ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN CRACKS THE CASE

Having kept Idaville crime free “for more than a year”—more like 44 years, to be precise—the still-ten-year-old Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown takes on ten more scams, misdemeanors and outright felonies. Whether dealing with the theft of various precious items (including an autographed baseball from a case that is, literally, cracked) or the efforts of high-school dropout Wilford Wiggins and ne’er-do-well bully Bugs Meany to cheat local children out of their hard-earned savings, the precocious preteen unfailingly delivers the revealing question or significant fact that forces a confession. Only readers well enough informed to know how the author of Alice in Wonderland spelled his pseudonym, or attentive enough to spot the tiny slip in a suspect’s story, will keep up—all others can look to the answers in the back. That’s a formula that still works after more than a generation. (art not seen) (Fiction. 8-10)