People push by you as you try to get to the end of the block, but you can’t move. Cars zoom by and you can see traffic lights changing, but you are frozen. The thought of having the variola virus frightens you more than you can bear. Since you inhaled the two smallpox scabs, thoughts of suicide cloud your mind. What if you give this fatal disease to your family? What if you give it to the whole city?

Caroline Cooney, bestselling author of The Face on the Milk Carton, has created another captivating page-turner. For Code Orange, Cooney won the National Science Teachers Award. Your heart will race, but this realistic-fiction journey is completely worth it.

Code Orange is full of romance and adventure. Mitty Blake, the protagonist, who attends a prestigious school for the wealthy and brilliant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is assigned a medical paper on the variola virus. While looking for research materials in his weekend house, he finds some old medical books that contain two smallpox scabs. From there, the plot takes some very unpredictable twists.

Cooney does an excellent job creating descriptive pictures in the reader’s mind, filling the novel with similes and sensory details. Her eloquent adjectives help the reader picture every step of the character’s journey, from the vast fields of Central Park to a humid apartment.

Code Orange contains unique characters, each rich with attention-grabbing histories. Mitty will become your best friend by the end of the novel. His remarkable findings and adventures will keep you wondering as you read. Olivia, an enthusiastic overachiever, stars as Mitty’s girlfriend.

This action-packed, suspenseful novel had me hooked from the first page. I would recommend it to everyone, because it reminds us how important life is and how quickly it can disappear. It taught me how to fully appreciate the world around me, and hopefully you’ll feel the same.