May 18, 2015
Sachar blends elements of mystery, suspense, and school-day life into a taut environmental cautionary tale about the insatiable hunger for energy sources and the cost of not doing the right thing. Marshall’s routines at Woodridge Academy—including his daily walk to and from school with his anxious neighbor Tamaya—are upended by the arrival of blowhard bully Chad. A quiet seventh-grader, Marshall becomes a target for Chad, who challenges him to an after-school fight. Rather than suffer a beating, he and Tamaya take a shortcut through the off-limits woods and come across what Tamaya dubs “fuzzy mud,” a strange substance they don’t realize harbors great danger for them and the town at large. Amid chapters following the children’s exploits, Sachar includes transcripts of secret Senate hearings with the scientists who engineered the microorganisms that generate fuzzy mud. In a tense sequence of events, readers learn more about Marshall, Tamaya, Chad, and the peril they face. A dramatic conclusion celebrates the positive ripples of friendship and honesty, and will leave readers with much food for thought. Ages 10–up. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group.
April 15, 2015
When fifth-grader Tamaya Dhilwaddi and seventh-grader Marshall Walsh cut through the woods to avoid school bully Chad Hilligas, they unwittingly set off a chain of events that threatens global catastrophe. What exactly is that pool of mud that Tamaya notices in the woods-gooey, tarlike muck with a sheen of fuzzy, yellow-brown scum on top? Whatever it is, it comes in handy when Chad attacks Tamaya and Marshall, and Tamaya scoops up a handful and shoves it into his face. But that evening, she notices a terrible rash on her hands, and Chad doesn't show up for school the next day. Revealed in interspersed testimony from secret Senate hearings is the fact that scientists have been researching Biolene, a viable alternative to gasoline using artificial, high-energy microorganisms. The threat of mutations and "frankengerms" had been considered negligible, but now a walk in the woods has led to the quarantine of the whole Pennsylvania town as an epidemic has spread, the airport and railroad stations have been closed, and the Pennsylvania National Guard has been called in. Sachar's tale is slim, as is the delineation of character and setting, but the fast-paced plot and enough science to give the illusion of substance will have readers racing through the pages. An exciting story of school life, friends, and bullies that becomes a quick meditation on the promise and dangers of modern science. (Speculative fiction. 8-12)
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May 1, 2015
Gr 3-5-Newbery Award-winning author Sachar takes on science and the government in this engaging eco-cautionary tale. Middle schoolers Tamaya, Marshall, and Chad meet in the woods near their school, but it's not to party. Tamaya follows Marshall into the woods because she thinks they're taking a shortcut home. Marshall hopes the detour will help them avoid a beating from bully Chad, who finds the pair anyway. Tamaya stops the boys' fight by throwing some strange-looking mud in Chad's face and inadvertently unleashes an environmental disaster lurking in the woods. The mud is composed of ergonyms, a microscopic life form never seen on Earth before, created by a nearby research facility to produce a safe, inexpensive biofuel. The bad news? Contact with the mud is dangerous for most other life forms already on Earth, starting with Tamaya and Chad. Sachar confidently juxtaposes three time lines, one of which takes place several months after the initial events, revealing some of the devastation to come, which serves to increase readers' apprehension about the characters' fate. Another time line recaps Senate hearings into the biofuel's risks and benefits. Sachar is at his best in these chapters, wryly skewing government power and questioning science's ability to control life and save us from ourselves. A witness at the hearings delivers the author's warning: "Unless we do something to control world population, nothing will help us." Clever petri dish design elements and multiplication equations sprinkled throughout the text help readers grasp the simple math that challenges science's claims of control. VERDICT Featuring a plot that moves as fast as the ergonyms replicate, this issue-driven novel will captivate readers while giving them plenty to think about.-Marybeth Kozikowski, Sachem Public Library, Holbrook, NY
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Starred review from May 15, 2015
Grades 4-7 *Starred Review* In the woods behind Woodridge Academy, in Heath Cliff, Pennsylvania, a seemingly innocuous substance grows exponentially more threatening by the hour. It's fuzzy mud. and its discovery is nothing short of spine-tingling. While taking a shortcut home from school, fifth-grader Tamaya Dhilwaddi comes in contact with the mud and breaks out into a terrible, blistery rash. When a boy she'd seen in the woods is reported missing the next day, she knows the mud is to blame and returns to find him. Tamaya's story is interspersed with court transcripts regarding Biolene, a high-energy biofuel being developed secretly in Heath Cliff. Sachar expertly builds tension as he incrementally reveals the dangers of Biolene and its connection to fuzzy mud, ratcheting up the dangers facing Tamaya and her friends. Unafraid of getting his hands dirty, Newbery Award winner Sachar (Holes, 1998) digs into hot-button topics, including overpopulation, the energy crisis, and bioengineering risks, while introducing readers to Hobson's choicechoosing between two evils. On a more intimate front, Sachar also incorporates the troubles of bullying, divorce, and the social growing pains of preadolescence, increasing the story's resonance as a whole. Grounded in well-rounded central characters, this compelling novel holds as much suspense as fuel for discussion. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Multi-award-winner Sachar will launch this book with an author tour and national media campaign, increasing demand for the already popular author.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)
July 1, 2015
A shortcut through the woods? What could go wrong? Neighbors and fellow outsiders Tamaya (fifth grade) and Marshall (seventh) are in bigger trouble than they know when Marshall diverts them from their usual route home in order to evade a bully, Chad. Not only does Chad know those woods, too, but there's a pool of mysterious mud that leaves Tamaya with a mysterious rash after she's grabbed a handful to sling into the bully's face. (You don't want to know what happens to him.) Interspersed with this expert school survival drama, and not impeding it one little bit, are excerpts of testimony from secret Senate hearings about a microscopic manmade organism, the ergonym, which seems to have escaped a secret laboratory to flourish in the wild, doubling its population every thirty-six minutes. (A helpful and horrifying sequence of pictures on the chapter heads shows you how to do the math.) Tamaya and Marshall make a sympathetic pair of heroes to center this exciting tale, vintage Sachar for the way it brings big ideas to everyday drama, and recalling classic William Sleator, too, for blending just-gross-enough horror with sober -- if you can stop to think about it -- consideration of ethics and science. roger sutton
(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)