The Great Brain- Does anyone else hate this book with a vengeance?

[NewIma]

We checked out the audiobook of The Great Brain and I cannot think of a book that I have ever hated this much. It glorifies bullying, swindling, and violence, and contains super disturbing stories of racism and stereotypes. Today we heard about a Jewish peddler who is convinced to open a brick and mortar shop and then dies of malnutrition in the arms of the main character's mother because no one will buy from him and he has too much pride to ask for help. Seriously. This is a book for kids?!?! We are all totally traumatized. I tried to go to bed and after lying there thinking about the poor dead man and finally had to get up and rant. There are not words to describe how much I hate it. 

 

I had heard it mentioned before on homeschool books lists so this is my PSA. Stay far away! 

 

And please tell me that I'm not alone in my horror....

[Garga]

Huh. Interesting. I read those books as a kid (the whole series) and absolutely, 100% adored them. They are some of my all time favorite books from childhood. Right up there with the Narnia series and The Secret Garden.

 

I don't see it as if it promoted racism. It clearly showed how very wrong racism is. And I don't think it promoted bullying and swindling. It showed the The Great Brain was a jerk for being that way. As a kid, I always knew he was being a little turd.

 

The books are told from the younger brother's point of view and I felt that the younger brother was the protagonist and his brother was the antagonist--he was the bad guy. I didn't idolize the older brother and knew he was wrong in what he did. The story, to me, was about how the younger brother handled the troubles that came his way because of his bad older brother.

 

ETA: And it also showed how pride just for the sake of pride is also wrong.

Edited January 22, 2016 by Garga

[Garga]

I'm not sure what you're referring to with violence, but as a child-reader I did know that the books were written well before my childhood about a time even more before my childhood when there was more violence between and toward children. It *was* set in a time when you taught kids how to swim by tossing them into the deep end of the lake. I didn't expect that it was ok for me to do things like that or for things like that to be done to me. I knew it was sort of like the bad conditions kids lived in in a Dicken's novel. It was a different time and place where it was hard to be a kid.

 

I think there were a lot of fist fights in the books. Is that what you're referring to? As a kid, I assumed it was common in that time out west.

Edited January 22, 2016 by Garga

[Lb20inblue]

Soooo I loved the great brain when I was a kid. I remember reading the series in 8th grade and loving it. I think because when I read books, I use to pretend I was the main character. The main character had so many adventures.

 

On the other hand, I would not pick this book as a read out loud for my kids. It just isn't that kind of book. I am not a lover of vintage books and have been pretty pick with what I expose my kids too.

 

Sorry you had a bad experience. Maybe you should try the clubhouse mysteries. It's a great series and similar to the great brain in that it's an adventure for kids.

[Garga]

P.S. It's ok if you hated them. I hate (with a passion) the Lord of the Rings books (though I loved the movies.). All those stodgy men who had pretty much no depth to them at all? No thank you.

 

There are things that other people like that just don't do it for me. It's ok if you hate The Great Brain. Your points are valid.

[teachermom2834]

My 17 yo old son cites these as his favorite from childhood. Loves them and will still pick them up. If you ask him his favorite book he will say he has two. He will give you something intelligent and say "and The Great Brain".

 

He is a smart but very mild kid. Not violent or racist. I don't even remember the books myself. Just his love for them. YMMV.

[Tanaqui]

Given that the protagonist's older brother always ends up losing out in his chains of swindles, I don't think the book promotes or glorifies swindling. Showing a behavior is not the same as encouraging it, after all. Ditto on the bullying - we're not supposed to sympathize with the bully, we're supposed to sympathize with his put upon younger brother, the narrator (and author) of the book.

[Tsuga]

I'm not sure what you're referring to with violence, but as a child-reader I did know that the books were written well before my childhood about a time even more before my childhood when there was more violence between and toward children. It *was* set in a time when you taught kids how to swim by tossing them into the deep end of the lake. I didn't expect that it was ok for me to do things like that or for things like that to be done to me. I knew it was sort of like the bad conditions kids lived in in a Dicken's novel. It was a different time and place where it was hard to be a kid.

 

I think there were a lot of fist fights in the books. Is that what you're referring to? As a kid, I assumed it was common in that time out west.

 

I agree with your assessment(s). I loved the books because they were so fascinating--so violent and bizarre and he was such a jerk! I couldn't believe such a person could go without correction.

