The great brain
The Great Brain is Tom D. Fitzgerald, aged ten. The story is told by J.D., a sometimes confounded but always admiring younger brother. Such people as Mr. Standish, the mean schoolmaster, regret the day they came up against The Great Brain. But others, like the Jensen kids lost in Skeleton Cave, Basil the Greek kid, or Andy, who has lost his leg and his friends, know that Tom's great brain never fails to find a way home. - Back cover.
Stats for nerds
10recommend
19mentions
15people
2011–2024years
68% recommend32% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- A few come to mind, over the course of my childhood up to and including high-school.
The "Mad Scientist's Club" series
The Great Brain
Those "Encyclopedia Brown" stories
The "The Three Investigators" series
The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
The original Doyle "Sherlock Holmes" canon
The Soul Of A New Machine by Tracy Kidder
The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
Nineteen Eighty Four
- I loved these books as a kid back in the 80's. I'm sure they played a key role in shaping my interests and worldview. These, along with the "Encyclopedia Brown" books, the "The Three Investigators" series, the "Tom Swift Jr" series, and "The Great Brain", plus the original Doyle canon of Sherlock Holmes stories, were constant companions in my youth. Oh, and those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. Those were great.
Every year the local Barnes & Noble does a Christmas book drive thing to provide books for under-privileged children in the area. I usually chip in at least a few titles, and if I could actually find any of those on the shelf (aside from Sherlock Holmes), I'd probably get some of them, so some young kids today could experience the same thrill.
- Heh. I loved these back in the 70's, and remember them fondly. Along with Encyclopedia Brown, many of the Three Investigators books, and all of the Great Brain stories. Never got into Tom Swift particular, but I did read the Danny Dunn novels (Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine got me interested in computers) and The Many Inventions of Alvin Fernald.
- ++++++++ all of these. Wonderful books. "The Great Brain" has to be my favorite, but they're all good.
- I was introduced to this concept as a kid by "The Great Brain" book series. Was surprised to discover as an adult that it actually works in many ways. I'm a huge proponent of sleeping when I'm stuck on something. The tricky part is recognizing when I'm in an unfruitful debugging session and pulling myself away.
- (other readers: sorry, I know this post is going to be a bit obnoxiously long, but I didn't want to put it on a pastebin or some other external service and potentially have it disappear if someone wanted to reference it in the future. If you're not interested please feel free to collapse this!)
I actually asked my mom to compile a list of books she could remember, because a friend had kids and was getting to the age where they were starting to read too. Here's what she came up with (note, no particular order of difficulty or maturity here):
My Father’s dragon series
Where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein
A pizza the size of the Sun
Choose your own adventure books
The Great Brain
The Boxcar Children series
Captain Underpants
Roald Dahl books: The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Twits, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/The Great Glass Elevator (not as good)
My Side of the Mountain
No More Dead Dogs
The Secret Garden
Bridge to Terabithia (Deals with death, a little older)
The Lion, the witch, and the wardrobe
Across five Aprils (civil war historical fiction, older)
The Broken Blade (Voyageur) & Sequel
Island of the blue dolphins
The witch of blackbird pond
Johnny Tremaine (a bit older)
The sign of the Beaver
Charlotte’s Web
Because of Winn Dixie
Tuck Everlasting (sad at end)
Ruby Holler
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Treasure Island
The Pushcart War
Maniac Magee
Rascal
Frindle
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen)
Mr. Popper’s Penguins (young)
Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing (Juy Blume)
Pippi Longstocking
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (young)
A Wrinkle in Time
Moccasin Trail
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
From the Mixed Up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
The Egypt Game
The Phantom Tollbooth (young)
Holes (little older)
Sideways Stories from Wayside School (young)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Homer Price (easy reading)
The Indian in the Cupboard
Misty of Chincoteague (series)
Aesop’s Fables (young)
The Eye, the Ear, and the Arm
Redwall series
Watership Down
(I'll throw in the Discworld series too for kids that are getting a bit older! It's probably very readable for, say, an advanced 5th grader. I was tearing through all the redwall books and the Golden Compass series at that point and Discworld is probably comparable. Golden Compass wasn't finished then and The Amber Spyglass ended up being kind of a disappointment. I know I was reading Discworld by 7th grade for sure.)
