The Return of the Great Brain
No. 6 in The Great Brain series
by John D. Fitzgerald
illustrated by Mercer Mayer
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Bantam Doubleday Dell (New York): 1974. Trade paperback: 150 pages. ISBN-10: 0-440-45941-9 Suggested retail price: $4.50 (US) Tags: boys; frontier; magic tricks; murder; trains; Utah; Youth Tactical strength: [6/10] |
Compare prices on The Return of the Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald at Book Cost
Although Tom Fitzgerald has supposedly reformed, he continues to use his great brain to wheel and deal -- sometimes to solve a murder, other times to just fatten his pocketbook. To benefit the town, Tom's father gets the idea to erect a local academy for seventh and eighth grades. The entire community pitches in with donations of money and labor to erect the new building. With a local academy, Tom doesn't have to go to school in Salt Lake City. His older brother Sweyn leaves to stay with relatives in Pennsylvania to go to ninth grade, but Tom stays in Adenville.
In this volume, Tom uses his great brain to break a wild jackass, solve a combination train robbery and murder, puts on a magic show, tries to solve the problem of schoolmates falling for girls, and starts a wheel of fortune gambling game. Between the reward for solving the train robbery, the various bets, and his gambling income, Tom nets about $550 profit in just a couple months -- a huge amount for a boy in 1898.
In this volume, you get an interesting picture of growing up in a rural community. In one adventure, the boys play outlaw and posse. A group of boys mount up on their horses, ride to a limestone canyon about seven miles away, and one boy -- the outlaw -- gets a fifteen minute head start before the other boys -- the posse -- try to track down the outlaw within two hours. How many parents today would let their nine- to twelve-year-old boys take their bikes, ride seven miles away, and play unsupervised for several hours. I think Fitzgerald shows one main difference -- responsibility. His characters have morning and afternoon chores. The boys play after school but break up every evening without adult interference to do their chores. These boys have a sense of responsibility that appears missing from today's youth. Perhaps if my boy demonstrated that he would get his homework done every day without any reminders, I would trust him to take his bike for long, unsupervised trips.
