The Marvelous Adventures of Alvin Fernald

The Marvelous Adventures of Alvin Fernald by Clifford B. Hicks (1960). This book was one of my favorites when I was a little kid—the first of many Alvin Fernald books. It's about a precocious kid who is good at making inventions, including an automatic bed-maker, burglar alarm for his bedroom, and bike-mounted cannon for launching rolled up newspapers, for his paper route. He and his best friend and his little sister get caught up in a mystery involving an eccentric neighbor who lives in an allegedly haunted house. Overall, it's a fun book, though a little tedious at times, as are many books with know-it-all young boys who are annoyed by their little sisters. What I realized, the most nostalgic element of the book is the excellent illustrations by Charles Geer—these really messy, expressive, detailed line drawings. He illustrated several of my favorite books, including “The Mad Scientists' Club” books (which came out just a little later than this, and feature slightly advanced kid inventors). Charles Geer is the best. Another thing I really liked is how Alvin and his friend Shoie are always calling each other “old man,” and “old bean.” It's pretty charming. I just wrote something (fiction, not yet published) where a character starts referring to his friend as “old man, old sport,” etc., while under duress, and it really irritates the friend. I was thinking of Orson Welles, maybe in The Third Man, and now I'm wondering if that, or other Welles characters, were his influence here.