I'm asking a lot of you today, I know ("See this movie! Watch this clip! Put up with my typos and incoherent ramblings!"), but so long as I'm in a beggy mood, might I also request that you check out Shelf Discovery? It's a collection of essays about the classic young adult novels many of you read as a kid, by Awl pal Lizzie Skurnick-one of my first blogging buddies! Maybe you've seen some of the "Fine Lines" columns on Jezebel which launched the collection? The books in question will probably be more familiar to women than men, but Lizzie is a remarkably compelling writer, so guys shouldn't shy away immediately. Also, while we're (vaguely) on the subject, did anyone else love The Great Brain series when they were growing up? I remember devouring those books. But that was before I knew that Mormons were bad. Anyway, Shelf Discovery: Buy it!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
8
My favorite books growing up were the NAMBLA series, weekends with my father. What great reads!
Holy crap, those Great Brain books were the shit. Though weren't the protagonist's family like the only non-Mormons in the town or something? I'm realizing now that I can remember almost none of the actual content of the books, just loving them to death. (Is there a teacher who viciously beats his students, only to later get his comeuppance in a way so harrowing that you feel sorry for him? Or is that something else?)
I just bought the first Great Brain book in a used bookshop to remind myself what they were all about. I can confirm that the Great Brain and his little brother are Protestants, some of the few non-Mormons. Remember, the Great Brain gets sent away to a Jesuit school.
I was talking about this the other night. My favorite part of the series were the two books in the middle, the first where it's just the Great Brain at school by himself and the other where it's the younger brother at home by himself. It was such a neat thing to do in a series.
Oh man, what was it about those books? I remember them so well--one brother winning the other's belt, how when one got chicken pox they all had to get infected, how embarrassed the narrator is when the family gets an indoor toilet. Or is that something else? I wonder if it's something about the sibling relationship--the mix of injustice and companionship--that made them so compelling at the time.
Oh yeah, I loved the Great Brain books, especially Me and My Little Brain where the little brother tries to copy his brother's machinations and it always turns out kinda pitiful.
And here I thought I was the only one who read the Great Brain!
Not only are the Great Brain books great, they are also kind of about how scary Mormons are!