This book is called “The Chocolate Touch” by Patrick Skene Catling. The main character is John Midas. He is a young boy who is very selfish and loves chocolate. One day he finds a coin on the street that has a chocolate bar on one side and a fat boy on the other side, and it says “JM”. He takes this coin to a candy shop and he says to the man, “I only have this money. Do you accept it here?” And then the man says, “Yes, that is the only kind we take.” So John pays the man and buys a box of chocolate and goes back to his house and puts in under his bed. At night, he takes the chocolate out and eats it all and then in the morning when he is brushing his teeth, he says to his sister, “Did you get chocolate flavored toothpaste?” because the toothpaste turns to chocolate. John then goes to breakfast and his food turns to chocolate and he loves it. When he goes to school, everything there turns to chocolate including his pencil, his lunch, and his glove.
His chocolate touch gets stronger. At first only the piece of the object that went in his mouth turned to chocolate, but then when he put anything in his mouth the whole thing turned to chocolate. For example, his trumpet turned to chocolate at band practice. He gets really embarrassed and sad and he runs out of school and goes home. He plans never to go back to school. He asks his dad to take him to the doctor who says he cannot help him. John has an idea to go to the chocolate store because he thinks the man can help, but the store is gone and there is a sign that says, “for sale” and he starts crying. He goes home to tell his mom that he has a chocolate touch and she starts crying and he kisses her on the cheek and she turns into a giant chocolate statue. He gets really scared and runs back to the chocolate store where it was and it was there and he says to the owner who sold him the chocolate earlier, “Help me my mom has turned to chocolate and you need to fix this.” The man says, “If you have the choice to have your mother alive and still have the chocolate touch or don’t have the chocolate touch and have your mother be a chocolate statue what would you choose?” John made the decision to…. (read the book to find out).
I enjoyed the book because of the adventure and the problem was interesting. I liked when John ate the whole toothpaste tube because it was funny. I also liked when he ate his glove and the school bully wanted to eat some too and then the school bully spat it out because it gave John the advantage of having the chocolate touch but then he learned it isn’t an advantage. I also liked when John bit his best friend’s coin because he thought it wasn’t real silver and he bit it in half. It showed that it wasn’t an advantage at all and just made him lose his best friend.
I would recommend this book to someone who likes funny and interesting books. I would give this four and half stars because sometimes there was stuff that happened and I couldn’t figure it out.
