My Top 25 "Favorite" Encyclopedia Brown Mysteries
After reading all 287 Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, I've come to the conclusion that nothing in this universe makes sense. I'm going to revisit my "favorite" stories in the series. I'm using the word "favorite" very loosely. Really, that word could be replaced with any or all of the following: craziest, most insane, nonsensical, wtf?, etc.
I hope you enjoy this list and feel free to let me know if I missed any of your "favorites."
25) The Case of the Glass of Ginger Ale – A guy prepared an insulated bag full of ginger ale ice cubes, thereby setting forth a complex plan where he would be able to cheat his blind friend out of a priceless violin.
24) The Case of the Silver Dollar – After a boy made disparaging remarks about an all-girls football team, the team's captain punched the boy and forced him into the woods where he was forced to strip. Thankfully, he escaped before we could see what she had been planned to do with him, but either way, one wouldn't expect to find a sexual assault in these kinds of stories.
23) The Case of the Jumping Frogs – We learn that a park in Idaville had a section in the park that is completely gated off where its patrons are literally locked in. We also learn that this was to protect the park patrons from a string of thefts, and that the perpetrator was actually a park employee; though when said employee actually hit, he only bothered to steal a single item.
22) The Case of the Lemonade Stand – After Encyclopedia was alerted that his friend had left earnings from her lemonade stand unattended, he went to collect the money to put it somewhere safe. Bugs Meany made it look like Encyclopedia was stealing the money, declaring that he caught Encyclopedia "red-handed." Encyclopedia argued semantics, since he was actually carrying the money the time Bugs uttered the term "red-handed," Bugs used the phrase incorrectly, therefore the accusation was supposedly rendered null and void, regardless of Encyclopedia's intent. It's unclear what would have happened if Bugs had used a more appropriate phrase, but I'm guessing Encyclopedia would have had a bullshit defense that the police would have bought.
21) The Case of the Missing Watchgoose – I enjoy this story because Encyclopedia ended up eating some of the pet goose he gad been hired to find. I think it should also be mentioned that some strangers in the woods offered Encyclopedia some food and he accepted. That's a great detail to include in a story for children.
20) The Case of the Astronaut Duck – A man gathered a bunch of children so that he could raise money for a space voyage where he and his pet duck will travel to other galaxies. Encyclopedia nor his friend (who had a great interest in space travel) didn't find question how fantastically impossible flying to another galaxy would be. Instead, Encyclopedia honed in on the fact that a duck cannot survive in zero gravity.
19) The Case of the Telephone Call – We learned that Encyclopedia's visiting cousin was fired from his job – thereby making him ineligible for a college scholarship – because his boss doesn't understand how time zones work. We're left to assume that this poor kid either no one in his life cares about him enough to ask him why he got fired, or that Encyclopedia is the only person in his life who does understand time zones. Either way, that's a sad existence.
18) The Case of the Blueberry Pies – A judge in a pie-eating contest didn't want contestants to get sick, so she changed to rules so that the children competing would have to run a half-mile after devouring two pies. This rules change heavily favored her twin sons, who were track stars. The sons ended up cheating by having one brother eat the pie and the other run in the race. Their mother didn't question why only one of her sons was present for the race, which leads me to believe that she, at the very least, knew about the plan to cheat.
17) The Case of the Litterbugs – When a typed threat – obviously sent from a child – was determined to have come from a recently purchased or repaired typewriter, the Idaville Police pretty much shit on the Fourth Amendment and search the home of every person in town who had recently purchased or repaired a typewriter to find its author.
16) The Case of the Stolen Coin – Two sisters went through great lengths to drug a dinner guest in order to steal a coin from him. While all of the other guests were observant enough to notice a small mark on the bridge of the victim's nose, no one was sharp enough to realize that the lights went out every time one of the sisters went into the kitchen, that the victim was drinking from a glass that had lipstick on the rim, or that said glass kept changing positions each time the lights went out.
15) The Case of the Broken Window – After apparently going through the entire house immediately after arriving, a party guest discovered a locked door. Since he was determined to to find out what was in that room, he went outside and scaled the house, unnoticed, in order to climb through the second-floor window. After all of that effort, he ended up stealing a single rare stamp and then returned to the party as if nothing had happened.
14) The Case of the Air Guitar – In what is possibly the dumbest contest ever dreamed up, contestants were to perform air guitar along with music (played on the piano, which of course, sounds nothing like a guitar). The contest didn't seem to measure style, just time-keeping ability. Each contestant was to perform for one minute. Points were deducted if the contestant stops playing at least ten seconds early. That's it. That's the entire contest. Why? Why would that contest exist?
13) The Case of the Missing Ring – Two thieves broke into a man's home, hit him over the head and ransacked the house in search of a ring. After being attacked, the victim hid the ring and left a note saying where the ring was being kept. Instead of writing the note by hand, he typed it out. Luckily, the robbers didn't stop to find out the source of the noise of someone using a typewriter. Although time was short, the victim left a pretty detailed note describing the men's actions. However, the injury caused problems with writing the note. He typed perfectly well except for the fact that he would type 'c' when he meant to type 'v' and vice versa. That seems like a pretty specific brain injury.
