Frankenstein Moved In on the Fourth Floor by Elizabeth Levy, illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein, 1979.

Sam lives with his brother and mother on the 19th floor of a large apartment building. One day, when he and his mother are going to meet his brother at a friend’s house, they try to take the elevator down to the ground floor, but it doesn’t seem to be working. With no other choice, they take the stairs, and when they reach the fourth floor, they discover the reason why the elevator isn’t working.

A new neighbor, Mr. Frank, is moving into the apartment building, and he’s stopped the elevator at his floor to unload all of his stuff. He has boxes and boxes of wires and other electronic components, and he gets really upset when anybody else touches them. He has refused all offers of help to unload the boxes, he’s kept the elevator tied up, and he’s been rude to his new neighbors about these things.

Sam thinks that Mr. Frank is frightening. He looks weird with those strange headphones with an antenna he keeps wearing. When he and his mother go to pick up his brother, Robert, Sam tells him about Mr. Frank and his theory that Mr. Frank is actually a monster. Sam thinks that Mr. Frank looks like Frankenstein. Both of the boys are into movie monsters, but Robert thinks at first that Sam is making it up. The boys have a debate about whether Mr. Frank would actually be Frankenstein the scientist or the monster that Frankenstein created in the book and movie because, although many people call the monster Frankenstein, that was actually the name of the monster’s creator. When the boys consult an abridged version of Frankenstein, Sam becomes convinced that the book’s description of Frankenstein the scientist sounds like Mr. Frank.

The next day, the boys go down to the apartment house’s basement, where tenants have storage rooms. Sam wants to see what Mr. Frank is storing in his storage room, but when the boys start talking about the possibility that he might keep bodies in there, they chicken out. In the meantime, Mr. Frank gets on everyone’s nerves at the apartment house. He’s always bringing in new boxes of stuff and leaving empty ones around. Neighbors hear weird noises coming from his apartment that sound like moans and groans. Mr. Frank claims that the noises are his music. Then, he overloads the electrical circuits in his apartment and causes the entire building to black out. Nobody knows what he’s doing with all that electrical equipment of his. Mr. Frank’s weird electrical experiments make Robert think maybe Sam was right about Mr. Frank being Frankenstein.

The boys decide that it’s important for them to take a look in Mr. Frank’s storage room, but when Robert accidentally leaves his Dracula doll behind, they realize that Mr. Frank will find out that they’ve been snooping. They may have to face the wrath of Frankenstein!

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies). There is a sequel to this book called Dracula is a Pain in the Neck.

My Reaction and Spoilers

This story is a kind of mystery story because the boys are trying to figure out if Mr. Frank is actually Frankenstein and if he’s making monsters with his electrical experiments. However, it really reminds me of the The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids, a series about kids who suspect various people in their town of being different supernatural creators. This book is older than that series, and from the way the story goes, there are more logical explanations for Mr. Frank’s behavior. However, like with The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids, the kids don’t really get firm answers at the end. It looks like Mr. Frank is probably just some weird, temperamental musician who likes to experiment with electronics, but the story leaves it open to interpretation.