 

Funnily enough I also disliked the Lord of the Rings. Boooooring. Oh, he's going to battle? The paper doll character? Don't care. Just like I don't care if my Barbie falls over. 

 

We must be book twins.

 

OP, there are plenty of books I can't stand that others love. I think that's normal. Hopefully others who share your sensitivity to the particular horrors of that book will get your PSA and be able to avoid the books.

[NewIma]

The kids are always beating each other up and there are some extremely graphic and disturbing scenes where they bully Basil, a new immigrant from Greece. Reading some online reviews, it apparently only gets worse as the book goes on. They set up a teacher to look like an alcoholic and be fired, and they help a friend commit suicide (unclear if successful for not, but from the previous content I wouldn't be surprised if they were). 

 

ETA: I was ok with the kids fist fighting here and there, but the horrible horrible cruel bullying was beyond disturbing. And the idea that the worst sin of all was to be a cry baby and be upset by being bullied to such an extent that any normal person would have PTSD. 

Edited January 22, 2016 by NewIma

[chocolatechip]

I big puffy heart the Great Brain books. I feel that the message in the book doesn't shy around those bad things, but through frankness shows that they are wrong and the bad consequences that can come from them. I don't think that the reader is supposed to identify with the Great Brain, rather, John is the character I always empathized the most with. 

 

That said, not everyone likes the same things. It's okay if the Great Brain is not your thing. There are books I really hate that I know many love. I know people that love them. I just don't. And it's okay to disagree! 

[Tanaqui]

The main characters teach Basil how to fit in and fight back against the bullies - and no, they don't succeed in helping the friend kill himself, they teach him how to adapt to his new disability so that he can function and no longer feels useless or like a burden on his parents.

 

And as I recall, there isn't much mention of kids being jumped and beaten up, just lots of mentions of voluntary fighting, almost like a sport - in fact, exactly like a sport! Bare handed boxing!

Edited January 22, 2016 by Tanaqui

[Tanaqui]

I mean, look. If you don't like it, you shouldn't continue with it. Absolutely.

 

But I really think the book is more nuanced than you're reading it as. The shopkeeper dies, yes. And it's sad, and when I was a child I cried buckets. But I also cried when Sara Crewe's father died, and when Sadako died, and when Mary went blind, and when Leslie died, and when Esther's entire family died in the Holocaust while she and her parents were busy being exiled in Siberia (and if her mother hadn't been so clever the day the soldiers came, her uncle might have been exiled with them and made it through), and... well, suffice to say, over the course of my childhood I read a great many books where people and pets died or had other tragic things happen to them.

 

I also cried when my own father died.

 

Death is a thing that happens. It shouldn't be in every single book, and it certainly isn't a requirement to make a book "meaningful" (gosh, I wish we could get that through the heads of all the award committees and the people who make reading lists for schools), but I don't think it's helpful to remove it from children's books. We can't remove it from their lives, after all.

 

So Abie died, and he died because the good, nice people of Adenville were indifferent to his situation because he didn't belong to their religion. And they would never have thought of themselves as bigots, but they just didn't care sufficiently about their fellow man to prevent this tragedy. This is a thing that happens. I don't want to get political here, but check the news every time some politician starts talking about what they want to do to welfare and related programs. They always state that they only want to stop helping the WRONG poor, not the right poor.

 

If those politicians had all read The Great Brain in their youth, maybe they wouldn't act like that.

 

Basil was bullied, yes - but you know what? I was bullied just as bad and worse, and it never ended. Bullying is something else that happens (and btw - no ptsd here. People vary like that), and it can be appealing to children to see it end in a book or in movies when real life doesn't always have that option. At the very least, it can be a relief to see that it happens to other people, not just them, and that the reason is completely stupid and arbitrary. It certainly was a relief for me to see affirmations that there was nothing wrong with me, but there was something wrong with my classmates.

 

They did try to frame a teacher for drunkenness to get him fired - because that teacher was really big on corporal punishment. The parents didn't like it either, and had no plans to renew that teacher's contract at the end of the year.

 

And then when their plan worked all too well and the kids saw it was morally reprehensible, they publicly admitted their wrongdoing and made amends. That is HARD for children (and adults!) to do - and yet, all children do wrong things. All humans do wrong things! It's good for kids to see an example of people fixing their wrongs openly and honestly.

 

Their new teacher backed away from corporal punishment as well. So what's the moral of the story? Do unto others? Don't be a jerk? However you frame it, there IS a moral, and one that would not have made much sense if the kids hadn't done wrong in the first place.

