Reviews

Gr 7 Up-Most readers will have high expectations from the creator of The Face on the Milk Carton (1991) and the "Out of Time" series (both Random), but they might be a little disappointed in this offering. Mitty Blake is a talented but underachieving student in advanced biology at a New York City private high school. He is more interested in his friend Olivia than in completing his infectious-disease report, which could keep him from flunking. When he discovers a smallpox scab in an envelope in an old medical book, his research takes a somewhat urgent turn as he tries to determine whether he has contracted the disease. Searching for information on the Internet (thankfully, the high-achieving Olivia knows how to use a library), he inadvertently alerts a terrorist group to his situation. They kidnap Mitty with the intention of using him as a human biological weapon against the people of New York. This should be a highly suspenseful story, but the pacing is often slow and the characters underdeveloped. Even in this day and age, the terrorist angle seems far-fetched, and this underachiever's heroic efforts at the end seem out of character for him. Cooney's fans will undoubtedly read this book, but it doesn't meet the standards set in some of her young adult classics.-Courtney Lewis, Wyoming Seminary College Preparatory School, Kingston, PA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Cooney's (The Face on the Milk Carton) rat-a-tat delivery and hairpin turns keep the pages turning in this attention-grabbing post-9/11 thriller. Hunting for a topic for his biology research paper on infectious disease, Manhattan private schooler Mitty Blake picks up an antique textbook, discovers an envelope within its pages, and takes out its contents: scabs from a long-ago smallpox epidemic. (Wild as this plot element may seem, it is based on a recent, real-life event, as a closing author's note explains.) Though initially pleased to have averted academic disaster, an ominous fear grows in the boy: Did he ingest a portion of the scabs and could he now be incubating the smallpox virus? Mitty's realization that he may be a walking viral time bomb is neatly underscored by Cooney's affectionate rendering of his uniquely New York lifestyle ("Everything was always open. Just to test this, Mitty and his dad would sometimes get a hot dog, sushi or a toothbrush at three a.m."). The protagonist's rash e-mail queries make him the target of a terrorist group that aims to harvest the smallpox virus from his body. As he improvises a daring yet ultimately plausible scheme to save his beloved city, Mitty makes a convincing transformation from sweet-natured slacker to bona fide hero. Ages 12-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.