LOOKING FOR BOBOWICZ

Almost 30 years after The Hoboken Chicken Emergency (1977), the streets of that fair city are once again being stalked, not by a six-foot chicken, but by a mysterious phantom. Enter on the scene Ivan Itch (“Call me Nick”), whose parents have just moved the family to Hoboken to have an “urban lifestyle.” Nick fairly quickly makes friends with neighbors Loretta Fischetti and Bruno Ugg, who share with him a love of Classic Comics and Dr. Pedwee’s soda. An exploration of Nick’s basement uncovers an old scrapbook about the Emergency, spurring a joint mission to unmask the phantom and discover whatever happened to Arthur Bobowicz. Aided by rather demented librarian Starr Lackawanna, Nick, Loretta, and Bruno solve both mysteries, which turn out to be far more closely related than they thought. The story itself is slight, though characteristically funny; what makes this book is the way the old—customs, buildings, literature, friends—constantly informs the new, in a truly sweet celebration of what was and what can be, if we just remember and respect. (Fiction. 8-12)