Book Reviews/Torn & Risked


 * Haddix, Margaret Peterson. Torn. Vol. 4. New York: Simon & Schuster for Young Readers, 2012. Print.
 * Haddix, Margaret Peterson. "Risked (The Missing) Hardcover – September 3, 2013." Risked (The Missing): Margaret Peterson Haddix: 9781416989844: Amazon.com: Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2017. (amazon edition)

MPH: Torn (Chapters 1 - 5)
Jonah Skidmore and his sister, Katherine, are two explorers who have been hurled into the year 1611, on the Discovery (Henry Hudson's ship) in the icy waters of James Bay. With the help of JB (through a device known as the Elucidator), they find out that they have lost the real John Hudson (son of Henry Hudson), who has been snatched out of time by Gary and Hodge (who are two unethical kidnappers/baby smugglers from the future who stole Jonah from time). The crew comes to the conclusion that, to save John Hudson from the space of time, they have to make John's shipmates think that he is in a rowboat. JB tells Jonah that he has to play the role of John Hudson, in order to save time from being damaged (and putting other people at risk, an example [of this] being Jonah's lover, Andrea, who is currently stuck in the past). JB, in order to be like John Hudson, turns into a foul-looking, crooked-teeth, hideous monster, even his voice changes to the voice of John Hudson's! Both Jonah and the tracer (replica of John Hudson, fake one) met each other briefly, and both, as soon as a terrible, crackling scream took place, investigated the sound [of the scream]. While investigating, Jonah hears a loud cry, and finds an attacker executing an attack action [using a club to hit] towards him.

MPH: Torn (Chapters 5 - 11)
[FROM PREV. SEC: Jonah is not hurt by the attacking sailor because time frozed. JB frozed time]
 * Got to learn more about the sailors (names: John King, Staffe, etc.)
 * Jonah gets on the small raft boat when Henry Hudson goes independent from the rest of his crew on the Discovery.
 * Problems with Katherine getting on the boat, but she made it on, nonetheless.
 * After being stranded out at sea for a period of time [in the boat], they find the ship again. It was planned by one of the sailors named "Pricket", apparently.

MPH: Torn (Chapters 11 - 16)

 * Find nasty, mushy, old food on the ship that Jonah is not willing to eat.
 * Ordered to be lookout by one of the sailors named "Symmes".
 * Discovers notes left by an unknown person.
 * Notes describe Prickett as a hypocrite.
 * Katherine nearly gets into hot water as both she and Prickett climb down [from the crow's nest] at the same time.
 * Attempt to distract Prickett by "mocking him" (really just telling him if he spotted a fish out in the sea), Jonah gets in trouble with Henry Hudson.
 * His punishment [from Henry Hudson] is that he cannot eat at a specific time while the rest of the crew can.
 * While sweeping the decks, Staffe finds out Jonah's image of Andrea.
 * Attempts to see if Staffe is the man who was writing the mysterious notes [while out cleaning the ship], by telling him to write the tribe that Andrea was part of [in order to see his handwriting and determined if his handwriting was similar to the notes he found in the crow's nest].

MPH: Torn (Chapters 16 - 29)

 * Jonah's picture of Andrea is thrown into the waters by Staffe. This is because Staffe was afraid for Jonah that he'd get punished.
 * Jonah gets punished to the stocks for eavesdropping on Hudson's conversation with Prickett and another sailor.
 * The night Jonah is punished, Staffe reveals a melancholy picture of Andrea and her grandfather. Andrea was sad because her grandfather was passing away.
 * Katherine reveals the news that Wydowse was the one writing the mysterious notes [that were found on the crow's nest], and that he was killed by Prickett for his knowledge. Katherine spied and saw that Wydowse's handwriting was identical to the ones that she and Jonah saw on the crow's nest (Wydowse was writing new notes on his writing desk).
 * Jonah's notes are snatched by Prickett [after Katherine took some of the papers and gave it to Jonah], and he's ordered to be silent about it [the notes].

