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Summary
Summary
From the author of the acclaimed bestseller Holes , winner of the Newbery Award and the National Book Award, comes a New York Times bestselling adventure about the impact we have--both good and bad--on the world we live in.
Be careful. Your next step may be your last.
Fifth grader Tamaya Dhilwaddi and seventh grader Marshall Walsh have been walking to and from Woodridge Academy together since elementary school. But their routine is disrupted when bully Chad Hilligas challenges Marshall to a fight. To avoid the conflict, Marshall takes a shortcut home through the off-limits woods. Tamaya, unaware of the reason for the detour, reluctantly follows. They soon get lost. And then they find trouble. Bigger trouble than anyone could ever have imagined.
In the days and weeks that follow, the authorities and the U.S. Senate become involved, and what they uncover might affect the future of the world.
"Sachar blends elements of mystery, suspense, and school-day life into a taut environmental cautionary tale."-- Publishers Weekly
Author Notes
Louis Sachar was born in East Meadow, New York on March 20, 1954. He attended the University of California, at Berkeley. During his senior year, he helped out at Hillside Elementary School. It was his experience there that led to his first book, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, written in 1976. After college, he worked for a while in a sweater warehouse in Norwalk, Connecticut before attending Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, where he graduated in 1980. Sideways Stories from Wayside School was accepted for publication during his first week of law school. He worked part-time as a lawyer for eight years before becoming a full-time writer in 1989. His other works include There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom, the Marvin Redpost books, Fuzzy Mud, and Holes, which won the 1999 Newbery Medal, the National Book Award, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and was made into a major motion picture.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Horn Book Review
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 theres a pool of mysterious mud that leaves Tamaya with a mysterious rash after shes grabbed a handful to sling into the bullys face. (You dont 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 (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-To avoid being beaten up by bully Chad, fifth grader Tamaya and her seventh grader friend Marshall take a shortcut home through the forbidden woods that surround their private school. When Chad forces a confrontation, Tamaya throws some "fuzzy mud" in his face, unwittingly unleashing an environmental and medical disaster that will affect thousands of people and animals. The fuzzy mud is actually a scientific breakthrough gone wrong, but will this disaster be enough to stop further experimentation? With appropriate sound effects and outstanding narration, Kathleen McInerney and a full cast skillfully create two scenarios, each occurring in a different time and place but which complement each other and keep the suspense high until the last chapter. Sachar deftly combines a lesson about bullying, a reflection on virtues, a suggestion of possible ramifications of our ever-growing population, and a message about tampering with natural science, all without becoming preachy or overly scientific. A reading by the author of "Can Virtue Be Taught?" will compel listeners to reflect on the book's themes. VERDICT A solid, suspenseful, and thoughtful tale that will appeal to fans of the author and science fiction. ["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": SLJ 5/15 review of the Delacorte book.]-MaryAnn Karre, West Middle School Binghamton, NY © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
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. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*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 choice choosing 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.--Smith, Julia Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
