QUIET! YOU’RE INVISIBLE

An invisible friend from the 31st century turns out to be less help against the bully next door than a hopeful fifth-grader would like in this entertaining floater from the author of Oyster Moon (1996). As if Hoby Hobson doesn’t have enough worries, between his 8½-months pregnant mother and hulking Hammerhead Jones’s promise to sauté or fillet him sometime very soon, up pops jumpsuit-clad Zircus Orflandu, a thousand years off course after hitting the wrong control in his dad’s new space/time cruiser. Zirc comes with a personal dematerializer that only works intermittently—a comic device that, coupled with his ignorance of 21st-century ways, Meacham milks mercilessly as the two lads stumble into complications with practically every step. In an unlikely but satisfying climax, Hammerhead (“ ‘one galactic dworb,’ ” to use Zirc’s colorful phrase) is knocked down, tied up, and then grounded for bad behavior, after which Zirc takes off futureward and Hoby gets a baby brother to cherish. Not quite another Little Prince, perhaps, but young sitcom fans will be heartily amused. (Fiction. 10-12)