 

Of course, you don't like the book. Then, as I said, you should immediately put it down and pick up something different. It's an awful idea to plod through a book you don't enjoy or even hate. No good can come of it. But when many people praise a book, and it's not in the public domain*, you can be reasonably sure that those people see some redeeming value in it, even if it's not there for you.

 

* If it is in the public domain, they may just be praising it because it's free at project gutenburg.

[Garga]

The kids are always beating each other up and there are some extremely graphic and disturbing scenes where they bully Basil, a new immigrant from Greece. Reading some online reviews, it apparently only gets worse as the book goes on. They set up a teacher to look like an alcoholic and be fired, and they help a friend commit suicide (unclear if successful for not, but from the previous content I wouldn't be surprised if they were).

 

ETA: I was ok with the kids fist fighting here and there, but the horrible horrible cruel bullying was beyond disturbing. And the idea that the worst sin of all was to be a cry baby and be upset by being bullied to such an extent that any normal person would have PTSD.

I agree with everything Tanaqui said, but also realize that the narrator is an unreliable narrator. In his 10 year old mind the worst thing is to be a cry-baby. But that's the assessment of a small child. (Actually, isn't he only 8?). He tells things from his immature point of view and somehow or other, I understood that as a kid.

 

I say this only to let you know that your kids are probably able to understand the difference between the right and wrong things in the books and aren't soaking up damaging messages.

 

As others have said, there are a lot of payoffs in the book. Sooo worth it to get to the payoffs where the kids learn the correct way to treat others. They teach Basil to stand up to bullies. They try to stop a horrible teacher from hitting children. They don't let the friend commit suicide, but instead teach him to be independent. They're kids and they do stupid things at first, but they learn to do good things, too.

Edited January 22, 2016 by Garga

[NewIma]

I guess we will have to agree to disagree! I don't protect my kids from hard issues or sad topics, but I don't think the way they are presented in this book is helpful at all. As several people suggested, we are putting it aside and choosing something else. And if anyone hasn't read the book yet, I would recommend you preview it first before sharing it with your kids if they are under the age of 11/12. You might be totally ok with it, but you might also feel like me! 

[Tanaqui]

Oh, I always think it's a good idea to preview books before reading them with your kids :) You don't want to find out two chapters in that you can't do a Yorkshire dialect and don't want to, or that half of the Odyssey is people putting on their shoes and drinking wine and having long-winded conversations about who all their ancestors are! (But if I try to cut out even one line, the kids snatch my kindle away until I promise to read it right. Sheesh.)

[Catherine]

You know I also hated The Great Brain; we listened to the audiobook years ago, and I did not look further into the series.  Most of the bullying and its treatment of the rejection of an "ethnically not white" kid were par for the course for books written at that time, and I could overlook them.  One of my biggest objections was actually the way the book treated female characters-there are zero female characters that are "real" and have agency.  I can't even remember it now, but as I recall the only woman in the book who was not someone's invisible mother (understandable in a children's book) was a total caricature.  

[tammyw]

These are some of my favorite read alouds ever! I think we were able to find every one of the oldest ones from the library and I remember feeling so sad when the series was over.

 

But I agree that it's totally normal for us all to like different books (or anything). I hated the Mary Poppins book when I was reading aloud and could only get through half of it before abandoning, yet others love it!

[HomeAgain]

I was much more disturbed reading the original Elsie Dinsmore books than I was reading the Great Brain.  The GB reminds me more of the writing style in To Kill A Mockingbird - it's from a child's point of view so morality is slightly skewed, but in the end the reader gains insight to the world they lived in and how the events shaped the child.

 

Elsie?  Creeptastic.

[elegantlion]

I loved the books,  as a kid I read the whole series. In a sense, I found them empowering to stand against many of the issues in the book. I was verbally abused as a kid by one girl who was sort of the ringleader. Like Garga said, I knew the older brother was a jerk. Books like "Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry" show you the nasty history of racism, right in your face. It's a great book to discuss the issue. However, I found that most issues are not as easily defined as in that book. Books like The Great Brain series show you these issues up close, also through the eyes of a child, but right and wrong appear a little more grey sometimes. 

 

Obviously, there are hundreds of other books to read instead and previewing for content is a good idea. However, I would not immediately discount all books that present issues like that because they are great conversation starters. It a conduit for you to have discussions with your kids or to have them start to think about the ethics of a situation outside of your real life scenarios. 

