That sounds fun but very Roald Dahl-ian. Maybe those are more books for the kids to find and read on their own, than books to have read to them with a parent's blessing.
Surprised I never encountered those books. I read mostly books from previous generations as a kid. E. Nesbit, Freddy the Pig, Penrod, all the Oz books, even extremely dated books from the 70s, like the other books by the woman who wrote Freaky Friday. Also the Ramona books, Louis Sachar books and Gordon Korman books which were more up to date.
Written in the 1960s, and apparently quasi-autobiographical? Anyway, children were amoral back then. More so than today. Look at what they grew up into.
Also, if these kids couldn't find any way to kill someone on a farm they too were plumb useless.
3: I think they were written in the 60s, but about the time of the author's childhood, so more like the 30s? I read them and loved them as a kid, but I wasn't super clear on the precise historical moment. There might be more clues if I'd read them as an adult, but I never ran into them when my kids were little.
He wears a peg leg and can't do his chores anymore or play with other kids. The narrator, JD, finds Andy sobbing one day and Andy explains that he wants to die because he's plumb useless. JD agrees that he'd also want to die if he were plumb useless, and so he'll help Andy commit suicide since he's such a good friend.
"Alas!" said the pig, weeping bitterly. "I have always eaten the bread of idleness!"
So it was decided that the pig should be killed and eaten.
What is 1890s mothers love their children too?
Oh, those books. I remember the help-Andy-learn-to-run segment, and I think, the segment where the old man who was rumored to have a box of gold dies of starvation, and the Great Brain observes (more or less) that it was racism that killed him, because if he hadn't been Jewish his neighbors would have checked up on him.
1890s Utah, isn't it? Family is Mormon?
Family isn't Mormon, but is surrounded by them. They're Catholic, and it's an issue.
Family is Catholic, actually, but being Mormon comes up a lot (unsurprisingly). Abie Glassman is the itinerant Jew who settles in Adenville, based on JD's Dad's advice. That chapter is also pretty crazy. The mother is the one who really is forthright about her opinion that racism killed Abie.
It's a funny subtle racism that she points out: something like "We all liked Abie a lot, but none of us were worried about him when he started fainting. If he hadn't been Jewish, we would have worried and forced him to go to a doctor, even if he resisted."
In one of the later books, the Great Brain gets sent off to Catholic boarding school. I liked that one. There were forged keys and phony hypnotism.
Heebie, I could send you that Texas Monthly article on Steve Miller. Just to help fill the gap.
14: sure! I have out of town guests coming in today, so it'd be great to have a ready made post.
Set the guests on a horse, and run the rope to the post, because I'm such a good hostess.
13: Yeah! I think that was the one with the train trip and the illegal candy store? I remember that one being my favorite because it had fun misadventures, and some of the others were just too intense.
13: And an early demonstration of the newfangled Eastern sport of basketball, where the Great Brain wins a bet by, essentially, beating the spread by getting all the underclassmen to play keepaway since there's no shot clock. I loved those books.
I hadn't heard of them before this.
The Great Brain books, and the chapter about the amputee, struck such a chord with me. I don't remember the part about helping Andy die. But I do remember a bunch of other details. Like Andy's parents buying him an erector set they couldn't really afford so that other kids might play with him (that made me so sad as a kid, and still breaks my heart). And that the Great Brain's incentive to help Andy was that, if he could teach him to do chores, Andy'd give GB the erector set. But when it came time to pay up, GB refused. That meant a ton to me because the Great Brain was always portrayed as a kind cynical mercenary, but when it mattered he was actually a friend / caring person.
Honestly, if somebody is going to call themselves "Great", I think you are justified in not giving them the benefit of the doubt on their level of caring and friendship.
22: You hurt my feelings!
When I read those books as a kid, I thought JD was unreliable because his oldest brother had such an obviously fake name (Sweyn).
Wasn't one of the stories about GB not liking the new schoolteacher, so he plants empty bottles and breath mints in his hotel room to try to frame him as an alcoholic?
A few of those books are on the free shelf at my work (most of the free books are kids books) and this thread makes me want to reread them. I remember a lot fewer details than everyone else and for some reason that bothers me.
Also, doesn't the series end with GB losing interest in devising mischievous schemes because of his newfound interest in girls? (As if the two were mutually exclusive. . .)
13: I loved that one. I really hoped someone would try to send me to boarding school, just so they'd get what was coming.
Huh, I remember that episode with them failing to kill Andy because it was really some scheme to show how he was actually useful and that's why all the attempts fail. But maybe they were just incompetent.
The other scheme I remember is when JD wanted to get some communicable disease (mumps I think) before his brothers because the one who recovers first gets to mock the other two when they get sick, which they always do because mom intentionally infects them by having them sleep together.
Also that's not 7up, 7up is an indoor game you play when there's a sub or the teacher didn't do a lesson plan, you put your head down and thumb up and seven people walk around the room tapping people's thumbs and you have to guess who tapped you and if you guess you become a tapper.
I remember playing 7-up!
Also, on childhood games: I dimly recall some clapping games that were actually a bit nasty, in retrospect. "My mother punched your mother right in the nose/What colour was the blood?" This uttered in a sing-song tone by childish voices, which gave it a bit of a Children of the Corn vibe, no doubt.
And does anyone else remember that "I Declare War" game, where you would roughly sketch out a map of Europe (with chalk on pavement, or a stick in the dirt), and each player would represent a different country, and the object was basically to acquire more territory? I can't even remember the rules; I just remember the thrill of "I declare war on...[Germany/Switzerland/Italy/etc.]", and the mad dash to pick up the stick and yell "Halt!" Canada was never included in the map, though I only ever played this game in Canada.
In the early 20th century, particularly in the 1930s but also before, here was a massive bout of nostalgia for the late 19th century and very early 20th century. I'm not sure if The Great War had something to do with it or not, but it was a definite reaction to modernity and urbanization. Look at all the stories: Anne of Green Gables, The Great Brain, The Happy Years, the Betsy & Tacy books and so on. People, like Henry Ford, were building museums to remind people what life was like when you used horsepower to get around and lit your home with burning hydrocarbons.
Does anyone besides me remember the old Hal Roach movies about The Little Rascals? Even as a kid it seemed an alien world. Everyone lived on a farm in the 19th century, so they regarded animals differently. Farm kids were expected to work in some age appropriate capacity. It was before the big wave of immigration in the late 19th century, so foreigners were more exotic.
P.S. I remember the indoor version of 7 Up, but I also remember a lot of those challenge games where things get more and more complicated.
In the final level, you have to play with a full can instead of a ball.
I remember reading that book in the fourth grade. I recall it left me with an intense fear of rusty nails. Important life lesson learned!
People always on and on about the goddamn rust. It isn't the rust, it's the fucking bacteria in the dirt.
32.3 Sounds like a home made version of Diplomacy.
So, my strategy of stepping on shiny nails won't work unless I wash them first?
Every week, whether they need it or not.
Oh my gosh, I loved these books so much. I've given the first one to many a tween friend. I have a hard time reacting to your synopsis with anything other than a strong desire to go read them again.