ADULTS HAVE IT rough in children's literature. Mothers vanish, fathers get slain, grim teen societies herd all the grown-ups into their own boring corners of the planet. It's not that children's authors dislike adults, exactly. It's more an issue of plotting: Stories are more interesting when protagonists have the ability to change the world around them, for good or for bad - and kids will be the first to tell you that they become pretty powerless whenever adults are on the scene. Louis Sachar's Newbery-winning "Holes," in which detained children are forced to dig pits at the insistence of a draconian adult, is about just that: the complicated agency of children in the face of a disempowering system. Luckily for us, Sachar is mining this promising terrain again in "Fuzzy Mud." As the novel begins, Tamaya Dhilwaddi has just begun fifth grade at the exclusive Woodridge Academy, and the friends she thought she knew are different this year. They fall over themselves to entertain the older boys, for one thing, and though Tamaya tries to keep up with her shifting world, she finds it mystifying. "When did the rules change? she wondered. When did it become bad to be good?" The seventh grader Marshall Walsh is feeling similarly out of his depth. When he takes a shortcut through forbidden woods to avoid a bully, Tamaya tags along. Two kids wandering into the dark forest - if this sounds like the start of a fairy tale, it's a very modern one. Tamaya falls in the woods, and in the process comes in contact with "some kind of fuzzcovered mud." Deliciously, we readers at this point know more than the kids, because Sachar has interspersed his narrative with the transcript from a federal inquiry into the nearby SunRay Farm. The biotech engineers there have been working on a secret slime mold, hoping to market it as an energy source in a world with dwindling resources. That's not your average mud that Tamaya has fallen into. As a rash spreads and blisters appear on her skin, Tamaya believably tries to play down her growing infection. It's surprisingly easy: Her mom is perpetually wrapped up in work, and the school nurse maintains that she must have had a reaction to peanuts. Sachar has wisely placed his characters at the age of puberty, when worrying about a turncoat body - or whether going into the woods with a boy will lead to a mysterious rash - is native territory. Tamaya's desperate desire to be seen, when her only strategy in every social situation is to withdraw, is achingly well observed. So too is Marshall's ashamed reaction to a bully wanting to beat him up. Their avoidance of their troubles only increases the reader's tension when we realize, through the interspersed transcripts, that this impending eco-crisis will have a body count. So far, so good. These are all the makings of kid-lit Crichton, but there's one problem: The children are well-realized characters and agents within their immediate social worlds, but once the bioengineering plot is introduced and it turns out the very fate of the world is at stake, the story line spins quickly out of the kids' orbit. The reader is left in the sometimes frustrating position of feeling that the most exciting parts of the tale - bioengineering, an investigation and a coverup! - are happening offstage. Focusing the plot on Marshall and Tamaya does capture something of the powerless quality of childhood, but it can also make for a passive reading experience. We're following victims on an avoidance path, objects more than subjects, unable to alter the world that has put them in danger. That said, there's charm and intelligence in spades here. More visceral pleasures too: As soon as someone needs to have skin transplanted from his buttocks to his face, a big chunk of teenage readers will want to find everything else Sachar has written. Of special note is the book's interior design, with a petri dish depicted at the start of each chapter, its multiplying micro-inhabitants gradually overflowing into the text. Sachar is masterly at capturing the interplay between children and adults, down to the subtleties of how children can get flustered and convey the wrong answer even when they're trying to be truthful. These are characters pushed past their edge, and yet they always remain kids. If only the adults hadn't stolen some of their best lines. ELIOT SCHREFER'S latest book for young readers is "Immortal Guardians."
Kirkus Review
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 woodsgooey, 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) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1 Tuesday, November 2 11:55 a.m. Woodridge Academy, a private school in Heath Cliff, Pennsylvania, had once been the home of William Heath, after whom the town had been named. Nearly three hundred students now attended school in the four-story, black-and-brown stone building where William Heath had lived from 1891 to 1917, with only his wife and three daughters. Tamaya Dhilwaddi's fifth-grade classroom on the fourth floor had been the youngest daughter's bedroom. The kindergarten area had once been the stables. The lunchroom used to be a grand ballroom, where elegantly dressed couples had sipped champagne and danced to a live orchestra. Crystal chandeliers still hung from the ceiling, but these days the room permanently smelled of stale macaroni and cheese. Two hundred and eighty-nine kids, ages five to fourteen, crammed their