The Adventures of Invisible Boy
Doogie Horner
Scholastic

In this rib-tickling graphic novel Stanley aka the Invisible Boy is the new kid in town. Stanley just loves to experiment and invent things: his parents though, would much prefer his spare time was spent on building with Lego.
En route to school with his elder sister and stressing about being the new boy, he encounters Gene (short for genius so he says) carrying an entry for the school science fair. More stress for Stanley but his teacher offers him materials to build his own entry. He makes a robot and his enthusiastic teacher places it alongside the other entries on display.

All Stanley wants is to vanish there and then, so instead of remaining by his exhibit he takes a wander around.. Meanwhile classmate Gene reveals his green ‘stain remover’: turns out that it can remove rather more than the grape juice in his demonstration. Oops! Spillage! Could it be the world’s original disappearing serum?

Stanley leaves school and heads downtown to take advantage of his invisibility. He certainly has a lot of fun but on returning home discovers that not everyone is so enthusiastic about his newfound power.

After a night alone, Stanley too has lost his pep. Time to seek out the stain-remover’s creator and start to put things to rights. Villain or friend, which will he prove to be?
The zany illustrations and speech bubbles are littered with Horner’s laugh-inducing humour but he also pays due attention to the characters’ anxiety, especially Stanley’s.