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Publication Date: November 10, 2009 Publisher: Simon and Schuster Author: · Neal Shusterman Related Sites: · Official Website for Neal Shusterman Grade: A-

Author Neal Shusterman (Everlost, Unwind) delivers a fanciful wish-fulfillment story with consequences with The Eyes of Kid Midas. 13 year old Kevin Midas is the picked-on kid who, along with his best-friend Josh, decide during a school camping trip to climb a mountain in the middle of the night after hearing their teacher weave a myth about the mountain's importance.

What they don't know is that they're being followed by the class bully, Bertram, and his lieutenant, Hal, who have also decided to be the first to reach the top of the mountain. When Kevin reaches the summit first, he finds there a pair of glasses that he takes as a souvenir. But these aren't just ordinary glasses, as Kevin soon discovers. Whatever Kevin describes suddenly becomes real, which he proves to Josh by pulling ice cream cones out of thin air.

Kevin sets about trying to find the limits of the glasses, which seem to be inexhaustible (although they do use quite a bit of energy, which they draw from the surroundings). He creates big screen televisions, video games, and sports cars -- running wild with greed until he gets it out of his system. But things become far more serious when Kevin finds he gets physically ill when separated from the magic glasses, and the glasses are getting more unpredictable -- sometimes operating on unintended phrases (when Kevin tells the bully to "Go to Hell," it happens) and, later, on flashes of unspoken thoughts, forcing Kevin to keep his mind under constant check as the nightmare of granted wishes continues.

But it's worse than that. No one but Josh, Hal, and Bertram realize what's happening, as whatever Kevin wishes into being causes reality to be rewritten, so that no one is shocked by any of his changes -- that's just the way things have always been; the pretty girl has always been six inches tall, the sun always goes down at 8:30 in the morning, and 2+2 has always been 3. And whatever reality the glasses create, they cannot uncreate; Kevin's digging a hole, and it can only get deeper.

Part of what makes The Eyes of Kid Midas work is that Shusterman doesn't try to convince the reader as to why the glasses work or how they came to be: they just are, and we take it at face value. This also lends toward making the story's climax -- which is perhaps a bit on the deus ex machina side of things -- and it's conclusion satisfying and acceptable. It's a fast-paced adventure that gets right into the thick of things and keeps going -- the kind of plot that really ought to be made into a film.