Encyclopedia Brown

That's a lot of books. I do not want to know what the 'Case of the Disgusting Sneakers' involved.

i read a ton of these as a kid. and then later, the three investigators!

Donald J. Sobol is an actual person! I was thinking he was a fake like Franklin W. Dixon.

I would guess that I read every one of these up through '88, so I have no helpful explanation of the disgusting sneakers. I've got some guesses, though.

Whatever happened to those sneakers Bugs Meaney did it!

loved loved loved loved these books as a kid

iirc the disgusting sneakers one involved a contest about who had the worst smelling shoes and someone cheated to make their shoes smell worse than they actually did

Three Investigators so pwned Encyclopedia Brown

I stopped reading these books when they started running out of clever ideas and began introducing solutions that relied upon knowledge that wasn't presented in the original scenario.

Yeah, I read quite a few of these as a kid, too. My 4th-grade teacher made some comment to my parents at a parent-teacher meeting that sort of implied that I was too old to be reading Encyclopedia Brown books -- or maybe I just misinterpreted it, because Christ, I was only 9.

However:

The only one I remember involved a sword supposedly used at the "First Battle of Bull Run," according to an engraved inscription, and EB proving it to be counterfeit because after the battle, nobody could have known that there would be a second Bull Run.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, October 12, 2006 2:54 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

There's a handful of facts that I will always and forever remember based on these books, like which animals live at which poles and who commanded Confederate troops at the first battle of Bull Run.

xpost - HI DERE otm about what became problematic about these -- they were always better when based on simple things like which way the glass fell out of the window, or how the toddler couldn't have sat on the hood of the car the guy had really just been driving for three hours

haha whoah, Jaymc xpost!

I mean, the one where he shows that a historical hero revered for saving half of his troops from an attack was actually a total dumbass who got half his troops killed by walking into an easily-avoided ambush was kind of great in its perversity but it isn't cool that getting that one relied on knowing that it is unlawful to fly the US flag during a rainstorm.

the solution that still irritates me most was about a male robber who was hiding out in drag (?), and EB surmised this based on how he and another person sat down in a restaurant, per the rules about how women "always" sit on one side in relation to the room, and men on the other.

oh, that and the one about how the kid with one arm in a cast couldn't possibly have put his mumbletypeg knife in the opposite pants pocket while running -- that one's actually sensible but I have tried over and over in my life to put crap in the opposite pocket while running, and I'm convinced it's possible if you're wearing something loose

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/07/the_10_most_ridiculously_difficult_encyclopedia_br.php?page=1

also, while we're here, I'm interesting in what copycat EB-style/format books people liked, if any. (I really liked these ones about Incognito Mosquito -- everyone was an insect and they were 90% really groany puns.)

My favorite one was one where this kid's baseball glove or bat (can't remember which) was completely screwed up after Bugs swore he'd watch over it for the kid and that no one else would touch it, and the solution was that Bugs volunteered to watch the kid's stuff specifically so he could fuck it up and screw the kid over. It was very Occam's Razor!

when i was a kid i really liked the mystery books based on the characters of the board game "clue"

They have a kid's version of "Clue" now. You have to figure out who ate the cake.

The, um, historical one I remember best was when EB debunked the Wild West Tour stagecoach driver's tale of a shootout with the Ringo Kid. It turned out the story couldn't have been true because it involved somebody squinting into the sun, and at the time of day the story was to have taken place the sun would have been behind him!

Brown Harvest - a veiled "Encyclopedia Brown meets Red Harvest" noir parody book is worth seeking out, especially if you can find a used copy.

Haha, x-post, I just went to find a link to that, but I went with http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-1568582110-0

i read a lot of those "kid genius books". . . Danny Dunn, Alvin Fernald, The Great Brain, Henry Reed

In fact, I once started this thread for some reason: I Am Reading A Novel That Seems To Be Something That Elvis Telecom Would Like
(x-p)

oh man, the Great Brain was terrific, much more fun than EB

omg Danny Dunn! I haven't thought about those books in YEARS

i loved the illustrations in the Great Brain

nabisco OTM!

xp Weren't those Mercer Mayer?

yeah i think they were--i can't seem to find any examples online, searching quickly.

