McMUMMY

Professor Orloff has left Mozie to care for a greenhouse of experimental plants, with specific instructions for administering "Vitagrow." As one particular "pod" grows to mammoth size, Mozie becomes apprehensive: Does it lure him against his will? Will it hatch? What is that humming? Accompanied variously by friend Batty and "Valvoline," an aspiring beauty contestant for whom Mozie's mom is making a sequined gown, Mozie tends the pod until an epic storm crushes both the greenhouse and the pod, which—cautiously inspected with Mozie's deceased father's Swiss army knife—seems empty. But what's the leafy apparition that later disrupts the beauty pageant? This isn't quite fantasy- -rational explanations are available for virtually everything- -but, unfortunately, waiting to see whether it is, or what Byars will come up with instead, doesn't create enough interest to carry the story. Byars introduces several motifs without much development— Batty's family is featured in the first chapter, then fades out, scientist Orloff never comes back, and Mozie's yearning for his father is unresolved. Even the comically tangential interior monologues begin to wear thin; Mozie just isn't as interesting as Bingo Brown, and his high jinks are tame compared to the Blossoms'. A minor effort. (Fiction. 8-12)