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Long ago, in elementary or middle school, I found and read The Fabulous Flying Bicycle, by Glen Dines, although I didn’t take much notice of authors’ names back then. Probably thirty years later, I ran across this book again in the Ohio Book Store in Cincinnati, on a business trip. The Ohio Book Store is a wonderful used book store, essentially a five-level, really large townhouse packed high and long with books. I didn’t buy this book at the time, unfortunately, so I forgot about it again until a few years ago. Our youngest daughter is a public librarian and she told me that she was very good at finding books for people based on very little information. I challenged her with this book, which had suddenly jumped back into my mind. The only information I remembered was something about an inventor and a flying bicycle. She found it! I did some more checking and discovered that The Fabulous Flying Bicycle was the second of two books, which I had never known. The Mysterious Machine came before the book I had remembered and read long ago. Long story short, I purchased both books and enjoyed them greatly. I would compare them to the Alvin Fernald books, since the main boy character, Jerry Barnes, is much like Alvin, both in personality and as an inventor. Jerry even has a best friend, Vic, who is much taller and larger and is good at sports, much like Alvin’s friend Shoie.
I enjoyed these two books as much as I liked the first two Alvin Fernald books. The combination of a young scientist and inventor with daring adventures, all in a small town, is irresistible. One thing different from the Alvin Fernald books is the presence, in both books, of an adult inventor/scientist, who Jerry helps. There is much humor (the misadventures of Jerry’s jet-propelled wagon come to mind), a good bit of light-hearted adventure, eccentric small-town characters, with true friendship shining through each story. And by the way, the mysterious machine in the first book is quite different than what the reader expects, and the most incredible invention in the second book is not a flying bicycle!
Glen Dines (1925-1995) wrote and illustrated both books. The simple black and white images are closely tied to the story and help drive along both plots. He was born in Casper, Wyoming and served in World War II, working as a staff artist for the Stars and Stripes newspaper. He wrote and illustrated books for children, many of which focused on events and figures of United States western and frontier history.