A former co-worker actually mailed me a copy of The Great Brain a while ago, after I confessed that I don't have much interest in kid's/YA lit anymore. She'd mentioned the book in particular, which I'd never heard of, and said she thought I'd like it. I'm sure it's great and everything, but it's not like I was just waiting for someone to give me the right book to change my mind. I mean, there's a decent chance I would've liked it when I was younger, but now it's just taking up space on my bookshelf.

It's kind of a fantastic book, though.

Be better if they used the correct spelling, The Grebt Brane.

How does Alvin's Secret Code fit into all this?

the harriot the spy movie was really good had a big impact on my worldview growin up i also really liked the hardy boys meets nancy drew book where their friend mercedes gets kidnapped by a columbian drug cartel.

OK, Mr. Que already mentioned Alvin upthread.

But nobody mentioned Homer Fink.

woah, i googled Alvin's Secret Code, and I saw the newer cover, so i thought it wasn't the same kid. then i googled again and got this, i totally remember this cover

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/6a/cf/f7c7225b9da0a7c88fa9d010.L._SL500_AA240_.jpg

don't know if i ever read homer fink, but i did read homer price

i guess this is where i admit (shamefully) that i read a bunch of pippi longstockings, too. i think i watched the movies when they were on TV, too. but i didn't care, i just loved to read

Homer Fink fashioned a pine branch into some kind of laurel wreath on his head and then went around orating pretentiously like a Star Trek Roman, IIRC.

I've never heard of anyone who solved one of these. Anyone here want to brag?

I used to be able to solve them until they turned into "know everything about everything, including spurious stereotypes" rather than "read the story for clues and spot the inconsistency".

i'm pretty sure i solved some, but i can't remember details. maybe i just like to think so. i read 3 or 4 encyclopedia brown books, whatever my local library had. always wondered why bugs meany was such a jerk. figured he had an alcoholic dad or something.

I solved a couple, I think? But I had a serious addiction to these things as a kid, to the point where I started my own sad little detective agency.

omg Incognito Mosquito. Dude was always getting in sticky situations with Flywitness News reporters and shit.

The only glory I have to show for years of reading these things is figuring out one (1) Einstein Anderson, Science Sleuth thing involving dog whistles. Encyclopedia Brown was like why even bother trying, these mysteries are not taking place in a real world I recognize. Einstein Anderson was all about hard-science grit, and also baseball.

Contrary to that blog upthread, I always thought of the "first battle of Bull Run" one as one of the most solvable and head-slappy. (I didn't solve it, or anything, but it seemed pretty duh: of course things aren't called the "first" until there's a second one.)

The one on that blog about staring into the sun while birdwatching might have been one of the ones I solved as a kid (admittedly by a lucky guess).

Oh, you know what else these things have made me remember for life? In the little description of EB at the front of each one, it says he's the guy to ask when you can't figure out the Swiss river in the crossword and it turns out to be AAR -- when AAR is in a crossword now boy howdy do I know it.

I can't remember the exact story, but I recall being pleased to figure out the story with the flying submarine and the lump of ambergris that washes up on the beach.

Wow, some of the covers for the current set of books are HIDEOUS

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0553157256.01.LZZZZZZZ.gif

Good god.

my own sad little detective agency

There needs to be a series called this.

