If the Witness Lied

This young adult thriller takes place in twenty-four hours and explores how people as well as the media can exploit a situation with devastating results, especially when innocent children are involved.

 

 

Jack Fountain knows that what’s happened to his family sounds like the most horrible soap opera anyone could ever write. But it’s all true. It happened—to his parents; to his sisters, Smithy and Madison. And to his baby brother, Tris. What made it worse was that the media wanted to know every detail.

   Now it's almost Tris’s third birthday, and everything’s starting again. Aunt Cheryl, who’s living with the Fountain children, has decided that they will heal only if they work through their pain—on camera. It will be a field day for the media, and no one, except Cheryl, wants that. Jack and his sisters gear up to keep Tris’s adorable face off-screen, but they quickly realize that there is more at stake than their privacy. The very identities they’ve created for themselves are called into question. What really happened the day of their father’s accident?

   The Fountain siblings have less than twenty-four hours to change their fate. Together, they will ask questions no one asked at the time of the tragedy. And together, they vow that this time, they will not be exploited.

Choices do matter and forgiveness is possible.

Jack Fountain knows that whats happened to his family sounds like the most horrible soap opera anyone could ever write. But it happenedto Jack; his parents; his sisters, Smithy and Madison. And to his baby brother, Tris. What made it worse was that the media wanted to know every detail.

Now its almost Triss third birthday, and everythings starting again. Aunt Cheryl, whos living with the Fountain children now that their parents are gone, has decided that they will heal only if they work through their painon camera. The very identities theyve created for themselves are called into question. In less than twenty-four hours their fate will change yet again, but this time they vow to not be exploited and to discover the truth.

In this gripping thriller, Caroline B. Cooney details how love, devotion, and forgiveness make resilienceand recoverypossible.

From the Hardcover edition.

This young adult thriller by an award-winning author takes place in 24 hours and explores how people as well as the media can exploit a situation with devastating results, especially when innocent children are involved.

Caroline B. Cooney is the author of many books for young people, including the bestseller The Face on the Milk Carton (an IRA-CBC Children’s Choice Book) and its companions, Whatever Happened to Janie? and The Voice on the Radio (each of them an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults), as well as What Janie Found; Three Black Swans; If the Witness Lied; They Never Came Back; Diamonds in the Shadow; A Friend at Midnight; Hit the Road; Code Orange; The Girl Who Invented Romance; Family Reunion; Goddess of Yesterday (an ALA-ALSC Notable Children’s Book); The Ransom of Mercy Carter; Tune In Anytime; Burning Up; What Child Is This? (an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults); Driver’s Ed (an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults and a Booklist Editors’ Choice); Among Friends; Twenty Pageants Later; and the Time Travel Quartet: Both Sides of Time, Out of Time, Prisoner of Time, and For All Time, which are also available as The Time Travelers, Volumes I and II.

Caroline B. Cooney lives in South Carolina and New York.