Code Orange was an exciting book. I think this would be novel that would capture the interest of readers from grades sixth through ninth. The main character in Code Orange is Mitty Blake, an affluent New York City teen who cares more about socializing and listening to music than achieving academic success at his private prep school. All this changes when Mitty becomes engrossed in a project on infectious diseases. Mitty decides to do his project on smallpox when he discovers a sampling of smallpox sores in an old medical text that his mother found at an estate sale. During his study of smallpox he begins to be afraid that he could have contracted the virus from the sores. His life beings to spiral out of control because he fears that he is bringing back this devastating epidemic. While looking for answers online he attracts the attention of a group of bioterrorists, who kidnap him and wait to see if he contracts the virus. While the plot of this novel is extremely hard to believe, it captures your attention in such a way that you are willing to go along with the seemingly implausible events. I thought it was fun and exciting to read, and I learned a lot about the history of smallpox and broadened my knowledge of viruses in general.
The primary use of this book would be to encourage reluctant readers. If the librarian were to do a quick book talk on this book, it would be hard to keep on the shelf. While girls would definitely enjoy this book, it would also be very appealing to male readers. The main character is a young man, and there is an exciting fight scene when Mitty tries to flee from the terrorists. Also, because of the solid facts that run throughout the story, it would be a way for a biology teacher to create more interest around a unit on viruses. If the teacher read a bit of a chapter at the beginning or end of class it could help spark some interesting discussion about viruses and bioterrorism.
Code Orange was a bit frightening because the descriptions of the horrors of smallpox were quite accurate, and there is some violent content at the end of the story. Despite these elements, I do think it would be appropriate for the age that it was intended. This book was well reviewed, and across the board all reviewers agreed that this was an engaging, “page turner”. The reviewer from Booklist thought that the topic of this book was at times “profoundly disturbing” and would be a book that readers “wouldn’t soon forget”.