Code Orange

Publishers Weekly

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.

KLIATT

Happy-go-lucky Mitty, a junior at a Manhattan prep school, finds his comfortable world turned upside down when he starts to research smallpox for a biology report and is accidentally exposed to old smallpox scabs he finds stuck in an envelope in an old medical book. Suddenly, his research takes on a new urgency—will he come down with smallpox and inadvertently unleash the dreadful virus on the world once again? When he sends out inquires about his plight on the Internet, the response isn't quite what he expects. Terrorists kidnap him, eager to use smallpox for their own nefarious purposes, and it takes all of Mitty's cleverness to defeat them. This thriller from the author of The Face on the Milk Carton and other novels for YAs incorporates lots of information on smallpox and its history, and readers will enjoy the suspense as Mitty first realizes his predicament and then must battle the terrorists. An intriguing topic, and an absorbing story. KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2005, Random House, Delacorte, 192p. bibliog., and (Lib. bdg: ). Ages 12 to 18.
—Paula Rohrlick

Children's Literature

Sixteen-year-old Mitty Blake lives in Manhattan and attends an exclusive private school. He is bright enough but rarely exerts any effort involving school work. In fact, he always puts off doing assignments and rarely even hands them in on time, if at all.When Mr. Lynch, the biology teacher, insists that books be used for the class term paper, Mitty is overwhelmed, as he had planned to rely just on the internet. When he finds scabs from small pox in a one hundred year old medical book, life becomes very complicated. Is he infected because he handled them? Has he infected others? Will terroists try and get the scabs from him? Should he contact the authorities and/or the government? This thriller is sure to appeal to teenagers living in the post 9/11 world as well as those who can relate to Mitty's attitude toward school work. 2005, Delacorte Press, Ages 12 to 16.
—Sylvia Firth

School Library Journal

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.

Kirkus Reviews

Cooney continues her mastery of suspense with this story about a screw-up rich kid and bio-terrorism. Sixteen-year old Mitty cares about nothing but music and Olivia, the school's ace scholar. Mitty deliberately blows off school, until he's forced to start a paper for his biology class. He finds an old medical book and in it, an envelope containing two scabs from a 1902 smallpox epidemic. He crumbles one, and inhales the dust from it. Then Mitty begins to learn about the horrors of smallpox, and realizes that he may have exposed himself. Terrified not only of getting the disease, but also of starting another epidemic, Mitty keeps his secret until he can't escape the fact that somehow he must become a real hero. Punctuating the drama with plenty of humor, Cooney builds the suspense and keeps it going for another teen-pleaser that's hard to put down. (Fiction. 12-14)