literature

I sincerely believe that The Mad Scientists' Club was the reason I started reading voraciously as a kid and that the trend has continued into my adulthood. A series of stories first published in the popular 60's magazine Boys' Life, the words practically leap off the page with thier exuberance and brilliant ingenuity. The club is comprised of six 'junior geniuses', with our narrator as one. Each is given a distinct personality, and by the end we know (and in the case of former club-member and now sworn arch-enemy Harmon Muldoon, despise) each one of them like they were old friends. I still have my copy, completely tattered though it is, because I've re-read it at least 100 times. Even now as I write this review, I have to be careful not to start reading for fear of being swept up in the fun.

And each tangled situation our boys find themselves in (or in fact, help to create) is more outrageously inventive than the last. The real kicker is how authour Bernard Brinley keeps the prose totally accessible to youth but throws in enough engaging characters, thrilling action sequences and hilarious dialogue to entertain even adults sick of reading thier kids sugary-sweet Disneyized junk. He even sneakily gave me an education in basic mechanics by expertly describing the various machinery the boys build to wreak their harmless havoc on the citizens of little Mammoth Falls.

And I see here on Amazon.com that Brinley has continued the series with other books. If he brings even 10 percent of the sheer brilliance he displays in the first one, no adult should have a problem inducting thier children into this club.

I remember reading The Mad Scientists' Club for the first time when I was only about eight years old. I must have read and re-read that book from cover to cover over a dozen times since. It is a collection of stories about the escapades of six boys in the town of Mammoth Falls who use their wits and scientific knowledge to get in (and out) of all kinds of fun mischief, including "haunting" a house, creating a lake monster, and entering a hot air balloon race. Essentially, these six young men dive head-first into all the kinds of adventures that I longed to have as a young man. Brinley's book influenced my own adventures and ideas as I grew up, and my own stories and writings have been heavily influenced by the memories I have of this book. If you ever get a chance to read this book - DO IT!!! You will discover the adventures you always wanted to have become real in The Mad Scientists' Club.

I ordered this book through Scholastic when I was in grade school back in the 70's. I always kept my copy, and I've handed it down to my son. I ordered another for my daughter and then purchased all three books for both of my kids. I highly recommend this book and the others by Mr. Brinley. You won't be disappointed.