Goodbye Encyclopedia Brown

Yesterday we lost several luminaries who played significant roles in our culture, in vastly different ways. Stephen R. Covey literally wrote the book that changed the world; his "Seven Habits of Highly Successful People" is still the platinum standard for contemporary self-help books. Kitty Wells was indeed the trailblazing country singer her New York Times obituary touted her to be. Jon Lord's baroque keyboard added a unique dimension to heavy metal; I loved reading about why he decided to run his Hammond B-3 directly through a Marshall amp: “Lovely a sound as it was, it wasn’t quite giving me what I wanted. I could hear another sound in my head — something harder, something more throaty. You tap straight in and put it through a straight speaker, and you get a beast.” And Celeste Holm's indelible performance in "All About Eve" revealed the conscience in her character that the film's antagonist sorely lacked.But as much as each of these people made an impact on my life, to different degrees, it is Donald J. Sobol who made the greatest one. More than any other literary series (with the possible exception of Beverly Cleary's "Henry Huggins" books), Sobol's "Encyclopedia Brown" showed me how magical stories could be when they directly involved the reader. It was a source of pride to be able to figure out the mysteries along with that 10-year-old sleuth, and the books' interactive narratives surely influenced my own writing and teaching style. I learned that it's more fun to experience something, and you get more out of it, when you're personally invested in it.The bad news is that Mr. Sobol is no longer with us. The good news is that his works will live on for many years. I'm going to get some of those books now, though I'm confident it will still be a challenge to solve the delightful puzzles that Encyclopedia masterfully figured out on his own.