Lost and Found

Lost and Found (2008) by Andrew Clements and read by Keith Nobbs. Audiobook Playaway.
ISBN 978-160775616-3

Jay Ray and Ray Jay Grayson are identical twins who have just moved to a new town with their parents. On the first day of sixth grade, Ray is sick and Jay attends school alone. When attendance is called in his class, Jay notices that Ray’s name isn’t called. He starts to enjoy being identified as himself and not as a twin. When Jay arrives home he convinces his brother that they should take advantage of the school’s clerical mistake and pretend they are one person. Wanting to know what it’s like to be treated as an individual, they devise their plan to take turns at school.

Thus begins a series of interactions and mishaps at school and at home; each generating from the lies that are being told. Ray and Jay have different academic skills, personalities and physical abilities that lend to the challenge of keeping up the façade. Dealing with the details of incidents in class, new friends and playing sports are met with difficulty. Evolving from this story is the realization of the effects of lies, as well as perceptions of twins and how they want to be perceived.

The reader will be engaged as they follow the twins as they interact with others and each other. The story is believable and fun. Listening to the story is entertaining. The story is appropriate for 9 to 12 year olds.

Andrew Clements website.