mouths with Cheetos, made jokes about boogers, spilled milk, and shrieked for no apparent reason. Tamaya didn't shriek, but she did gasp very quietly as she covered her mouth with her hand. "He's got this superlong beard," a boy was saying, "splotched all over with blood." "And no teeth," another boy added. They were boys from the upper grades. Tamaya felt excited just talking to them, although, so far, she had been too nervous to actually say anything. She was sitting in the middle of a long table, eating lunch with her friends Monica, Hope, and Summer. One of the older boys' legs was only inches away from hers. "The guy can't chew his own food," said the first boy. "So his dogs have to chew it up for him. Then they spit it out, and then he eats it." "That is so disgusting!" exclaimed Monica, but from the way her eyes shone when she said it, Tamaya could tell that her best friend was just as excited as she was to have the attention of the older boys. The boys had been telling the girls about a deranged hermit who lived in the woods. Tamaya didn't believe half of what they said. She knew boys liked to show off. Still, it was fun to let herself get caught up in it. "Except they're not really dogs," said the boy sitting next to Tamaya. "They're more like wolves! Big and black, with giant fangs and glowing red eyes." Tamaya shuddered. Woodridge Academy was surrounded by miles of woods and rocky hills. Tamaya walked to school every morning with Marshall Walsh, a seventh-grade boy who lived three houses down from her and on the other side of their tree-lined street. Their walk was almost two miles long, but it would have been a lot shorter if they hadn't had to circle around the woods. "So what does he eat?" asked Summer. The boy next to Tamaya shrugged. "Whatever his wolves bring him," he said. "Squirrels, rats, people. He doesn't care, just so long as it's food!" The boy took a big bite of his tuna fish sandwich, then imitated the hermit by curling his lips so that it looked like he didn't have any teeth. He opened and closed his mouth in an exaggerated manner, showing Tamaya his partially chewed food. "You are so gross!" exclaimed Summer from the other side of Tamaya. All the boys laughed. Summer was the prettiest of Tamaya's friends, with straw-colored hair and sky-blue eyes. Tamaya figured that was probably the reason the boys were talking to them in the first place. Boys were always acting silly around Summer. Tamaya had dark eyes and dark hair that hung only halfway down her neck. It used to be a lot longer, but three days before school started, while she was still in Philadelphia with her dad, she made the drastic decision to chop it off. Her dad took her to a very posh hair salon that he probably couldn't afford. As soon as she got it cut, she was filled with regret, but when she got back to Heath Cliff, her friends all told her how mature and sophisticated she looked. Her parents were divorced. She spent most of the summer with her dad, and one weekend each month during the school year. Philadelphia was on the opposite end of the state, three hundred miles away. When she returned home to Heath Cliff, she always had the feeling that she'd missed something important while she'd been gone. It might have been nothing more than an inside joke that her friends all laughed at, but she always felt a little left out, and it took her a while to get back into the groove. "He came this close to eating me," said one of the boys, a tough-looking kid with short black hair and a square face. "A wolf snapped at my leg just as I was climbing back over the fence." The boy stood on top of the bench and showed the girls his pant leg for proof. It was covered in dirt, and Tamaya could see a small hole just above his sneaker, but that could have come from anything. Besides, she thought, if he'd been running away from the wolf, then the hole would have been in the back of his pants, not the front. The boy stared down at her. He had blue, steel-like eyes, and Tamaya got the feeling that he could read her mind and was daring her to say something. She swallowed, then said, "You're not really allowed in the woods." The boy laughed, and then the other boys laughed too. "What are you going to do?" he challenged. "Tell Mrs. Thaxton?" She felt her face redden. "No." "Don't listen to her," said Hope. "Tamaya's a real Goody Two-shoes." The words stung. Just a few seconds earlier, she had been feeling so cool, talking with the older boys. Now they were all looking at her as if she were some kind of freak. She tried making a joke out of it. "I guess I'll only wear one shoe from now on." Nobody laughed. "You are kind of a goody-goody," said Monica. Tamaya bit her lip. She didn't get why what she had said had been so wrong. After all, Monica and Summer had just called the boys disgusting and gross, but somehow that was okay. If anything, the boys seemed proud that the girls thought they were disgusting and gross. When did the rules change? she wondered. When did it become bad to be good? Across the lunchroom, Marshall Walsh sat amid a bunch of kids, all laughing and talking loudly. On one side of Marshall sat one group. On his other side sat a different group. Between these two groups, Marshall silently ate alone. 