12) The Case of the Stolen Watch – Encyclopedia hatched a plan to recover a stolen watch. The plan hinged on the assumption that the watch was set to the wrong time, that the prime suspect – who was known for always being on time – would not only risk being seen in public with the hot item, but would depend on the watch as his primary timekeeping piece without even ensuring that it was set correctly and that this suspect would even show up to see someone he doesn't even like.
11) The Case of the Mysterious Handprints – A house guest stole a set of bookends from her host and went to great lengths to make it look like a wheelchair-bound man pulled off the crime by walking across the yard and through the house on his hands.
10) The Case of the Bound Camper – A group kidnapped a camper. Instead of leaving the scene undetected and making a clean getaway, one of the kidnappers stayed behind, posing as a victim left behind, in order to get help. The group was eventually caught because of this completely unnecessary part of the plan was carried out.
9) The Case of the Lucky Catch – A retired baseball hero invited a bunch of children over to his estate for a picnic. During the event, he reported that the baseball from his big game had been stolen. In reality, he reported it stolen in order to collect insurance money. He then made it look like one of his young guests was the thief.
8) The Case of the Mysterious Thief – When Encyclopedia was stumped over who attacked and robbed a restaurant employee in the ladies' room, Sally accused a couple that had been sitting in the corner. She  came to the conclusion that the couple must have been cross-dressing, because the woman – not the man – was sitting the with her back to the room, which goes against the rules of the etiquette. One of the many problems with that theory was that the couple had already left the restaurant minutes before the attack and no one had seen them return. But that didn't really seem to matter.
7) The Case of the Supermarket Shopper – When his friend announced that he was going to the supermarket, an art thief asked him to pick up four tubes of toothpaste for him; knowing that the extra items would make him unable to use the express lane and would lengthen his shopping trip by ten minutes or so. The man then used that extra time to break into his friends house to steal a centuries-old painting. Seriously though, the victim should have wondered why his friend needed him to pick up four tubes of toothpaste.Â
6) The Case of the Million Pesos – Encyclopedia's friend's uncle was being accused of a bank robbery in Mexico in which two men got away with one million pesos in one-peso bills. Encyclopedia "proved" his friend's uncle's accuser was lying because part of his claimed involved one of the robbers counting the money up in one afternoon. He pointed out that two men wouldn't have been able to count one million bills in a single afternoon, but completely ignored how impossible it would have been for two men to have carried one-million-peso bills out of the bank.
5) The Case of Shoeless Sam – The game of baseball was mired by a team that conspired to do anything – no matter how ridiculous – to keep a member of the rival team from breaking a home run record and by an umpire that seemed to make up his own rules as he went along.
4) The Case of Cupid's Arrow – Worried that a masked intruder was going to steal his prized diamond, a man tied the piece to an arrow and shot the arrow at a random spot out his window, away from the would-be thief. The police ignore the fact that the arrow came very close to killing a child and instead, used word play to get the intruder to accidentally confess.
3) The Case of the Two Spies – When Encyclopedia told his father that he thought he saw a man following another man into an old inn, the police chief explained that the man being followed was a suspected spy and the man doing the following was an FBI agent. He then told his son that it was all part of an undercover FBI investigation in which they suspected that the two spies were working together. His father then took his 10-year-old son to the inn, where we learn that the inn was swimming with FBI agents and local authorities. Despite all of the manpower, neither agency was able to pick up a shred of evidence that these two men were working together (which makes it unclear why the investigation had even continued to that point). Encyclopedia ended up figured out in a matter of minutes what dozens of professionals couldn't over several days.
2) The Case of the Runaway Judge – One of the judges of a garden show left town a night early to elope. Mrs Brown had hoped that the judge had at least left a note behind, telling who the judge picked to win her category. There was a note, but it didn't name a winner. Instead of naming a winner, this judge thought it would be a better idea to leave behind a red dress and a monthly planner left open to January. Since the judge's past jobs included a jeweler and a code breaker, she had assumed that anyone would be able to see those to items and know that it was some sort of code and that she was saying that the woman whose last name was Garnet was the winner, since garnet is red and is the birthstone for January. This wasn't obvious to Mrs. Brown (because why would it be?), but luckily, she had brought Encyclopedia around, who cracked the code. Good thing this woman had a spare red dress to leave behind.
1) The Case of the Lady Ghost – On his way home after committing a robbery, a jewel thief noticed that a man saw him walking on the beach. The thief was convinced that this witness was going to tell authorities what he saw and that the footprints he left behind would point to him because of his limp. So he went home, had his wife put on her wedding dress, tied a piece of wood to the train of the dress and follow his footprints in reverse, posing as a ghost. That way, the footprints would be covered up and no one would believe this witness who was also claiming to have seen a ghost. Except, the plan totally backfired, obviously.
