2005, Paula Rohrlick, review of Code Orange, p. 6.

Los Angeles Times, February 6, 1988, Mitzi Myers, "High Schoolers Learn about the Meaning of Friendship."

Publishers Weekly, June 18, 1979; August 25, 1989, review of The Fog, p. 65; January 12, 1990, review of The Face on the Milk Carton, p. 62; March 23, 1992, review of Flight Number 116 Is Down, p. 73; June 14, 1993, review of Whatever Happened to Janie?, p. 72; July 4, 1994, review of Unforgettable, p. 65; July 10, 1995, review of Both Sides of Time, p. 59; July 22, 1996, review of The Voice on the Radio, p. 242; July 28, 1997, review of The Terrorist, p. 75; October 6, 1997, review of What Child Is This?, p. 57; December 7, 1998, review of Burning Up, p. 61; July 26, 1999, review of Tune In Anytime, p. 92; January 3, 2000, review of What Janie Found, p. 77; February 12, 2001, review of The Ransom of Mercy Carter, p. 213; October 22, 2001, review of For All Time, p. 77; July 8, 2002, review of Goddess of Yesterday, p. 50; September 5, 2005, review of Code Orange, p. 63; May 22, 2006, review of Hit the Road, p. 54; November 6, 2006, review of A Friend at Midnight, p. 62; April 2, 2007, review of Enter Three Witches, p. 58.

School Library Journal, February, 1990, Tatiana Castleton, review of The Face on the Milk Carton, p. 109; February, 1992, review of Flight Number 116 Is Down, p. 107; November, 1992, Kenneth E. Kowen, review of Operation: Homefront, p. 88; June, 1993, Jacqueline Rose, review of Whatever Happened to Janie?, p. 126; August, 1994, Susan R. Farber, review of Driver's Ed, p. 168; July, 1995, Connie Tyrrell Burns, review of Both Sides of Time, p. 168; February, 1999, Claudia Moore, review of The Voice on the Radio, p. 69; August, 2001, Renee Steinberg, review of The Ransom of Mercy Carter, p. 213; June, 2002, Angela J. Reynolds, review of Goddess of Yesterday, p. 134; August, 2005, Blair Christolin, review of The Ransom of Mercy Carter, p. 48; October, 2005, Courtney Lewis, review of Code Orange, p. 156; November, 2006, Marie Orlando, review of A Friend at Midnight, p. 132; May, 2007, Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, review of Enter Three Witches, p. 130.

Times Literary Supplement, May 20, 1988, review of The Girl Who Invented Romance.

Voice of Youth Advocates, February, 1990, review of The Face on the Milk Carton, p. 341; October, 1992, review of Operation: Homefront, p. 222; December, 1992, review of The Return of the Vampire, p. 291; April, 1993, review of The Perfume, pp. 20-21, 38; August, 1993, Samantha Hunt, review of The Vampire's Promise, p. 162; April, 1994, review of The Stranger, p. 36; August, 1994, review of Emergency Room, pp. 143-144; August, 1995, review of Both Sides of Time, p. 168; October, 1997, review of The Terrorist, p. 242; June, 1998, review of What Child Is This?, p. 128; February, 1999, review of Burning Up, p. 431; April, 2000, review of What Janie Found, p. 33; April 1, 2001, review of The Ransom of Mercy Carter, p. 36; June, 2001, review of The Voice on the Radio, p. 97; August, 2002, review of Goddess of Yesterday, p. 200; October, 2005, review of Code Orange, p. 298; December, 2006, review of A Friend at Midnight, p. 421.