cover image Frankenlouse

Frankenlouse

Mary James. Scholastic, $13.95 (184pp) ISBN 978-0-590-46528-1

Nick, the 14-year-old son of the stern, rigid ``commanding officer'' of a military school, hopes to be an artist despite his father and grandfather's expectations that he'll attend West Point. Unknown to his family, he has created a cartoon universe of tiny insects who live off the words printed in books; his hero, Frankenlouse, ``really belonged in a horror library, but his owner had lent him out before he ever got there, so that he ended up among books of poetry, music, art, and literature.'' Nick begins by modeling Frankenlouse on his father, but as the character develops, its personality becomes more and more independent-just as Nick's father slowly realizes that Nick has ambitions and aspirations of his own. Dialogue balloons from the Frankenlouse cartoons are reproduced in the text, and although they do not have the childlike zaniness of Jules Feiffer's hero's work in The Man on the Ceiling, they are fresh and funny. Plenty of subplots and a full cast of semi-eccentrics keep the pace lively and the canvas full. Ages 11-up. (Oct.)