2 SunRay Farm In a secluded valley thirty-three miles northwest of Woodridge Academy was SunRay Farm. You wouldn't know it was a farm if you saw it. There were no animals, no green pastures, and no crops--at least, none that grew big enough for anyone to see with the naked eye. Instead, what you would see--if you made it past the armed guards, past the electric fence topped with barbed wire, past the alarms and security cameras--would be rows and rows of giant storage tanks. You also wouldn't be able to see the network of tunnels and underground pipes connecting the storage tanks to the main laboratory, also underground. Hardly anyone in Heath Cliff knew about SunRay Farm, and certainly not Tamaya or her friends. Those who had heard of it had only vague ideas about what was going on there. They might have heard of Biolene but probably didn't know exactly what it was. A little more than a year before--that is, about a year before Tamaya Dhilwaddi cut her hair and started the fifth grade--the United States Senate Committee on Energy and the Environment held a series of secret hearings regarding SunRay Farm and Biolene. The following testimony is excerpted from that inquiry: SENATOR WRIGHT: You worked at SunRay Farm for two years before being fired, is that correct? DR. MARC HUMBARD: No, that is not correct. They never fired me. SENATOR WRIGHT: I'm sorry. I'd been informed-- DR. MARC HUMBARD: Well, they may have tried to fire me, but I'd already quit. I just hadn't told anyone yet. SENATOR WRIGHT: I see. SENATOR FOOTE: But you no longer work there? DR. MARC HUMBARD: I couldn't be in the same room with Fitzy a minute longer! The man's crazy. And when I say crazy, I mean one hundred percent bananas. SENATOR WRIGHT: Are you referring to Jonathan Fitzman, the inventor of Biolene? DR. MARC HUMBARD: Everyone thinks he's some kind of genius, but who did all the work? Me, that's who! Or at least, I would have, if he had let me. He'd pace around the lab, muttering to himself, his arms flailing. It was impossible for the rest of us to concentrate. He'd sing songs! And if you asked him to stop, he'd look at you like you were the one who was crazy! He wouldn't even know he was singing. And then, out of the blue, he'd slap the side of his head and shout, "No, no, no!" And suddenly I'd have to stop everything I'd been working on and start all over again. SENATOR WRIGHT: Yes, we've heard that Mr. Fitzman can be a bit . . . eccentric. SENATOR FOOTE: Which is one reason why we are concerned about Biolene. Is it truly a viable alternative to gasoline? SENATOR WRIGHT: This country needs clean energy, but is it safe? DR. MARC HUMBARD: Clean energy? Is that what they're calling it? There's nothing clean about it. It's an abomination of nature! You want to know what they're doing at SunRay Farm? You really want to know? Because I know. I know! SENATOR FOOTE: Yes, we want to know. That's why you've been called before this committee, Mr. Humbard. DR. MARC HUMBARD: Doctor. SENATOR FOOTE: Excuse me? DR. MARC HUMBARD: It's "Dr. Humbard," not "Mr. Humbard." I have a PhD in microbiology. SENATOR WRIGHT: Our apologies. Tell us, please, Dr. Humbard, what are they doing at SunRay Farm that you find so abominable? DR. MARC HUMBARD: They have created a new form of life, never seen before. SENATOR WRIGHT: A kind of high-energy bacteria, as I understand it. To be used as fuel. DR. MARC HUMBARD: Not bacteria. Slime mold. People always confuse the two. Both are microscopic, but they are really quite different. We began with simple slime mold, but Fitzy altered its DNA to create something new: a single-celled living creature that is totally unnatural to this planet. SunRay Farm is now growing these man-made microorganisms--these tiny Frankensteins--so that they can burn them alive inside automobile engines. SENATOR FOOTE: Burn them alive? Don't you think that's a bit strong, Dr. Humbard? We're talking about microbes here. After all, every time I wash my hands or brush my teeth, I kill hundreds of thousands of bacteria. DR. MARC HUMBARD: Just because they're small doesn't mean their lives aren't worthwhile. SunRay Farm is creating life for the sole purpose of destroying it. SENATOR WRIGHT: But isn't that what all farmers do? Excerpted from Fuzzy Mud by Louis Sachar All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
