The Great Brain

4 sound discs (approximately 75 min. each) : 4 3/4 in.

Published Jan. 1, 2007 by Random House, Listening Library.

The Great Brain is Tom D. Fitzgerald, aged ten. The story is told by J.D., a sometimes confounded but always admiring younger brother. Such people as Mr. Standish, the mean schoolmaster, regret the day they came up against The Great Brain. But others, like the Jensen kids lost in Skeleton Cave, Basil the Greek kid, or Andy, who has lost his leg and his friends, know that Tom's great brain never fails to find a way home. - Back cover.

2 editions

Good book inappropriate for today's schools

I really liked The Great Brain. Feels like something I would hand loved in school.

A Catholic family, with very Lutheran names, living in a very Mormon town has various childhood experiences like getting the first indoor bathroom, a new immigrant moves to town, the Jewish peddler settles down and starts a shop, kids get lost in a cave, and they frame the new one-room-schoolhouse teacher for drinking on the job because he uses too much corprul punishment.

The Great Brain in the title refers to the he middle child always screming a way to make money.

It definitely feels like something they would not allow to be read in public schools now a days, between discussing faith, stereotypes and going through a number of ways for a kid to commit suicide I don't think it will make a required reading list.

Subjects

  • Juvenile fiction
  • Humorous stories
  • Humorous fiction
  • Cleverness in boys (Fictitious character)
  • Brothers and sisters(Fictitious character)
  • Schools
  • Fiction
  • Brothers