70 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Finest Science-Based Stories For Boys Ever Written, February 4, 2006
There have been plenty of science-based children's stories written over the years, but Bertrand R. Brinley's Mad Scientists' Club stories are something special. A combination of excellent true-to-life writing, simple yet sound science (with a single exception), and a gently wicked sense of fun have produced a marvelous collection of stories that seem as clever and fresh as when they came out more than forty years ago. The secret? The fact that the Mad Scientists of Mammoth Falls use science not for building great inventions or solving great mysteries, but primarily for playing clever pranks on the well deserving.
In "The Strange Sea Monster of Strawberry Lake", Dinky Poore makes up a story about seeing a sea monster in order to explain being late for dinner. His fellow club members decide to build a sea monster. Hi-jinks ensue.
In "Night Rescue" the boys make clever use of simple scientific principles in order to rescue a downed Air Force pilot.
In "The Unidentified Flying Man of Mammoth Falls" the boys liven up Mammoth Falls' Founder's Day celebration with a flying man.
In "The Big Egg" the boys try to hatch a fossil dinosaur egg. (!) It gets an A for story and an F for science.
In "The Secret of the Old Cannon" the boys use a combination of cutting edge science (for 1963) and simple basics to solve an unsolved bank robbery (and embarrass a couple of sneaks trying to take credit for their work).
In "The Great Gas Bag Race" the boys come up with a truly brilliant concept for winning a balloon race.
In "The Voice in the Chimney" the boys hilariously haunt a house.
I find it difficult to put into words just how much fun these stories are. I enjoyed them as a boy; I enjoyed them as a man; I'll read them to my children; and I'm sure that they will pass them on to their children. Mr. Brinley wrote three more books about the Mad Scientists' Club:
The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club,
The Big Kerplop!: The Original Adventure of the Mad Scientists' Club, and
The Big Chunk of Ice: The Last Known Adventure of the Mad Scientists' Club, all of them great, but this, the first one is IMHO the best.
Note: the Purple House 40th anniversary reprint of
The Mad Scientists' Club is worth picking up even if you own an older edition because the text is based on the original manuscripts, restoring a number of passages that had been cut for space reasons when they were first published in Boys' Life. It also includes an introduction written by Bertrand's son Sheridan and a chronological listing of the stories so you can read them in the order they were written (the order of the stories in the book was not changed). Reading them chronologically clears up some confusion over places, geographical references, and characters, though according to internal references "The Big Egg" takes place before "The Secret of the Old Cannon".
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An absolutely seminal work for children...and adults., March 20, 2000
By A Customer
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.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brains Can Be Cool!, September 10, 2005
Like many of the other reviewers of this book, I read it repeatedly as a boy. I identified with the characters. I loved the way they used their intelligence and knowledge of science to get themselves in and out of mischief, and sometimes to help people. And let's not forget to mention Brinley's easy reading style and Geer's terrific illustrations. But one lesson I took away from this book (and its sequel) was that it was perfectly fine to be a skinny geek who was interested in science. These guys solved all kinds of real life problems without the benefit of brawn, large amounts of money, or even magic (a la Harry Potter).
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