By Patrick Skene Catling
John Midas loves chocolate above everything else, then gets a magic power that turns whatever his mouth touches to chocolate, which ruins his meals, his toothbrushing, and eventually a lot more.
John Midas loves chocolate more than his friends, more than his family, more than manners. One day he finds a strange coin and uses it to buy a box of chocolates from a little shop he's never seen before. The next morning he has a new power: anything that touches his lips turns instantly to chocolate. For about a page that's wonderful. Then his toothpaste turns to chocolate, and his breakfast, and his glass of water, and the trumpet he lifts to his mouth at the school concert. It's the King Midas story with candy instead of gold, and it moves fast, chapter by chapter, toward the mess he's made.
Some children won't sit still for a book, and this one is built for them. The idea is clear in a single sentence, and then every chapter runs a new test of the magic: what happens at breakfast, at the concert, at a birthday party. Each one pays off quickly, the chapters are short, and it's genuinely funny. The point underneath it, that wanting only one thing all the time makes you miserable and hard to be around, arrives through the story instead of a lecture. That usually goes down better.