Frankenlouse

James, Mary

ISBN 10: 0590465287 ISBN 13: 9780590465281

Publisher: Scholastic, 1994

Synopsis

An off-beat story recounts the experiences of a young man whose dream of becoming a comic strip artist collide with his father's expectations. By the author of Shuteyes.

About this title

Reviews

Grade 5-7-Nick Reber comes from a long line of military men, and he attends Blister Military Academy, which his martinet father runs. He is torn between his father and his mother, who left for the freedom of New York and a boyfriend in a mink coat. To work through his troubles, he draws a cartoon strip about book lice. Though the lead louse starts out to be his father, it gradually transmutes into Nick, who grows a lot by the end of the story. As the boy tries to find his way through adolescence, he interacts with various classmates, particularly Jessie Southgate, one of BMA's five female cadets and neglected daughter of a Madonna-like star, and Caleb Purr, Nick's troubled friend who only cares about skateboarding. Nick as the narrator has a true voice. Dialogue balloons from "Frankenlouse" provide insight and humor. The only plot element that's tough to swallow is a skateboarding competition-it is difficult to imagine such an event being important to two stiff-lipped military academies. As she did in Shoebag, James makes each character three dimensional without going into excessive description. The ending is realistic, and readers should be satisfied with the way things work out for Nick and the others, especially his father.
Patricia A. Dollisch, DeKalb County Public Library, Decatur, GA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 5-8. Fourteen-year-old Nick Reber lives a spit-and-polish existence at Blister Military Academy, which is lorded over by General Patch Reber--the school's commanding officer and Nick's father. "My father is a control freak," Nick explains at the outset. A gifted cartoonist on the sly, Nick creates comic-book characters, notably Frankenlouse, a tiny insect that lives within the covers of Frankenstein and is a fearsome character that casts an ominous shadow over the lives of other book lice in neighboring titles. Predictably, Father is not amused by Nick's cartooning inclinations. For all the originality of the comic-strip fantasy world created by James (also known as M. E. Kerr), it is the story's human drama that is riveting. Father and son struggle to come to terms with each other as Nick considers the enticing opportunity to live with his mother and attend New York City's High School of Music and Art. Dinkey Hocker and Shoebag fans will enjoy the strong character portrayals, Nick's droll narrative, and the realistic plot turns that carry the action to its satisfying resolution. An eye-catching cover showing Nick creating his own life story as a comic-book series will grab readers' attention right from the start. Anne O'Malley

Edition details

• Publisher: Scholastic
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0590465287
• ISBN 13: 9780590465281
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 184