the chocolate touch by patrick skene catling

His trumpet and his pencil and other items inconveniently change to chocolate. But what starts out as some amazing miracle soon begins to make John go crazy. He goes downstairs for breakfast, and his mother has never seen him eat such a balanced meal, but it's only because all the food turns to chocolate as soon as it touches his mouth. Before long, his sister finds him squeezing the whole bottle of toothpaste directly into his mouth. He brushes his teeth and finds his mouth full of chocolate. He's incredibly disappointed when he finds just a single chocolate in the middle of the big box, but he gobbles it down anyway.

He just buys the box of chocolates and then rushes home to tear into it. John, being the candy glutton that he is, doesn't stop to think about how strange it is that this shop appeared out of nowhere and that it doesn't accept traditional money. The storekeeper is very friendly, and when he sees John's coin, he says, coincidentally, that's the only kind of money the shop accepts and and asks if he would he like to spend it on a box of chocolates. He can't resist the temptation and walks in. And just a few moments later, he sees a candy shop he doesn't recall ever seeing before. Then one day, John happens upon a strange coin. Midas are forced to give him a daily vitamin just so he doesn't shrivel up and die of malnutrition. To say that John Midas has a sugar addiction would be an understatement (he and Buddy the Elf would get along famously). I wouldn't have wanted to miss that for the world. I don't know that a book has ever teased so many waves of uncontrollable laughter out of my kids. It looked short and very juvenile, and I was pretty sure it was going to be one of those books I endured for the sake of my kids.

By that time, I considered just handing off The Chocolate Touch to Aaron to read on his own. I blame it on Poppy, whose back cover summary pulled in both Aaron and Max, and then we weren't ready to leave her so we moved on to Poppy and Rye. We had this book checked out from the library for weeks before we finally got around to reading it. I'm trying to get caught up before my mid-year recap, and I still have a few left to go. You may have noticed the influx in book reviews this week.

The chocolate touch by patrick skene catling