Risked (The Missing)
In this sixth book of The Missing series, siblings Jonah and Katherine, along with their friend Chip, are kidnapped and land in 1918 in the infamous basement where the Romanov family was brutally murdered. Can the three seasoned time travelers save anyone from that doomed family? This thrill ride through a historical incident is complemented by an extended author’s note recounting the real circumstances of the death of the czar’s whole family, including Anastasia. Haddix focuses her story on the rescue rather than the murder. Like the protagonist of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Alice series, the Skidmore siblings are aging, but with the emphasis on history and action, that change is noted only in passing. Grades 5-8. --Cindy Welch