The Chocolate Touch

The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling (William Morrow, 1957) is a retelling of the King Midas myth in which (instead of everything a man touches turning to gold) everything a young boy eats turns to chocolate. The book won the Massachusetts Children's Book Award (1989), the Utah Children's Choice Honors Award (1983), and the Beehive Award from the Children's Literature Association of Utah (1983). Patrick Skene Catling currently lives in London, where he writes book reviews for the Telegraph, Spectator, and other publications. He attended Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio and worked as a journalist and author. He has written over 20 books for adults and children, and The Chocolate Touch was his debut novel.

This guide follows the 1979 Harper Collins Edition of The Chocolate Touch.

Plot Summary

The Chocolate Touch takes place in an unnamed small town. John Midas loves chocolate and hardly ever eats anything else. One day, John finds a coin with his initials on it and stumbles across a candy store he’s never seen before. The storekeeper sells John an entire box of chocolate in exchange for the strange coin, but when John gets home, he finds only one piece of chocolate in the box. However, the chocolate is the most delicious he’s ever had—and the next day, John finds that anything he puts in his mouth turns to chocolate.

John enjoys his new ability, eating everything from his breakfast to his gloves. At school, a surprise test makes him nervous. He goes to the water fountain to get a drink—and the water turns to chocolate as soon as he drinks it. For the rest of the day, John becomes increasingly distressed as his chocolate power increases. When he tries to play his trumpet in orchestra practice, the entire instrument turns to chocolate, and he ruins a game of bobbing for apples at a friend’s birthday party. His classmates and teachers don’t believe his new ability is real, and John criticizes them all for not understanding what he’s going through.

John tells his parents about his ability, leaving them distraught. He comforts his mother, but when he kisses her on the cheek, she turns to chocolate. Panicked, John runs back to the candy store, where he tells the storekeeper everything and blames him for selling John the chocolate that started everything. The storekeeper helps John see that John’s actions are what led to his chocolate ability, and John learns about Personal Choice and Responsibility, a major theme of the book. The man offers John a second chance and undoes all the strife that John’s ability caused, including returning John’s mother to normal. At home, John hugs his mother and savors a glass of milk, which doesn’t turn to chocolate.