After reading The Hot Zone back in August, and incidentally scaring myself silly since I read it IN the hospital emergency room, I’ve developed something of a layman’s interest in infectious disease and epidemic. Code Orange is the story of a rather annoying sixteen year old student at an elite private school in New York City. Mitty, short for Mitchell Blake, is a rich indolent kid who doesn’t care about school but does care about impressing Olivia, the smartest girl in his class. (“Mitty didn’t expect to be loved for his brain, but he didn’t want to be discarded for his total lack of brain either. . . “) He decides to look through some old books his mother bought from a doctor’s library and see if he can come up with a topic for his science report on infectious disease. Unfortunately, he finds something inside one of the books that is more than he bargained for —something that might make him the Typhoid Mary of New York City and a target for bioterrorists who want what he has.
Mitty was such a believable character. He’s an irresponsible, somewhat charming, sixteen year old as the story begins, and as a mom, I wnted to slap him and tell him to wake up, grow up. (OK, I’ve never slapped anyone in my life, but I wanted to figuratively slap him.) But the point of the story is that Mitty is sixteen, not grown up, forced to confront a problem that is so much bigger and more serious than he is at all prepared to encounter or resolve. And Mitty does it. He bumbles around on the internet, figures out possible alternatives, refuses to panic (partly because he doesn’t realize how much there is to panic about), and eventually becomes a hero, a very unlikely hero, but a hero nevertheless.
I thought this YA title, published in 2005, was fascinating and a little scary in its own right. It’s sobering to think how easily terrorists with the right knowledge and the wrong bacteria or viruses could attack the U.S. or other countries with something that would be very difficult to fight: a disease. Other than the fact that it’s not so dramatic as a bomb or a gun, I don’t know why bioterrorism on a large scale hasn’t been tried successfully already. I suppose it would be harder than one might think to “plant” a deadly virus without infecting oneself and with a likelihood of infecting large numbers of other people.
Anyway, if you have an interest in disease, viruses, smallpox, terrorism, or adventure, Code Orange is a great story. I’ve never read any books by Ms. Cooney although she’s quite a prolific author having published more than 70 books for young adults. I have another of her books in my reading basket, Enter Three Witches, published this year. It’s about Macbeth, and I’m looking forward to reading it.
Caroline Cooney: Teacher Resources
Epidemic, Pandemic, and Plague in Children’s Books: An Annotated Bibliography by Semicolon.
I must see if my library has that one, it has a lot of the features I like in a book. My kids always say if it is an “end of the world as we know it” story, Mom will love it. (Weird, I know…)
One of the funniest lines we ever heard on TV was a made for TV movie about a virus hitting a cruise ship. The two stars of the movie watch as scientists land on the ship, dressed in those “space suits” they wear in such events.
One of the stars looks at the other and says, “You know you are in trouble when they bring their own air”. 🙂
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I just finished reading this book—AMAZING! I read the Hot Zone also and became interested with diseases. Code Orange had a great ending, not too predictable and not too Happily Ever After, I’ll have to read more books by Cooney!
i loved youre book and can i please have a copy of mittys research that you put in the book
Code Orange was an o.k book. When Mitty was in the room with only a bed and a broken light, the book went nowhere. The the rest of the book was exellent.
I LOVE THIS BOOK, alot of this book didn’t make sense can someone explain to me the book, and the point of the book.
EXCELLENT BOOK!!!!!!! The only thing I didn’t understand is why it described where Mitty bought his daily bagel. Other than that, great book!! 🙂
😀
I LOVE THIS BOOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but apparently even though its fiction a woman in new mexico had almost the same experience no joke she really forund smallpox scabs in a book!!!!!! that freaks me out if ya dont believeme look it up on CNN
sorry my bad not CNN USA Today sorry
Sorry but i hated this book. It was not realistic at all. There is no cure for smallpox, IF he even had it. Also, the girl did not fit in to the book at all. This book was terribly written, and was unrealistic. IF he had smallpox, so would everyone else in new york considering it’s contagious nature. The girl should have had it immediatly, he KISSED her. Another point, he didnt get monoxide poisoning but the other men did after he had been exposed for days, if not weeks, more than them. Not a single person I know thought that the book was very good either. At ALL. Personnelly though, I think the author should find another profession, or gain any skill whatsoever at the one she already has.
And yes, Im hating on Caroline Cooney or whoever wrote that awful book.
IM 13 YEARS OLD AND LOOOOOOVED IT!! 🙂 im going to be reading it over and over agin i wish they would make a movie about it it was AWSOME!!!
this book
is crap