“In addition to his formidable intellect, [boy
detective Leroy “Encyclopedia”] Brown possesses three features common to nearly
all respectable literary detectives: a private code of conduct, a nemesis, and
a sidekick. The code of conduct is a kind of one-man omerta: ‘He seldom spoke to anyone, not even his parents, about the
help he gave to others. And he never spoke about the help he gave grownups.’
The nemesis is Bugs Meany, Idaville’s thug-in-chief and ringleader of a gang
called The Tigers. (Bugs Meany: has there ever been a better bad-guy name? The
Genovese clan meets the playground; the villain meets, eponymously, the
villainy.) The sidekick is the tomboyish Sally Kimball, who was, unusually for
the era — for any era — the heavy of the operation. (‘She was the only one, boy
or girl, under twelve who could punch out Bugs Meany.’)”— Kathryn
Schulz, “Case History: Donald J. Sobol and the Gateway Mysteries of Encyclopedia Brown,” New York Magazine, July 30, 2012
There are far newer, glossier covers for later
entries in this series, with photographs of the hero. But memory freezes
everything at a point in time, and the image accompanying this post is how I
always remember encountering “Encyclopedia Brown” about 50 years ago, on a
corner shelf in the fifth grade of my parochial school. I only distinctly
recall picking up the first book in the series, Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective,
but that one encounter made its mark on me.
It wasn’t long, after whizzing through the
two-minute mysteries of Encyclopedia Brown, that I was graduating to Sherlock
Holmes, Jacques Futrelle’s The Thinking Machine, Father Brown, Miss Marple, Lt.
Columbo, and, more recently, Adrian Monk and D.C.I. Banks.
I was hardly alone in this progression—a fact
recognized by The Mystery Writers of America, who, grasping how Donald J. Sobol had prepared young
readers for their genre—and, more specifically, for them—presented him with its prestigious Edgar Award for the best in
mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film, and theater published or produced
in the previous year..
Even more remarkably, Sobol kept at it for nearly 50
years, with the last in the series, Encyclopedia
Brown and the Case of the Soccer Scheme, appearing in 2012, three months
after his death. That meant, effectively, that two and a half generations of
readers came to see that learning about things could be fun, and that no
stereotype should interfere with using one’s intellect. (That’s right—sometimes
Sally got to solve crimes, too.)
In a sense, Encyclopedia Brown also prepared me for
my career in research and even this blog. Whether reading stories as a
youngster or familiarizing myself with a new subject, I’ve learned that the
same combination applies: endless curiosity and dogged, even obsessive, pursuit
of clues.
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