The Great Brain


The Great Brain is a series of children's books by American author John Dennis Fitzgerald. Set in the small town of Adenville, Utah, between 1896 and 1898, the stories are loosely based on Fitzgerald's childhood experiences. Chronicled by the first-person voice of John Dennis Fitzgerald, the stories mainly center on the escapades of John's mischievous older brother, Tom Dennis Fitzgerald, a.k.a. "The Great Brain". The Great Brain was made into a movie released in 1978, with the main character played by Jimmy Osmond.
Mercer Mayer originally illustrated the books, except for 1995's The Great Brain Is Back. Mayer did the original cover illustrations for the first seven books as well, but Carl Cassler re-did the cover illustrations for some of the reprints of the first seven books.

Background

Although John D. Fitzgerald was born in Price, Utah, several references in the stories suggest Adenville is located in Utah's "Dixie" in the southwestern corner of the state. A small village called Adenville briefly existed near Cedar City, about which little is known.
The publisher's note in The Great Brain Is Back, published after the death of the author, recounts the story of the series' origin. Fitzgerald had written two novels for adults, Papa Married a Mormon and Mama's Boarding House, published in 1955 and 1958 and set in Adenville, Utah, at the end of the 19th century. A third book was requested by the editor, E. L. Doctorow, but he changed jobs before the manuscript was completed. Fitzgerald submitted the new novel, which focused on the children of Adenville, to Doctorow at The Dial Press but by then family stories were out of favor with adult readers. The new editor for children's books offered to publish the novel if it were cut in half and eliminated some passages aimed at adults. The result was The Great Brain.

Series titles

Titles in order of chronological continuity are
  1. The Great Brain
  2. More Adventures of the Great Brain
  3. Me and My Little Brain
  4. The Great Brain at the Academy
  5. The Great Brain Reforms
  6. The Return of the Great Brain
  7. The Great Brain Does It Again
  8. ''The Great Brain Is Back''

    Main characters

Fitzgerald family

The Fitzgerald family members include:
  • John Dennis "J.D." Fitzgerald - the narrator of the series, and youngest of the three brothers.
  • Thomas "Tom" Dennis "T.D." Fitzgerald Jr. - the mischievous middle brother and swindler extraordinaire. His nickname is "The Great Brain", and his escapades form the basis for the series. Throughout the series, Tom demonstrates that he possesses great intelligence and a money-loving heart, but at times, he also demonstrates great humanity and generosity.
  • Sweyn Dennis "S.D." Fitzgerald - the eldest brother; who is more skilled than J.D. at catching Tom in the act. He and Tom attend Catholic boarding school together. After graduating from that, Sweyn departs for Pennsylvania to live with relatives, where he attends a high school that was also his father's alma mater. He and Tom are two years apart, but Tom was allowed to skip the fifth grade. As a result, Sweyn and Tom attend the Catholic Academy together.
  • Frankie Pennyworth - An unconscious boy rescued by Uncle Mark after a rock slide kills his brother and parents. When he first arrives, he has a mental block stemming from this trauma, in which he lashes out violently at the Fitzgeralds. John reflects that his name should be "Frankenstein Dollarworth", because, he says, Frankie is "a monster and a dollar's worth of trouble", and a battle of wills ensues when John is promised a large sum of money to try to cure Frankie's mental block, but only if Frankie does not need to be taken to a doctor in Salt Lake City. Frankie eventually becomes much better behaved and is adopted into the Fitzgerald family.
  • Thomas Dennis Fitzgerald Sr. - patriarch of the family. Owner, editor, and publisher of the town paper, the "Adenville Weekly Advocate". He is an Irish Catholic originally from the eastern United States who headed west to seek his fortune as a newspaper writer and publisher. He is one of Adenville's leading citizens, and highly respected amongst the residents as he is the only citizen of Adenville to hold a university diploma.
  • Tena "Mamma" Fitzgerald - The matriarch of the family and homemaker, of Danish-Scandinavian ancestry. Her father was named Sweyn, which she named her first son in his honor.
  • Aunt Bertha - A Methodist widow who lives with the Fitzgeralds, not actually a blood relative but still called "aunt" because she has been considered a part of their family. John explains that after Bertha's husband died, his parents took her in as she had no children, social network, or living relatives.
  • Uncle Mark - The town marshal, who is the uncle of John and the one who discovered the landslide that killed the Pennyworth family and rescued an unconscious Frankie.
  • Aunt Cathie - Mark's wife and Papa's sister, who considers adopting Frankie because she and Mark are childless on account of an earlier miscarriage. When Frankie says he wants to live with the Fitzgeralds instead, she accepts it considering that she will still be his aunt, and she and Mark go to an orphanage in Salt Lake City to adopt a daughter and son.
All the Fitzgerald men have the middle name of Dennis, a reminder of the "Fitzgerald Curse". The protagonist says that two centuries before he was born, Dennis Fitzgerald betrayed six of his cousins to English soldiers during a tax revolt in County Meath. His father decreed that all male Fitzgeralds should have the middle name of Dennis to be reminded of his son's treachery. It is a theme with the protagonist's parents, with the mother calling him and his brothers by the middle name of "Dennis" when she is cross with them and the father casually referring to them by their first two initials S.D, T.D. and J.D. The author's actual family is different: He had had an older sister, Belle Empey. His two elder brothers were named William and Tom, and he had two younger brothers, Gerald and Charles. There was no record of his parents adopting children.

