🤷‍♀️Fuzzy Mud (2015)

by Louis Sachar

Amazon rating: 4.7/5.0, Grade 5-6

Good Reads: 3.88/5

Common Sense Media: 4/5, Ages 10+

4Rbooks: 3/6, Grades 6+

Synopsis:

Tamaya (5th) and Marshall (7th) attend Woodbridge Academy in Pennsylvania. Because they are neighbors, they walk to school together. One day, Marshall takes them on a short cut through the local forest to avoid a confrontation with the new bully in his grade. While there, Tamaya and the bully Chad come into contact with the “fuzzy mud,” a science experiment gone awry and escaped from a secret laboratory in the forest.

The two of them do not realize how dangerous the situation is until the effects of their exposure begin to show on their skin. Marshall too is exposed the next day. Soon, the entire city and surrounding area is exposed and there is danger it could spread even farther.

The story is interlaced with testimony from a senate hearing about the experiment and its effects on the human population.

Parental Guidance: High

Though resolved effectively at the end, the bullying scenes and affects on the participants is challenging reading.

The effects of the “fuzzy mud” on the skin and eyes of Tamaya and Chad are graphically detailed.

The overall concept, and the senate testimony may be too obscure for many readers to comprehend.

Recommendation: Medium

I thought Mr. Sachar did a good job fleshing out his characters and making them understandable and accessible. The story, not so much. It’s more of a science fiction short story than a well-developed novel. I would only recommend this book to sophisticated, scientifically interested middle school students. As I was reading, I kept thinking that this was a book that adults would find as interesting, if not more, than children. It is especially poignant in 2020 as one of the main concerns of the senate committee is could this have spread worldwide and become a pandemic.