Rating: 
Summary: I loved it.
Review: I remember, as a kid, how engrossed I got when reading a Great Brain book. I would practically read it from front to back without putting it down.Now that I have boys of my own, I want them to experience the same thrills I did when I read the Great Brain books. I am stationed in the Army in Germany and it is hard to get books of this type over here and am absolutely ecstatic that I was able to find them here. My children haven't, yet, been ones to curl up on the couch and read books, but I feel if I can get my hands on some Great Brain books, that will change. Thank You. Jonathan P. Oyen
Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: The Great Brain is a wonderful book. I remember my mom tried to get me to read them. I'm glad she did.
Rating:
Summary: Fun-filled reading!
Review: All the Great Brain books are absolutely wonderful! The trouble the Great Brain gets himself into and out of is pure genius. I strongly encourage kids of all ages to read the whole series. You won't be sorry!!!
Rating:
Summary: Highest praise - these are great for "kids" of whatever age
Review: While I grew up in a family of three brothers, somehow our adventures were never quite as exciting as the scrapes that T.D., J.D., and (less often) S.D. continually found themselves in. I can remember many wonderful days and evenings reading along with our dad through this book and all of its successors (The Great Brain Returns, Me and My Little Brain, etc.) and then many happy returns to the series by myself as I got older. I think it's testament to how wonderful the books are that even 15 and 20 years after reading them I still remember the characters and plots as well as I do, and I remember them as top-notch. Said memories include: engaging, sympathetic characters, great adventures both in and out of town as the Great Brain plots to outwit bullies, authority figures, and nature all in pursuit of glory and profits, all told from the perspective of his admiring younger brother J.D., who provides not only the Watson-like character to T.D.'s Holmes, but also a strong moral compass and corrective to some of T.D. excesses. I think the highest accolade I can give (and this series certainly deserves it) is that I will be reading these books with my own children if I am lucky enough to have them someday, and I recommend them to anyone looking for great stories of childhood, family, and the struggles and joys contained therein. Well done, Mr. Fitzgerald. My only regret is that I can't seem to find a boxed set of the entire collection.
Rating: 
Summary: Do you really want your child to admire "The Great Brain?"
Review: Although the writer's style is easy to understand , and holds the audience's attention, the underlying message theme is one that says, "If you can outwit others due to your mental prowess, then anything that you can get away with is okay [and others should admire you for it]." Parents need to contemplatively examine the works that their children read, and ensure that the underlying values that the author conveys are the values that you want to impress your children with.
Rating:
Summary: A classic book and series
Review: Having run into this series for a class assignment in junior high I instantly fell in love with the writing style of the author John D.Fitgerald. The stories told in the series of Great Brain books helped spur my imagination during my youth. The characters are endearing and you'll feel that your right there along with the rest of the the gang during their adventures and misadventures. You or your children will read these books again and again.
Rating:
Summary: A great series of books
Review: I read this series over and over as a child and young teenager. They may have been written for boys, but they certainly appealed to me. I am glad to see that they are still in print, and recommend them to all kids (or parents who are looking for books for kids). Not only did I learn a lot about life in the early 1900s in a place much different from where I grew up, but I could also associate with being the younger sibling with a "genius" older brother! The books are hard to find in bookstores, so order them here! Melissa Lenihan
Rating:
Summary: You can't get any better than this.
Review: The books in this series were easily the best I ever read
during my childhood. They taught me the value of careful
consideration and planning to solve problems. Just reading
the synopsis makes me wish I were still a child reading them
for the first time.
Rating:
Summary: Not to be missed
Review: To my knowledge, John Dennis Fitzgerald never won any of the prestigious children's book awards or accolades for this book or any of the others in the series, but it is my opinion as an avid reader from childhood that these books constitute some of the best available children's literature. Fitzgerald was in his sixties when he started this series, but he clearly never lost touch with his childhood self and all of these books are brilliantly written so that J.d. and his big brother seem like kids you know, even though they lived in a small Utah town at the turn of the century. These books have it all: an interesting historical setting; believable characters that develop as the series progresses; plenty of humor, of both the laugh-out-loud and subtler varieties; tenderness and pathos; and even a few good scares.
I picked up a copy of More adventures of the Great Brain, the second in the series, at a book fair in elementary school. (It isn't strictly necessary to read the books in order, though of course it's nice.) I was the most avid reader in my family, though the youngest, and for some reason one summer day when we were bored I started reading the book aloud to my older sister and my uncle, who was only five years older than me (I was nine or ten at the time.) Pretty soon, all three of us were devouring the rest of the series, swapping them among ourselves. I can't be sure, but I think the books may have started my sister's love of reading, though my uncle had always been a reader and had turned me on to the Lord of the Rings. At any rate, these were favorites for years.
Parents, please, please don't be put off by the fact that these books are about a mischievous boy with a penchant for swindling his pals out of their prized possessions. I have not raised children myself, but from my own reading I think children's books that don't have an element of mischief and rebellion in them or quite dull, and as a kid I hated nothing worse than to read a book where I felt like I was being preached to. T.d. gets into plenty of trouble, but his conscience develops as the books progress and he learns that his great brain can be used to help others as well as to cheat them. Unlike some other kids' books where the grownups are simply the bad guys, the adults in these stories are firm but supportive, strict but loving. Despite their tendency to disobey, T.D. and his brothers love and admire their parents and their beloved Uncle Mark, the town's marshall and deputy sheriff who is portrayed as both heroic and down to earth. J.D. says at one point that he really likes his uncle because "he never talked down to Tom and me, but treated us just like grownups," and like his fictional uncle (who may have been based on a real person) Fitzgerald never makes the mistake of condescending to his readers. The tragic story of Abie Glassman in this first volume isn't the last time readers will encounter hard truths in these stories, but Fitzgerald writes about the ups and downs of life in a way that kids will find delightful to digest. The author also lets kids know that grownups screw up, too, and that we all have to learn from each other.
The Great Brain series, as a whole, has the very best of a Wild West adventure, one of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer stories, and the best coming-of-age fiction. There are a few old-fashioned notions here that might not go down well with the PC crowd, like the episode in the second book in which the Fitzgerald family takes on the task of trying to get a tomboy to act more feminine, but none of this should keep you from reading these great stories or giving them to your kids. Despite J.D.'s quip in the first chapter of this book about there being noone more tolerant or understanding of your differences than a kid you can whip in a fight, these books are all about tolerance and treating your fellow man with decency and fairness and love. I am glad these books are still in print and I sincerely hope a whole new generation discovers them, as it would be nothing short of tragic for them to be lost in the dustbin of forgotten kids' lit. Buy them, read them, and pass them on.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it as a child
Review: These stories made me feel warm inside and out even though my mom never read them to me, I liked them. Even though I haven't read all of them I enjoy the ones I have read and it's so fun because I get into some bad scrapes but man these kids make some of my pathetic scrapes look alright and I could relate to them if they were real. I could understand them and I can sometimes almost feel like I am right there in the given situation but not alone, just with a very special someone.
|
