Thinking about nostalgia for childhood books, but also the need to move forward, does anyone else remember the "Great Brain" series? I remember loving them as a kid. I was going to write a column recommending them to today's reader, but then I read one and decided better.
For one, the book has outright anti-Mormon sentiment that reads like bigotry to me. The author, John D. Fitzgerald moved to Utah and lived as a non-Mormon among Mormons, and had some resentments, but it's not a sentiment I can stand behind.
Many of the problem in the Great Brain are also settled by actual fighting where "haymakers" are thrown, and it's pleasurable to see the bad guys get their comeuppance, like when Jack Reacher takes care of business, but these are kids books.
That fighting is the chief way to settle problems isn't a message I'd want to promote to children, so you know, just better not to substitute my nostalgic memory of enjoying the books as a kid for the reality of what I know and think this stuff means today.
Everything's a judgment call, and the best you can do is make a judgment consistent with your values. Recommending the Great Brain doesn't fit with me anymore. Other people feel differently, which is as it should be.
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