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If you have never met Alvin Fernald, then you really should. His life and adventures, carried out in close collaboration with his best friend Shoie and Alvin’s little sister Daphne, nicknamed the Pest, have been chronicled by Clifford Hicks. Alvin lives in an American small town in Indiana, similar to the ones in which Homer Price, Henry Reed, the members of the Mad Scientist Club, and so many other wonderful characters in juvenile literature lived. In this small town, everyone knows each other and generally likes each other, though there are a few people who are a little bit hard to take and one or two oddball characters. Though these small towns have diminished in number over the years, if you still live in such a town in any state of the USA, count yourselves lucky and blessed!
The author Clifford Hicks was a US Marine in World War II, earning a Silver Star for bravery in battle. He wrote for, and eventually became Editor-in-Chief of, the magazine Popular Mechanics, a magazine of new technology and old-fashioned ingenuity that I devoured when I was a boy. Around 1960, Hicks branched out into writing for upper elementary through middle school children. He is best remembered for his brilliant Alvin Fernald series, which started with The Marvelous Inventions of Alvin Fernald, illustrated by the great Charles Geer. This opening book in the series was followed by Alvin’s Secret Code and then eight more, one of which was a collection of short stories about Alvin - The Wacky World of Alvin Fernald. Marvelous Inventions and Secret Code are enough to get any boy or girl inventing and encrypting and probably should be read first. The reader can learn a lot about technology and cryptology from these first two books in the series. They are appropriate for upper elementary to middle school reading levels.
There is a sly hint of gentle satire in the Alvin Fernald series, especially in the later books. Alvin Fernald, Superweasel makes quiet fun of the anti-pollution enthusiasm in the 1970s, Alvin Fernald, Foreign Trader targets – well, foreign trade, Alvin Fernald, TV Anchorman spoofs the local TV news in his small town, Alvin Fernald, Mayor for a Day takes not-so-deadly potshots at small-town politics, Alvin Fernald: Master of a Thousand Disguises has fun with summer theater and a town mystery, and Alvin’s Swap Shop gently satirizes thrift shops. The final book in the series, Alvin Fernald’s Incredible Buried Treasure, was written more than 20 years after the second-to-the-last book. The story involves a touching link between secret codes and an original copy of the Gettysburg Address.
All ten of the Alvin Fernald juvenile novels are worth reading and are witty, heart-warming, and above all – funny!