Wake Up Missing

by Kate Messner

Overview

Four kids . . .
Two weeks in the Florida Everglades . . .
One top-secret science experiment that could change them and the world as they know it . . .

Meet football-star Quentin, hockey-player Sarah, horse-lover Ben, and artistic bird-watcher Cat. The four have little in common-except the head injuries that landed them in an elite brainscience center in the wild swamps of Florida. The clinic promises to return their lives to normal, but as days pass, the kids notice strange side effects and unexplained changes. Something about this clinic isn't right, and if they can't overcome their injuries--and their differences--to escape, they could lose themselves forever. . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802735478
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	09/10/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Lexile:	660L (what's this?)
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Kate Messner is passionately curious and writes books that encourage kids to wonder, too. Her titles include award-winning picture books like Over and Under the Snow, Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, and How to Read a Story; novels like Capture the Flag, All the Answers, The Seventh Wish, and Breakout; the Fergus and Zeke easy reader series, and the Ranger in Time historical chapter book series. Kate lives on Lake Champlain with her family and is trying to summit all forty-six Adirondack High Peaks in between book deadlines.
www.katemessner.com
@KateMessner
Kate Messner is a former middle-school English teacher and the author of E. B. White Read Aloud Award winner The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. and its companion, The Exact Location of Home; Sugar and Ice; Eye of the Storm; Wake Up Missing; All the Answers; The Seventh Wish; Capture the Flag; Hide and Seek; the Marty McGuire chapter book series; the Ranger in Time chapter book series; and several picture books. She lives on Lake Champlain with her husband and two kids. When she's not reading or writing, she loves hiking, kayaking, biking, and watching thunderstorms over the lake. www.katemessner.com
@KateMessner

Editorial Reviews

08/12/2013
When 12-year-old Cat Grayson is sent to the International Center for Advanced Neurology (I-CAN), an elite clinic specializing in head injuries, she hopes their revolutionary techniques will cure her post-concussion trauma. Instead, she discovers a diabolical plot to use the young patients at the clinic as test subjects in an attempt to recreate some of the greatest scientists of all time. Rather than have their minds overwritten with those of Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, Robert Oppenheimer, and others, Cat and her new friends flee I-CAN, attempting to elude their erstwhile captors in the Everglades as they seek help. But with killers and alligators at their heels, they have to rely on their own ingenuity—and the talents of a resurrected genius. Messner (Hide and Seek) delivers an exciting middle-grade thriller inspired by cutting-edge science and historical events, drawing on the Manhattan Project and Tuskegee experiments to weave something new and interesting. Sadly, the characterizations pale in comparison to the atmospheric setting and tense story line. Ages 10–14. Agent: Jennifer Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary Agency. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Middle grade readers seeking adventure stories will enjoy this title. The topics of gene therapy and bioethics provide the reader with food for thought long after the book ends.” —Library Media Connection

“Kate Messner combines a fascinating concept with page-turning suspense . . . Reading this book is like a wild roller-coaster ride through the Florida swamps.” —Margaret Peterson Haddix, author of The Missing and the Shadow Children series

“An exciting middle-grade thriller.” —Publishers Weekly

“Plenty of action. . . these heart-pounding scenes will be a hit.” —School Library Journal on Eye of the Storm

“Laced with humor and heart . . . an insightful and affecting read.” —Booklist on The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z.

From the Publisher

Kate Messner combines a fascinating concept with page-turning suspense . . . Reading this book is like a wild roller-coaster ride through the Florida swamps.

author of The Missing and the Shadow Children seri Margaret Peterson Haddix

11/01/2013
Gr 6–9—Cat Grayson hopes that checking into the International Center for Advanced Neurology, a prestigious clinic in an isolated section of the Florida Everglades, will help fix the headaches and memory issues that have plagued her since she suffered a concussion. Her first sign that something is amiss, though, is that the resortlike clinic houses only five other teenage patients. After overhearing a suspicious conversation and snooping through some files, Cat and her new friends discover that I-CAN's doctors are secretly using gene therapies to turn teenagers into clones of famous scientists, possibly for nefarious purposes. A series of narrow getaways ensues as the group attempts to flee to safety. The simple language and high-interest plot, reminiscent of Lois Duncan's Down a Dark Hall (Little, Brown, 1974), make this book accessible to reluctant or hi/lo readers. However, the pacing is too slow for a thriller and the characters act older than their stated years (12 to 14). Medical inaccuracies are distracting-traumatic brain injuries are as unlikely to be cured in a week as patients' charts are to be easily found and understood-and the kids' investigations rely too much on documents that just happen to be left visible on office computers. An author's note attempts to explain the underlying science, but long URLs are sloppily presented. Supplement this title with more sophisticated YA biomedical thrillers like Nancy Werlin's Double Helix (Peniguin, 2004) or Lydia Kang's Control (Dial, 2013).—Jill Ratzan, I. L. Peretz Community Jewish School, Somerset, NJ

School Library Journal

Six middle schoolers + mad scientists + Everglades = adventure. Cat, along with five other children who have suffered head injuries, goes to what is billed as the pre-eminent neurological center in the world, the International Center for Advanced Neurology, located in the Everglades. At first, she receives excellent care, but she soon overhears an ominous conversation that leads to her discovery of the awful truth: The terrible Dr. Ames and his colleague intend to implant the children with the DNA of long-dead scientists, including Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Marie Curie and even Leonardo da Vinci. Worse, they learn that Trent, who has already received a transplant, has virtually become Thomas Edison. Trent not only has Edison's DNA, he has Edison's century-old memories and speech patterns. Cat and her friends seize an opportunity to escape, relying on Trent's technical expertise and "inherited" memory to evade the bad guys. As she outlines in her author's note, Messner follows good science in her descriptions of head-injury treatment; she also gives teachers opportunities to explore the differences between hereditary and acquired characteristics in her more fictional genetic "science." Her characterizations are solid and age-appropriate; Trent, as young Thomas Edison still avidly working on alternating currents, supplies some laughs. With plenty of thrills, friendship, some humor, intrigue and an easy good-guys/bad-guys escape plot, young readers will find lots of fun here. (Science fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews