The Face on the Milk Carton: Why I Object to Assigned Books Shown as Movies

Caroline B. Cooney, who was born in 1947, has been tapping into the fears of the moment for a couple of decades, most notably in the 1990s. She prolifically wrote murder mystery/horror tales for hip teens of the time. I often picked up her books. I knew they weren't great literature, but they were fun and you could read them in an afternoon.

In 1990 she published a story called The Face on the Milk Carton.

I grew up in fascinated by the faces on the back of milk cartons. As I ate the cereal before school I would study them, sure that I knew each one. I wondered about their stories, but I never found a single missing kid.

In the 80s the plight of missing children hung in the air. It even became part of pop culture, part of the vulgar argot, commonly as a threat:

"You better watch it-or your face will end up on the back of a milk carton."

The story is fairly simple and simply horrifying. A teen-aged girl named Janie recognizes a picture of herself as a child on the back of a milk carton. She spends the rest of the book dealing with the fact that her parents aren't just loving parents but loving kidnappers.

It's a simple premise and a short book, so it's perfect for adaptation to a movie. Unsurprisingly it was made into a Lifetime Movie in 1995. It has all the elements of a Lifetime Movie. It was made just a little too late to be completely topical and it involves a fear lurking at the back of every woman's psyche, plus the root fear of "everything and everyone you know is wrong-your life is wrong."

The book is a remarkably easy read and there really isn't anything for parents to object to. It has received awards for this easy readability, in particular the American Library Association's list of "Recommended Books for the Reluctant Young Adult Reader."

It's essentially teen pulp fiction. It's not a great book but because it's easy to read and can get kids who don't like to read to crack open a book, this book still ends up on curriculum lists in school, despite the fact that's it's quickly becoming culturally irrelevant.

The really odd part (to me) is that teachers who assign the book try to get their hands on the Lifetime Movie to show in their classes. I think this is counterproductive if the aim is to get kids to read.

I object because I think movies should only be used as tools to make the book more understandable. A movie scene from dense, difficult literature might help kids picture the story and keep them interested in reading. ( I still think showing an entire movie of a book is not the way to go, even then).

If the book was a fun and easy read, the movie serves absolutely no didactic purpose. Instead, the kids just end up asking why they couldn't have just watched the movie instead of reading the book.