MPH: Torn (Towards the End)

 * Prickett reveals he is Second, and Jonah and Katherine argue with Prickett for a lengthy amount of time about why he was messing around in time and why Jonah and Katherine should help him [Second]. Jonah attempted to get the papers from Prickett (Second), but failed to do so. Second left the scene in a heartbeat which left Jonah and Katherine all by themselves, 24-hours back. They were with the former captain Hudson and a few of his crew-mates in a small boat drifting away from their main ship (they were there because the men of the ship turned against the captain: "mutiny"). Jonah changed time by sailing the small boat to the coasts of North America.
 * Jonah settles and looks out for food, when a bear comes running after them. Just in time, Jonah and Katherine were transported [by Second] to a time hollow. After a heated discussion with Second about helping [Second] through the Elucidator (where Second was speaking through), JB appears out of thin air in the time hollow.
 * Jonah and Katherine convinced him [JB] that it was them [Jonah and Katherine] and not one of Second's tricks. JB, after their talk about how destroyed time is, disappears. This is when Jonah and his sister made the decision to save people in 1600 (because this is where JB, Angela, and Jonah's two friends were stuck in because 1600 is a damaged time, according to the Elucidator they were using).
 * Jonah saved several villages, which included Angela and JB, from the blaze of a fire that was spreading around at that time. Jonah then teleports back to the time hollow, safe and sound. After a celebration and JB having a heated argument with Second after time-traveling (about how Jonah promised to help Second by =saving 1611 and that he allowed Jonah to save his friends in return, for example), Jonah goes to his house, rumbling through the refrigerator because he barely ate anything in 1611 & 1600.
 * Jonah decides to go to the park. He meets JB and suddenly turns terrified, but JB calms him down by telling him he will get a break from time-travelling.
 * Angela's car pulls up next to where Jonah and JB were talking, and Jonah and Angela talk about the possibility of Jonah and her dating (Angela is not ready for a relationship).

MPH: Risked (Summary, since I read the whole book in a day basically)
Jonah and Katherine are sent into the 1910s to save Danielle (Anastasia) and Gavin (Alex)'s families (the Romanovs). They make a plan to make all the Romanovs invisible right before the shooting happens, but they fail to get the Elucidator to do so because, due to its resemblance to Alex's toys in the Romanov house, they didn't have the Elucidator, but a mere toy! Jonah runs over to the house and attempts to find it but failed, so instead, right before the shooting, Jonah hurled a diamond to a light bulb which was the only source of light in the room. The Romanovs and their servants proceeded to fight Yurovsky and his army, but frozed when Leonid, Alex's friend, was trapped by one of Yurovsky's guards. Though it seemed like something violent was going to occur, time stopped. Time was stopped by Gary and Hodge who were two mischievous time destroyers. The two parties got into an argument over time-travelling in general (such as Gary and Hodge's promise [to Gavin] that he'd go to the future). The end result was that Danielle could take one of her sisters, and that sister was Maria. After that, Gary and Hodge sent the kids to the future, so far to the point all of them would've turned into babies if they landed, but instead, Jonah commanded the Elucidator to send them to 1918.

In 1918, Gary and Hodge were still their. They got scared by all the kids there, lying motionless due to the effects of time-travelling. They thought they were decoys, so Gary and Hodge restored time to its normal position and fled the scene. Jonah and the kids were opened to gunfire, but thankfully transported to a hospital bed. Jonah was getting treatment for his bullet wounds (since he got a few bullets shot into his body). Due to Katherine's tantrum about how JB couldn't save Chip (Katherine's boyfriend) and the Romanov family, JB transported Jonah and Katherine to a time hollow with several dozens of people sitting all around.

JB announced Katherine's intentions to talk to the whole auditorium about the Romanov family and why they should save them, and Katherine began to talk. But the audience was not in favor of her proposal, so Katherine decided to do save the family by herself.

She had only 30 seconds to save them, but she only managed to save Katherine (she made it out alive), Chip, Danielle, Gavin, and Maria (one of Anastasia, or Daniella's, sisters). Even though there were several complaints by Daniella and Gavin, the only ones who were saved at the end where Daniella, Gavin, Chip and Maria.

The six kids were then transported to their original time in the 21st century (with Gavin and Jonah recovering from their bullet wounds in the hospital). JB informs the two kids that all of them are in good terms, with Daniella and Gavin going to middle school and Maria looking into going to college.