Other characters

  • Andy Anderson, a boy who loses his lower left leg to infection after stepping on a rusty nail in an abandoned barn. Later he falls into severe depression over this and even considers suicide, until Tom convinces Andy he can still do chores and play.
  • Parley Benson, son of a bounty hunter and the envy of most of the other boys. He possesses his own coonskin cap, a Bowie knife, and his own repeating air rifle. Tom wins Parley's air rifle in a bet about whether Tom can magnetize wood. After reading about boomerangs in an encyclopedia and seeing an illustration of one in a dictionary, Tom fashions a boomerang from a stick, and after throwing it, holds up a magnet to make it appear the magnet is bringing it back. Losing his air rifle earns Parley the "worst whipping of his life" from his father. Another story has Tom betting who is braver by having both boys break curfew and meet at the entrance to the forbidden Skeleton Cave.
  • Dotty Blake, also known as "Britches Dotty", a "tomboy" whom Tom teaches to read and write, and who is given dresses and taught to act like a conventional girl by Tom's mother. Dotty beats up Sammy Leeds when he teases her.
  • Danny Forester, son of the town's barber. Danny's left eye always seems half-shut, except when he gets excited. Tom swindles Danny out of a quality baseball glove by betting on hypnotism, which earns Danny a whipping from his father.
  • Abie Glassman, a Jewish itinerant salesman who winds up settling in Adenville and opening a variety store. His business is shunned by the local community due to prejudicial notions that he is a miser hoarding gold, whereas Abie himself refuses to seek charitable aid from others due to his personal pride. Unable to support himself, he eventually dies of starvation.
  • Jimmy Gruber, a diabetic boy who dies in childhood, after his father steals Frankie's rocking horse as a present before Jimmy dies. When Frankie realizes the gravity of diabetes, he allows the Grubers to keep his expensive swing horse.
  • Eddie Huddle, Frankie's best friend and son of the town blacksmith.
  • Frank and Allan Jensen, who are children of Scandinavian immigrants. Due to being unfamiliar with Adenville, they get lost with their dog Lady, whereas John recalls that "before any native boy and girl in Adenville was allowed to go outside unsupervised, they had to swear on the Bible to stay away from Skeleton Cave". Their disappearance mobilizes the entire town into action to search the mammoth cave. Tom rescues the boys using his 'great brain'.
  • Howard Kay, one of John's best friends, who has "a round face like a pumpkin". In the first book, John, wanting to get the mumps before Tom and Sweyn and expose them, sneaks into Howard's bedroom when he is quarantined with mumps and begs him to breathe on him, which Howard does. Later, Howard was reluctant to ride on Tom's raft Explorer when the river had turned muddy, which was a sign of a looming flood. However, Tom pressured Howard by calling him "yellow bellied" if he backed out. The subsequent flooding becomes a disastrous ride, nearly killing Howard. When John sees Uncle Mark and Parley Benson's father attempting to revive Howard by feeding him whiskey, this sends John into shock, and he faints.
  • Vasillios "Basil" Kokovinis, a Greek boy who recently immigrated to America. His father, George Kokovinis, runs the Palace Cafe in Adenville and speaks good English having come to America five years before his wife and son. Upon his arrival in Adenville he has difficulty assimilating, until Tom takes the initiative to show Basil the ropes of being a bona fide American kid.
  • Sammy Leeds, who is something of a bully. His father is bigoted and incites him to harass Basil, a newly arrived Greek immigrant, but is given his comeuppance when Tom encourages a lumberjack-style fight and Basil bests Sammy in wrestling, which the Greeks have excelled at.
  • Jimmie Peterson, another of John's best friends, whose mother owns the local boarding house. Along with Danny Forester, Jimmie is swindled out of a baseball when Tom bets him, causing his mother to "give him a horsewhipping". He is almost killed along with Howard Kay and Tom on Tom's river raft the "Explorer" when a flood strikes. This incites anger in John as Tom put his friends' lives in danger for a fast buck.
  • Polly Reagan, who becomes Tom's girlfriend when he turns 13. She has a "great brain" as well, having tied Tom in the town spelling bee. John resents her dating Tom, as she has taken all of Tom's attention to the detriment of playing with John and his friends.
  • Seth Smith, a local Mormon boy close to Tom's age. He is friends with both Tom and John as he is too young to be included with the bigger kids. Seth's father owned a vacant lot, which he allowed the kids to use in exchange for keeping it free of weeds and litter. As there are no baseball diamonds or playgrounds in Adenville, this is the usual site where the kids play baseball, scrub football, or other games such as run sheep run. John was given a pig by Seth in exchange for a sought-after toy, only for John's mother to screech she will not have any pig breeding on the Fitzgerald land.
  • Herbie Sties, a fat poet whom Tom sets out to reform out of his eating habits.
  • Harold Vickers, son of the district attorney. Harold is 16, making him older than the other kids. He knows a great deal about the law and plans to become a lawyer when he is older. He is chosen by John to act as the judge at a trial for Tom set in the Fitzgerald barn. During the trial, Tom is charged with being a confidence man, swindler, and a crook by all of the kids in Adenville who were victims of Tom and his Great Brain. As this trial occurred soon after the disastrous river rafting, Tom is also accused of being negligent toward Jimmie Peterson and Howard Kay.
  • Marie Vinson, daughter of the Vinsons, a prominent family in Adenville. Sweyn has a crush on Marie, much to John and Tom's chagrin. John refers to her as "that stuck-up Marie Vinson". Sweyn later returns home from high school wearing fancy Eastern clothing which he shows off to Marie, causing further mortification for John and Tom.