Brooke Davis's "Lost & Found"

“Lost & Found” is the story of Millie, a strange seven-year-old girl who harbours a fascination of death. She keeps a book of dead things, which is a running record of all the people and creatures that she has seen die, or that she has personally lost. Her father, a victim of cancer a short time before the novel begins, is a major one in the list.

At the start of her story, she is asked to wait in the lingerie department of a shopping center by her mother, who does not return. Millie sleeps there for a few nights before heading home, finding a piece of paper on the counter. It is an itinerary, and states that her mother will be taking a flight from Melbourne in the next few days.

Millie enlists the help of an elderly widow and widower to get her to Melbourne. The former is Karl the Touch Typist, who has escaped from a retirement village, and the latter is Agatha Pantha, her hermit-like neighbour from across the street.

The unlikely trio set out on their odd journey, which balances the tragic realism of Millie’s abandonment perfectly with surreal, sometimes comical situations. We are rooting for them the whole way through, and want nothing more than for Millie’s mother to realise her harsh mistake.

Everywhere she goes, Millie writes and displays, “In here, Mum”, ever hopeful that her mother is searching just as hard to find her, too. This, along with her obsession with death, make her so endearing. Despite not fully grasping the circumstances, it is hard to call Millie naïve. She is almost wise in her vision of death as she tells everyone that they are all going to die, but that this is okay. It will be okay.

“Lost & Found” is a very fun and enjoyable book, but it does, at times, leave you feeling a bit hollow and funny inside. The ending perhaps isn’t the one that you wanted, but it is still surprisingly satisfying nonetheless. It is definitely worth reading, even buying. I have the feeling I’ll want to relive this whimsical, bittersweet adventure again soon.