Encyclopedia Brown

 The great author Donald J. Sobol passed away last week and that made me a bit sad because he was my favorite author during my grade school years.  I loved reading Encyclopedia Brown books and one year I had one of those read-o-thon things and I read enough books to get a free banana split.  That was the best banana split ever (because I had to read to get it).

 That was about my extent for the love of books.  I now read books that you would refer to as "magazines."  These so called "magazines" leave out all the bla bla bla boring stuff and give me what my A.D.D. brain needs and none of the fluff.  One time when I was seriously sick as a kid with watery farting diarrhea my mom read my Encyclopedia Brown books to me and I would try to solve the cases.  That is about the time my mother realized I would never be a private detective or any sort of detective.  Not a once did I solve the case like Brown did and going back a few years ago I read one of the books and uh pretty simple stuff to figure out, don't know why I could never do it as a kid.

When my son was younger I wanted to share the books I read as a child to give him a feel for what it was like for me.  My wife did this with him for all the books she read as a child and he loved them all so I was pretty pumped that Encyclopedia Brown was going to be a big hit and I could go out and buy the entire collection for him to read.  Then just after reading one book he said to me, uh that book was boring and I realized at that moment it took a special kind of kid to appreciate the good books of Encyclopedia Brown.  Now with Donald J. Sobol passing away it seems like I am getting further and further from being a kid any more.  One day I am going to have to be responsible and take care of a family (wait I am already grown up with a family?).  Until then I will  stick to reading my fancy books called "magazines."  I still remember writing my first book report on Ramona Quimby age 8 which was apart of another great series of good old books.  They need to write books like these again instead of all the ones with kids and their adult issues.  Let kids be kids again and use their "imagination" again.