Encyclopedia Brown Saves the Day!



cbc.ca

Sorry folks.  More death news, this time on the literary front.  You may not have heard of author Donald Sobol.  If you aren't in a certain age range, his books may not even be familiar to you.  Sobol wrote "Encyclopedia Brown", a popular kids' detective series made popular during the 1960's and 1970's.  He died recently in Miami of natural causes.

I remember reading them in my pre-teen years.  Each one was a baffling mystery to be solved by the reader.  I loved how gender neutral the characters and plots were, even though the key person was a boy, Leroy "Encyclopedia Brown.  That's probably because he had an assistant, a plucky girl named Sally Kimball.

Sobol also wrote the "Two-Minute Mysteries" based on his long running syndicated column.

We talk about the amazing J.K. Rowling and her ability get kids reading again.  I think that she had a lot of help from predecessors such as Sobol, who despite dozens of rejections, kept persevering until Encyclopedia Brown became a household name, just like Harry Potter.

I actually wouldn't mind reading them all again.

Carol