THE POLTERGOOSE

There’s a dark edge to this slapstick import. With his dad finally working after five years, Jiggy McCue—so named for his constant twitchiness—and parents move from run-down digs to a new housing development not far away. Jiggy immediately discovers an unusual new-house problem: his room is haunted by an angry, invisible goose that leaves a trail of destruction for which he, naturally, is blamed. Ditto when the ghostly goose follows him to school and to the shrink that his worried parents enlist to get to the root of his “problem.” After some detective work, Jiggy and his friends Pete and Angie conclude that the bird wants its reeking mortal remains removed from beneath a newly planted “Rodadoodah bush” and re-interred where a farmhouse once stood. Unfortunately, this is now the middle of a shopping mall replete with security cameras in the wake of an epidemic of vandalism. Nor will just the approximate location do, as the trio find out when they sneak into a Ladies’ Room to stuff the remains down a drain. Fans of garbage and bathroom humor, who don’t mind cardboard characters and contrived situations, will be in hog heaven with this series opener—the next installment of which, Killer Underpants, is due soon. (Fiction. 9-11)