Tommy and Paul have stolen a sheet of Lathrop's prized toilet paper (don't ask)

...it's like the start of a wacky alternate world TV series episode were the Replacements were the Monkees.

http://adamcadre.ac/content/brown/

two facts indelibly written into my brayne thanks to EB:

1. lobsters are red only after they've been cooked

2. tears flow down the inside path of your face next to your nose, not on the outside over the cheekbone

dyao have you never cried?

the EB knockoff I read as a kid was Cam Jensen, a freckled girl who used her photographic memory to solve crimes (sketches were provided IIRC so the reader could get in on the action too)

hahaha I really want to say I'm Chuck Norris but I hate those jokes

1. lobsters are red only after they've been cooked
2. tears flow down the inside path of your face next to your nose, not on the outside over the cheekbone

1 = this one is flooding back to me now
2 = surely this is only true if your face is, like, paralyzed, and at no point in your crying do your eyes maybe well up enough that you close them, forcing tears out of both sides

maybe it was the other way around, but I swear to God that the solution to on EB mystery depended on whether or not tears could flow on the outside path of the cheekbone, and the person who was supposedly crying was actually using an eyedropper to create the tears!

there needs to be an Encyclopedia Brown wikia page

"Cam Jensen, a freckled girl who used her photographic memory to solve crimes"

haha CLICK! haha
anyone remember ESP mcgee?

there was a great encyclopedia brown parody on harvard lampoon but can't find it.

oh it wasn't lampoon --
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~demon/issues/apr_14_1998/ebrown/ebrown.html

Tommy and Paul have stolen a sheet of Lathrop's prized toilet paper (don't ask)

...it's like the start of a wacky alternate world TV series episode were the Replacements were the Monkees.

Luckily Minneapolitan scribe Jim Walsh is on hand to record this usage for posterity.

How did Encyclopedia Brown know that Bob was wearing a tutu?

I love that Encyclopedia Brown's real first name was Leroy. Hard to believe the milquetoasty bookworm committed some of the acts Jim Croce claimed he did....

I remember there was one really depressing solution to a crime that got to me, made me real sad. I don't know if I'm making this up or not though, it's been a long time since I've encyclo'd.

love that Encyclopedia Brown's real first name was Leroy. Hard to believe the milquetoasty bookworm committed some of the acts Jim Croce claimed he did....

there was one solution to a crime where he knew something was hidden in this dude's hot dog because he put the toppings on in the wrong order.

Part of me as a kid was kinda like "YOU EVER THINK MAYBE HE JUST DOES THING DIFFERENTLY AND DOESNT LIKE THE KRAUT TO GO ON FIRST????"

Maybe that was how he solved the Case Of The Roll Of Prized Paper- there was some kind of orientation problem.

I remember in the 80s there was an Encyclopedia Brown series on HBO, and when he had to puzzle out a case he would play the drums and listen to the Who.

"there was one solution to a crime where he knew something was hidden in this dude's hot dog because he put the toppings on in the wrong order."

oh hey this was one I "solved" but not really. was the hidden object a rare coin? the coin had an "S" and I thought the "S" stood for SAUERKRAUT. SO THE COIN IS IN THE SAUERKRAUT.
but it's really where it was minted and had nothing to do with the solution.

I solved it too but the only rason I did was cuz it mentioned the kid was eating his hot dog really slowly so I figured he was trying not to eat the coin.

omg that parody is fantastic

I liked the Encyclopedia Brown Record Books.

The case I remember involved petticoats and toreador pants.

RIP Donald Sobol

Aw, RIP. I loved those books so much when I was young.

Me too! Bummer ;_;

what about Jupiter Jones

I like this rare interview with Sobol where he admits that Sally was based on Cathy Gale/Emma Peel from The Avengers: http://oberlin.edu/alummag/fall2011/features/sobol.html

Encyclopedia saw what was wrong - the word "Palestine."
"Palestine" is the old name for Israel. If William Matson was going there, he would have written Israel.
So Encyclopedia knew the list was not what it seemed at first glance - names of foreign places.
He told his father that Matson had flown to Texas.
And that is where police arrested him - in a motel in Palestine, Texas.
Encyclopedia remembered that Moscow, Odessa, London, Paris, Athens, and Palestine are names of towns in Texas!

Occupied West Bank, TX

"Two Minute Mysteries" were some of my favorite books as a kid. I reread them so many times that I memorized all the far-fetched solutions. But I've tried sharing the love with both my kids, to no avail.

ahahaha i remember that one

also o_O is that Encyclopedia's real name is Leroy, so apparently he's also the baddest man in the whole damn town.