It’s the birthday of Caroline B. Cooney (b. 1947), author of more than 90 mystery, suspense, romance, and horror novels for young adults, including The Face on the Milk Carton (1990), in which 15 year old Janie Johnson sees her own childhood face on a milk carton and must ask whether her loving parents actually kidnapped her as a toddler. The novel prompted a generation of readers to question—based on no evidence whatsoever—whether they were in fact not their parents’ child. (What middle schooler hasn’t had that fantasy?)

Cooney was born in Geneva, New York, grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, and had an idyllic childhood, often playing in the woods or around a golf course near her home. Cooney remembers going to the main library in Greenwich for the first time. The librarian chose a big fat historical novel for her called The Lost Queen of Egypt (Lucile Morrison); it was unlike anything Cooney had ever read, and she adored it. When they went back to the library to return the book, Cooney clung to it and couldn’t bring herself to hand it over, instead telling the librarian “every single thing that had happened in it.” The librarian again asked for the book, and again Cooney couldn’t part with it, just repeating everything in the book. Finally the librarian brought out a rubber stamp, stamped the book DISCARD, and let Cooney keep it. Cooney has it to this day and writes, “Librarians are always your best friends.”

(If you haven’t choked up by now, you have a cold dead soul, my friend.)

The inspiration for The Face on the Milk Carton came when Cooney was at the La Guardia airport and noticed a number of missing child posters, including one for a child missing for many years. As she sympathized for the parents, who probably wouldn’t have been able to recognize their child anymore, she suddenly thought, “…what if the girl recognized herself? What a spooky idea!” The novel, originally intended to be a standalone, sold over a million copies and spawned five sequels; the final book, Janie Face to Face, appeared in 2013.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: go to Cooney’s web site via this link and read “as a child,” where she recounts growing up in the 1950s. It’s a quick but lovely read.

Cooney has three children, four grandchildren, and lives in South Carolina.

Have a cool green misty Friday, kiss every librarian you meet or at least heartily thank them, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.