Reyes that she remembers from the ambulance, Albert is also complicit in the kidnapping. Charity learns that, in addition to the Dr. Meanwhile, two of Charity’s friends, Patience Patterson and her brother, Hopewell, put up flyers in the working-class town of Mangrove. This sequence of memories, which alternates with the narration of Charity’s presence circumstances, helps keep her distracted during her imprisonment. Much of the novel comprises a series of flashbacks in which Charity remembers spending holidays with her family, alongside Albert and Victoria, with whom she decorates the house and the town. The boy, Dessi, is a servant of the kidnappers, and he tells her that Victoria and Albert are like slaves to her, which Charity feels that she must defend. He does not speak to her until she tells him that she needs to use the bathroom, at which point he gives her a bedpan. A dark-skinned, teenage boy joins Charity in the back of the ambulance, where a camera records her activity. Charity has also been trained by school counselors so that she can avoid a nervous breakdown by remaining calm and remembering a specific, pleasant memory, and thinking intently about the environment. Like many wealthy children, Charity is equipped with a global tracking device (GTD), which kidnappers have taken to removing surgically. Reyes, who seemed suspicious to Charity at their first encounter. The servants, Albert and Victoria, were present when she was taken by the alleged Dr. These criminals, having learned to anticipate the vicissitudes of the ransoming business, always include a “Plan B” in their notes stipulating the child’s return.Ĭharity remembers that her abduction took place by means of an ambulance (a ruse on the part of her kidnappers to evade security in the Highlands). It is such a frequent occurrence that 85% of children are safely returned to their families by these expert kidnappers. Children are kidnapped then ransomed to rich parents in exchange for a tidy sum of money. Charity’s father is a doctor, and Mickie has her own television show. The thirteen-year-old Charity lives with her father and ex-stepmother, Mickie (from whom her father has recently separated, but who lives in the home) in the wealthy Highlands region of Florida, where the growing divide between rich and poor have cultivated a kidnapping industry. This report provides the backdrop for the circumstance in which Charity finds herself. On this screen, Charity seems to be able to access readily any file she might need, one of which is a report on the kidnapping industry. The first chapter, “Kidnapped,” begins with the dictum that “once you’ve been taken you usually have twenty-four hours left to live.” The narrator is one Charity Meyers, who is accompanied in her kidnapping by her “vidscreen,” which reports that it is 11:31 on the first of January in the year 2035. The book’s eleven chapters flow precipitously into one another in a combination of suspense and flashback. In addition to having worked in publishing, Bloor taught middle school language arts-an experience which has allowed him to portray the sometimes riveting, sometimes harrowing, and often confused social experiences of young adults with a special authenticity. Crusader won the New York Public Library’s best book award. Bloor’s next novel, Crusader (1999), follows a teenage girl involved in a violent world of arcade games. Born in New Jersey and educated in New York, Bloor worked for Harcourt Publisher in Orlando, Florida while writing his first novel, Tangerine (1997), which deals with the traumatic experience of a handicapped middle school student. Edward Bloor is a widely regarded and seasoned author of young adult fiction. Taken (Knopf, 2007) is a young adult dystopian fiction novel by Edward Bloor.
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