The Eyes of Kid Midas - Softcover

Shusterman, Neal

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0689873492 ISBN 13: 9780689873492

Publisher: Simon Pulse, 2004

Synopsis

Kevin Midas finds sunglasses that grant their wearer access to their every dream, but before Kevin realizes it, his dreams and wishes are tearing his world apart, as he struggles to control his thirst for revenge as well as his desire for everything. Reprint.

About this title

About the Author

Neal Shusterman is the author of many novels for young adults, including Unwind, which was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Readers, Everlost, and Downsiders, which was nominated for twelve state reading awards.  He also writes screenplays for motion pictures and television shows such as Animorphs and Goosebumps. The father of four children, Neal lives in southern California.

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-9-- Short and bespectacled, 13-year-old Kevin is the constant victim of the class bully, Bertram, but things change during a camping trip to a mountain that is supposedly sacred to the Native Americans of the region. After a grueling nighttime climb, Kevin reaches the top at dawn and finds a cool pair of sunglasses, which turn out to be saturated with the mountain's magic. They have the power of turning his desires into reality and making him master of his universe. From making ice-cream cones materialize to filling his house with video games, they grant his every wish, and things predictably get out of hand. Unfortunately, he cannot use the glasses to undo or reverse any of these actions, and when in anger he shouts at Bertram, ``Go to Hell!'' the ground opens up and swallows him. Eventually the fabric of reality starts to unwind and the world as he knows it becomes a thing of the past. Kevin later has a vision of Bertram struggling in chains in his own personally customized hell, in a wonderfully disturbing scene worthy of Stephen King. In general the imagery here is vivid and effective. The ending, in which the boy undoes everything he has done merely by returning the glasses to the mountaintop, may strike some readers as a simplistic cop-out, and the moral conclusion of his dilemma is the obvious one, but the novel features steady action with occasional touches of bizarre, inspired humor and is hypnotically readable. --Lyle Blake Smythers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon Pulse
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0689873492
• ISBN 13: 9780689873492
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 182