 

That's why we continued to do a lot of read alouds at that age and even into high school. Content created conversation. 

 

 

[NewIma]

elegantlion- I think what bothers me so much is the moral grayness. I am not afraid of these issues (bullying, racism,etc.) per se, but there is something about the presentation that just doesn't feel sufficient to me. It is as if someone vomited up a whole bunch of issues and then just left them on the floor for you to deal with. That may be fine (or even beneficial) if you are 12+, but the book say ages 8-12 and that seems way too young for the this combination of content and moral fuzziness.

[elegantlion]

elegantlion- I think what bothers me so much is the moral grayness. I am not afraid of these issues (bullying, racism,etc.) per se, but there is something about the presentation that just doesn't feel sufficient to me. It is as if someone vomited up a whole bunch of issues and then just left them on the floor for you to deal with. That may be fine (or even beneficial) if you are 12+, but the book say ages 8-12 and that seems way too young for the this combination of content and moral fuzziness.

 

Whether it's too young is probably family and child specific. I can't remember how old ds was when we read them, but he was under 12 I know. We also read Fahrenheit 451 when he was about 10 or 11, so ymmv. 

 

I think what resonated with me about those books is that kids were just out playing being kids when a lot of this happened. I'm in my 40s and that is how I grew up, neighborhood kids thrust together by fact they all lived in the same area, so we had to navigate those grey areas sooner in some cases. We didn't have structured activities with parents driving us and sitting in the room waiting for us, so there was a lot more unsupervised time - which had its own good and bad sides. Learning to navigate the grey was part of it. 

[brehon]

I'm another who loved the series as a child (I was 6-8 when I read them) and whose kids have also enjoyed them. First, as Garga said, the narrator is unreliable. We are seeing his action through his eyes. Second, I think there is great benefit for kids to read books like this because they can begin to work out right from wrong and deal with hard issues in the safety of a book.

 

I think there is moral fuzziness in the books because kids are not known for their outstanding clarity on moral issues, especially kids in the age range of the characters in the book (the unreliable narrator again). I think this is a great way for them to begin to think about moral issues and how we/they can and should respond to them. This is a great way to have non-pressure conversations with your kids about right and wrong, how we treat people; how we act even when no one watches; etc.

 

Of course, there are many books out there and no one can read them all. If you and your kids don't like TGB, there are other books just waiting to be enjoyed.

Edited January 22, 2016 by brehon

[kentuckymom]

I also adored the series as a kid, but I realized when I reread the original as an adult just how many objectionable things happened in the book. I think it's fine if you don't like them. I also think it's fine if you let your kids read them or read them to your kids. The goal of the books is not to inspire kids to be just like The Great Brain.

 

For the record, I hate The Swiss Family Robinson with the burning passion of a thousand suns, and there are apparently a lot of people out there who love it. I also have no great love for Robinson Crusoe. I do love The Lord of the Rings, though.

[KrissiK]

I loved those books! I read them over and over as a kid!

[vonfirmath]

Huh. Interesting. I read those books as a kid (the whole series) and absolutely, 100% adored them. They are some of my all time favorite books from childhood. Right up there with the Narnia series and The Secret Garden.

 

I don't see it as if it promoted racism. It clearly showed how very wrong racism is. And I don't think it promoted bullying and swindling. It showed the The Great Brain was a jerk for being that way. As a kid, I always knew he was being a little turd.

 

The books are told from the younger brother's point of view and I felt that the younger brother was the protagonist and his brother was the antagonist--he was the bad guy. I didn't idolize the older brother and knew he was wrong in what he did. The story, to me, was about how the younger brother handled the troubles that came his way because of his bad older brother.

 

ETA: And it also showed how pride just for the sake of pride is also wrong.

 

I agree. I LOVE the Great Brain series and read every one I could get my hands on. I've stored them away to share with my kids once they get of age since I discovered libraries didn't stock them.

[Alicia64]

The Great Brain story is loosely based on the author's childhood. He was born in '06 -- so I'm betting childhoods in 1916 involved the stuff we wouldn't tolerate for our kids today.

 

As I read the Great Brain aloud to my kids, I included comments often like, "This might have been okay back then, but we don't do this sort of thing now."

 

Based on your concerns, you won't be able to read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. (I'm not sure you'd want them reading Gone with the Wind as teenagers either.)

 

You can read books from other times in history and say, "we don't treat -- name your group -- like that today."

