Kathleen Isaacs (Children's Literature)
When her divorced father abandons 8-year-old Michael at the BWI airport, 15-year-old Lily rescues her little brother without telling the rest of her family. Her resulting resentment, even hatred, poisons her life for the next year and threatens to tear her reconstituted family apart. Cloaked as a suspenseful family story, this is really an extended riff on the Biblical text (Luke 11:5--13) in which Jesus describes the situation of a friend asking for help at midnight, saying "Ask and it shall be given to you." Lily can see that when Michael, unhappy with the changes in his family, which now includes a stepfather and 22-month-old stepbrother, asked his birth father to take him in, his father refused. The 8-year-old sees this as his fault, but Lily is angry not only with her father, but also with Jesus for promising comfort and with God for allowing her little brother to be so betrayed. The tension builds in the first half of the book as Michael tries not to attract attention in the airport and Lily maneuvers to get herself and her 2-year-old brother to Baltimore from New York to rescue him. By the time they have connected, the reader is just as angry as Lily, and will keep turning the pages to see how their secret inevitably comes out and she can forgive. The family dynamics are believable and the action fast-paced. The Christian message will give middle school readers something to think about as well. 2006, Delacorte Press/Random House, $15.95. Ages 11 to 15.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2006 (Vol. 74, No. 19))
Lily, 15, has never accepted her new stepfather, but knows her real father is a loser. She's sure that no good will come of it when her eight-year old brother Michael goes to live with him. Indeed, Dad dumps Michael at the airport with no ticket, no food and no money. Lily rescues him, but vows not to tell anyone. The incident and their secret wreak havoc on both siblings' lives, even prompting Lily to lose her faith in God. Tension builds even further when Lily's sister wants their real dad to be a part of her wedding and Lily can't tell her about him. When events finally come to a head and the truth emerges, Lily learns much about herself as well as the people around her. Always readable, Cooney is as adept at adolescent psychology as she is at suspense. Yet another enjoyable-and this time enlightening-offering from the author that can expand her fan base even further. 2006, Delacorte, 160p, $15.95. Category: Fiction. Ages 13 up. © 2006 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

David Lininger (Library Media Connection, February 2007)
This story is about a family that is all-too-typical of today: marriage, children, divorce, remarriage, another child. Rebecca (Reb), Lily, and Michael are the children of the first marriage. Their father, Dennis, decided that he was tired of family life and divorced his wife, Judith. Judith married Kells, and Nathan was born to them. When Michael was eight, he decided he wanted to live with his father. After less than three weeks, Dennis deposited Michael outside the passenger terminal of the airport with no ticket, no money, nothing but the clothes on his back. Fortunately, he is able to call his sister, Lily, who goes and brings him home. The use of flashbacks allows the reader to know and understand the characters by book's end, and this can be an effective storytelling technique. But in this case, the reader feels like something is missing. In spite of this problem, I like the book. I would hope that no family is really this dysfunctional, but I suspect that, sadly, such is not the case. Many children will recognize members of their own families. The interesting twist in this story is that the stepfather is actually a far better father than Dennis. Recommended. 2006, Delacorte Press (Random House), 192pp., $15.95 hc. Ages 12 to 18.

Deborah Stevenson (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, December 2006 (Vol. 60, No. 4))
Fifteen-year-old Lily, stuck at home minding her toddler half-brother, Nathaniel, while her mother and stepfather take her older sister to college, is suddenly faced with a dilemma she’s not sure she can handle: her eight-year-old brother, Michael, calls griefstricken from the airport, because the father with whom he was supposed to be living has returned him as a disappointment. First, Lily has to repair the immediate situation, passing herself off as her older sister, wielding a shadily acquired credit card, and flying herself and Nathaniel from LaGuardia to Baltimore to pick up Michael and bring him back. Her second task is even harder: to abide by Michael’s request and keep their father’s monstrously cruel action a secret, which she knows is the only way to protect Michael from becoming the object of school and neighborhood pity and a pawn in their mother’s rants against her ex. Cooney’s understanding of the complexity of human dynamics and the myriad ways we can destroy or bolster one another makes this novel sharply believable as well as poignant: Michael’s father’s action is well chosen for its brutal plausibility, and Lily’s clearly not wrong in rejecting the “always tell a trusted adult” dogma and in her understanding of the ways an eight-year-old can be crippled by eager adult help. The book takes an interesting tack in Lily’s fierce rejection of God, deftly keeping her theological concerns concretely grounded and interweaving her deep disappointment in her heavenly Father with her bitter anger at the earthly one. While there’s a little contrivance in the plotting, Lily’s an appealingly heroic figure even as she’s a realistic teen, and readers will admire her strength. Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2006, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2006, Delacorte, 160p.; Reviewed from galleys, $17.99 and $15.95. Grades 7-12.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Spring 2007)
Although Lily's long-distance father abandons her eight-year-old brother, Michael, in an airport, Lily, trying to protect Michael, feels obligated to conceal her dad's cruelty. Lily's rage and hatred test her family and her Christian beliefs; reconciliation with both comes slowly (and perhaps too easily), but the novel's focus on faith is accessible and complex, and its tense opening will hook readers. Category: Older Fiction. 2006, Delacorte, 184pp, 15.95, 17.99. Ages 12 to 14. Rating: 4: Recommended, with minor flaws.

Sarah Squires (VOYA, December 2006 (Vol. 29, No. 5))
Lily is a fifteen-year-old girl with anger-management issues. She is mad at her sister for going to college, furious with her mother for remarrying so soon after a nasty divorce, irate with her delinquent father, and irritated that God seems to have abandoned her. Lily's father refuses to pay child support and leaves his eight-year-old son Michael at the airport with no money and no ticket because Michael was "not the son he had in mind." Lily manages to rescue her brother and keep the whole ordeal secret for a year. When Lily's older sister drops out of college to get married, Lily and Michael's secret is revealed because Lily refuses to be in the wedding if her father is present. This book is nowhere close to Cooney's Milk Carton series or Driver's Ed (Delacorte, 1997/VOYA October 1994), but the author's name alone will sell it. Lily's anger consumes the plot and seems unrealistic because she remains so bitter. The reference to the biblical parable in the title fits nicely into the book but could have easily been removed and not missed. Lily prays angrily about her father and ignores the cute boy who desperately tries to befriend her. Of course at the end of the novel, Lily's best friend calls Lily the "friend at midnight," and Lily's faith in God is restored. VOYA CODES: 3Q 3P M J (Readable without serious defects; Will appeal with pushing; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2006, Delacorte, 160p., $15.95 and PLB $17.99. Ages 11 to 15.