Rating: 
Summary: An absolutely seminal work for children.
Review: 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 read and 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.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite books from my youth!
Review: The 3 published Mad Scientists books are my most favorite books from my youth. I read each several times. Since becoming a father and wanting to share these outstanding stories with my kids, I searched high & low for these books. I finally stumbled upon the newly re-issued Mad Scientist Club book from Purple House Press while browsing the Tattered Cover book store in Denver.
To answer the below question from Scott who asked about a movie version of the books--the Wonderful World of Disney, a Sunday night series, did a TV version of the Strange Sea Monster of Stawberry Lake. I belive the Disney version was called the Monster of Strawberry Cove.
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