ARTHUR'S NEW POWER

It's always disconcerting when a character created by one illustrator returns in the style of another, but Barton's offhand absurdity well suits this not-too-serious fable of electronic over-consumption. And Hoban does more than you'd expect with a story that begins when father Crocodile arrives home to find the fuses blown again and goes about unplugging "the electric toothbrushes and his reducing machine and his quadraphonic hi-fi. He unplugged the bedroom TV and the kitchen TV and the living-room TV. He unplugged the blender and the biofeedback and the Slimmo. He unplugged Emma's and Arthur's stereos, and he unplugged the Dracula"—this last being the Hi-Vamp for Arthur's electric guitar and the presumed chief cause of all the blow-outs. Mother and Emma manage okay in their unplugged headsets (life just feels more natural with them on) and Arthur, of all things, passes his time reading mysterious large library books; it's father, missing the news and driven crazy by the crickets, who plugs in at last. Later Arthur, explaining all the research, unveils his water wheel generator—but when the family eventually blows that too, it is Arthur who has learned to be content with playing his own quiet composition on his non-acoustic guitar. Though without the wicked twist that made Dinner at Alberta's a treat, it's a good sneaky generational joke, pulled off with cool.