The Contagious Colors of Mumpley Middle School - NO

DeWitt, Fowler The Contagious Colors of Mumpley Middle School, illustrated by Rodolfo Montalvo, 261 p. Atheneum (Simon), 2013. 

The students of Mumpley Middle School are turning all kinds of outrageous colors!  Plus they are bouncing off the walls with excess energy.  The only students who aren’t affected are Wilmer Dooley and Claudius Dill, the school’s two rival scientists.  Wilmer wants to cure his fellow students and win the 6th grade Science prize.  Claudius wants to win the prize, but he also wants to make as much money as possible, with as little effort as possible.  As Wilmer observes and experiments, he discovers a very worrisome future for his fellow students if he can’t find a cure in time.

Hmm - with that summary, this book sounds so cute.  Don’t be fooled.  DeWitt employs the ages old trope of making the adults look as stupid as possible - every single adult - so many adults that it really just becomes excessively tiresome.  And of course he has to make school as awfl as possible too, in order to make his little geniuses shine.  All I was by the end of this book was glad that it was finally over.  

NO.  Cindy, Library Teacher, MLS