What if you woke up one morning and found you were invisible? This is the dilemma Bobby Phillips faces?being invisible changes his whole life. If he leaves the house, he either has to cover himself completely, or wear nothing at all. His parents are having a hard time explaining his extended absence from school. He has to keep his condition a secret, and this causes even more problems. When Bobby meets Alicia at the library, he believes he's found a friend who will accept him as he is. Alicia is blind, so his invisibility doesn't matter to her?once she believes he is telling her the truth. Their growing friendship and the mystery concerning Bobby's condition make for an absorbing, imaginative tale. 2002, Philomel Books,
— Joanne Draper
At first it seems like any other Tuesday. Throwing off his electric blanket, fifteen-year-old Bobby stumbles to the bathroom to shower, and it is not until he wipes the fog off the mirror to comb his hair that he notices something is missing—him. Bobby quickly finds out that the reality of being invisible is quite different from what is portrayed in movies and books. Only his mother and father can know—not school, not friends, no one. Not only is Bobby invisible, but he also is alone. His mother and father approach his new condition as they approach everything else in life. His physicist father attempts to dissect the problem as he would any other scientific anomaly, whereas Bobby's mother is likely to smother him with attention and orders. Luckily, it is winter so no one seems to notice when he escapes to the library covered by layers of clothing. Once there, he strips down and proceeds to stroll silently through the library until he meets Alicia, the one person who will not notice that he is invisible. She is blind. Through Alicia Bobby learns that there is something worse than being invisible, and that is being made to feel invisible. Together they help each other work through their situations to find friendship and a new strength that they did not realize they possessed. Written in a more serious tone than Clements's popular Frindle (Simon & Schuster, 1996), this novel will prove thought-provoking as it asks the reader to consider all the "things not seen." VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2002, Philomel, 256p, $15.99. Ages 12 to 15. Reviewer: Heather HeplerSOURCE: VOYA, February 2002 (Vol. 24, No.6)
Bobby Phillips, age 15, wakes up one morning, goes to comb his hair in the mirror—and sees no reflection. He's become invisible, and while there are some advantages, like sneaking around unseen, it quickly proves to be a big problem. He tells his parents, of course, but fearing he would become an experimental subject they try to keep Bobby's condition hidden from the world. He can't go to school, naturally, but the school quickly becomes suspicious, and tries to investigate his absence. Bored at home, Bobby sneaks out to the library, where he bumps into a blind girl, Alicia. They become close friends, and she helps him to finally figure out how to reverse his condition. As the title hints, this is a tale about sight and insight, as well as the fanciful theme of actual invisibility. Bobby's growing relationship with Alicia is a major part of it, along with trying to keep Bobby's problem hidden and finding the solution to it. I wish Clements, the author of Frindle and other books for young readers, had spent more time exploring the upside of invisibility; mostly Bobby worries about his invisibility, rather than having any fun with it. Still, the intriguing premise of the story will keep readers turning the pages. Category: Hardcover Fiction. KLIATT Codes: J—Recommended for junior high school students. 2002, Penguin Putnam, Philomel, 252p., $15.99. Ages 13 to 15. Reviewer: Paula Rohrlick; KLIATT SOURCE: KLIATT, March 2002 (Vol. 36, No. 2)
Gr 6 Up-"-I turn on the bathroom light and wipe the fog off the mirror to comb my hair.-I'm not there. That's what I'm saying. I'm. Not. There." Thus starts the adventure of Bobby Phillips, who wakes up one morning to find that somehow he has turned invisible. The 15-year-old and his parents live with the worry of what happens if they can't figure out how to reverse his condition. With a nod in the direction of H. G. Wells's Invisible Man, Clements allows readers to speculate what it would be like to be invisible. As they see Bobby deal with his situation, they also experience his fears of being alone, unable to talk to his friends, or to tell anyone for fear of the consequences. He reaches out to a blind girl, Alicia Van Dorn, and together they begin to fight back as best as they can. The quest for visibility becomes even more frantic when the school officials and the local police decide that Bobby is the victim of foul play. The threat of having his parents thrown in jail for his own murder makes the teen even more desperate to find out what happened to him. Clements's story is full of life; it's poignant, funny, scary, and seemingly all too possible. The author successfully blends reality with fantasy in a tale that keeps his audience in suspense until the very end.-Saleena L. Davidson, South Brunswick Public Library, Monmouth Junction, NJ Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Clements (The Jacket, above, etc.) looks beyond grade school for the first time with a multifaceted rumination on selfhood and various forms of invisibility. Fifteen-year-old Bobby wakes up invisible one morning. His equally flummoxed parents, quickly grasping the personal and social dangers should the news get out, urge him to hole up at home. But boredom, worry, and the mutinous thought that he should have some say in the matter soon lead him into a string of adventurous outings, both wrapped up Invisible Man-style, and stark naked. Clements cranks up the stress with an ensuing traffic accident that puts both parents into the hospital, and, as weeks pass, the increasingly persistent attentions of the governmental child-welfare machine. He also provides a needed confidante for Bobby in Alicia, a teenager blinded by a head injury two years before and no stranger herself to that sense of being unseen. Both feeling angry, scared, and vulnerable, their relationship gets off to a wonderfully tumultuous start, but builds on a foundation of caring and loyalty into something solid enough to survive Bobby's final return to visibility. As always, Clements's genius for developing credible plot lines (even from oddball premises) makes suspension of disbelief no problem. His characters, each one fundamentally decent-there is never a chance that Bobby will go the way of the transparent voyeur in Cormier's Fade (1988), for instance-are easy to like. A readable, thought-provoking tour de force, alive with stimulating ideas, hard choices, and young people discovering bright possibilities ahead. (Fiction. 11-15)
