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Sophie McKenzie's Missing Me is a twisty thriller for 11 year olds about a girl who discovers a family secret and sets off to find the stranger at the heart of it.
Madison is fifteen, shy and dreaming of being a journalist. She goes round to her big sister Lauren's London flat and gets two shocks in one afternoon. Lauren is very pregnant (and hadn't told anyone in the family). Then Madison overhears the grown-ups talking about a sperm donor.
It turns out Sam, the dad who died just before she turned eight, wasn't her father biologically. Everyone else has known for years. Nobody thought to tell her.
Her anxious mum Annie finally hands over an old investigator's report with a name on it. Allan Faraday. Madison promises she won't go looking for him (she's lying). A morning of online digging later, she's sneaking into a drinks party at the Houses of Parliament to find him.
It's all in Madison's own words, and she's lovely company. She goes tongue-tied around people, she's very hard on her own hair, and she's cross with everyone for treating her like a baby. You really feel how left out that secret makes her. Who wouldn't want answers?
Meeting Faraday is super awkward and a little bit thrilling. He's charming, he buys her a hot chocolate and he seems more amused than anything. It's a relief, and also exactly the moment you start to wonder.
From there it becomes a proper mystery about girls who've gone missing and hidden places, with Madison getting deeper into danger.
The opening chapters deal plainly with some grown-up subjects. There's a sperm donor and IVF, a sister having a baby at twenty-three and a dad who died years ago.
Madison also lies to her mum, slips past armed guards and goes off to a café with a man she's only just met. There's some mild swearing too.
If your reader isn't ready for questions about donors and IVF, or you'd rather save the stranger-danger chat for later, this one can wait. For a reader who loves a secret and a racing heartbeat, it's a gripping read.
This is the third Missing book, set years after the first two, and it takes them for granted. Girl, Missing is the place to start, followed by Sister, Missing.
For another girl with a gap in her family where the answers should be, try The Pearl in the Attic. Scarlet won't even talk about her so-called father, and when Nana lands in hospital she stumbles into a whole hidden side of her family in a London flat.
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