Looking for Bobowicz: A Hoboken Chicken Story
Grade 4-8&ndash;When his parents move to Hoboken, NJ, and his bike is stolen the first hour he's there, clever and resourceful middle-grader Ivan Itch goes looking for the thief, and in the process meets quirky adults and solves some mysteries. He becomes friends with neighborhood kids Bruno Ugg and Loretta Fischetti, and they attend the town's Bat Hat Festival, where a tall, phantomlike figure appears. He pedals away on Ivan's "light blue bike with pink hearts and flowers painted on the frame." Then the children's Classics Comics books are missing. Surprises and plot twists pepper the story as the youngsters set out to discover just what is going on. The adults evade their logical questions about a mysterious, oversized chicken and the young detectives seek help from the librarian, Starr Lackawanna, "a woman with wild hair, wearing what looked like a gym suit with rainbow-striped leg warmers and cape." With her assistance, the children, especially Ivan, piece together the evidence that the phantom is hiding the stolen goods in an old abandoned cave. The 266-pound hen Henrietta who starred inThe Hoboken Chicken Emergency(Aladdin, 1977) enters the scene and sets the stage for many laughs. Ivan is a well-developed character, and readers are likely to sympathize with him. Jill Pinkwater's black-and-white, block-print illustrations are a perfect match for this zany story that's sure to elicit lots of grins.&ndash;James K. Irwin, Nichols Library, Naperville, ILCopyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.