 

Alley

 

 

[shage]

You know I also hated The Great Brain; we listened to the audiobook years ago, and I did not look further into the series. Most of the bullying and its treatment of the rejection of an "ethnically not white" kid were par for the course for books written at that time, and I could overlook them. One of my biggest objections was actually the way the book treated female characters-there are zero female characters that are "real" and have agency. I can't even remember it now, but as I recall the only woman in the book who was not someone's invisible mother (understandable in a children's book) was a total caricature.

Interesting because I remember the mother's "system" for dealing with childhood communicable illnesses quite clearly: Everyone strip down and in bed at once to get it over with. I once spent a delightful lunch in a hospital cafeteria with physicians of various stripes debating the merits of the system. The physicians who were also mothers were surprisingly gung ho.

[matrips]

Oh my. I'll have to read them again. All I remember is loving those books when I was a kid! I don't remember any details of them though.

[Farrar]

This is interesting. I loved them as a kid and my kids loved them too, though I admit that I found myself having a number of conversations about some of the ways in which the kids handled violence and about some of the racial and religious groups in the books. But I never felt like it crossed some line for me where I didn't want to read it. More like, I wanted to bring up with my kids that they should think about how the book is told from the lens of that time period and how white people saw Native Americans at that time, etc. The one thing I found myself so much more horrified by as an adult was the way the parents punished the kids by giving them the silent treatment. As a kid I was like, huh, interesting. As a parent, I was like, oh my gosh, they were so cruel!

[DesertBlossom]

We listened to the audio book and I remember being horrified at the suicide attempt. I nearly turned it off.

 

We just listened to A Series of Unfortunate Events. CREEPY! When Count Olaf said he was going to take his teenage bride home for their wedding night I threw up a little in my mouth. I hated that book.

[Bluegoat]

elegantlion- I think what bothers me so much is the moral grayness. I am not afraid of these issues (bullying, racism,etc.) per se, but there is something about the presentation that just doesn't feel sufficient to me. It is as if someone vomited up a whole bunch of issues and then just left them on the floor for you to deal with. That may be fine (or even beneficial) if you are 12+, but the book say ages 8-12 and that seems way too young for the this combination of content and moral fuzziness.

 

I think most kids by 8 are thinking for themselves about moral issues.  Actually, I think a lot of five year olds are as well.  Eight year olds though seem to be particularly moralistic.

[justasque]

I also loved TGB as a child, and read the whole series.  I notice that some in this thread, who didn't love it, first heard it as an audio book with their children.  I wonder if it's better as a self-selected book, read to one's self?  The reader would likely have to be a bit older, and probably would have to have some experience with older books and their quirks in order to have the comprehension level needed to tackle the book.  

 

I wonder too whether the audio reader puts some emphasis on events in a different way than a young reader would when reading to themselves, or if the audio format itself creates some harshness that wouldn't be there otherwise.  

 

And I also agree with a PP who said that back in the days of free-range kids we ran across quite a few moral issues in a context that didn't include adult input, and had to work out for ourselves, individually and collectively, how they should be handled.  I think today's typical homeschooled 8-year-olds have seen a lot less of the ugly side of human nature than their free-range age-mates would have a half-century ago, let alone back when the book was written.  

 

For the record, while I loved TGB, I could not read Curious George to my kids, as for me it was a horrific story of kidnapping and abandonment, with no redeeming value.  

[Dmmetler]

I think that it may be a better self-selected book than a read-aloud. Part of the enjoyment is that the reader kind of goes through it with John, and faces it emotionally as he does. As a read-aloud or an audio book, I think it may be harder to put yourself in John's shoes.

 

I also remember loving the Soup series by Robert Newton Peck, which is similar (author/narrator recounting his boyhood experiences with his friend who is more than a bit of a troublemaker, in a 1920's Vermont farming community), and I suspect that it also had more than a few scenes that would be appalling by today's standards.

[shage]

I think that it may be a better self-selected book than a read-aloud. Part of the enjoyment is that the reader kind of goes through it with John, and faces it emotionally as he does. As a read-aloud or an audio book, I think it may be harder to put yourself in John's shoes.

 

I also remember loving the Soup series by Robert Newton Peck, which is similar (author/narrator recounting his boyhood experiences with his friend who is more than a bit of a troublemaker, in a 1920's Vermont farming community), and I suspect that it also had more than a few scenes that would be appalling by today's standards.

 

Interesting conversation.

 

We own many of the TGB and Soup books.  Also, Peck's A Day No Pigs Would Die is one of my husband's favorite read alouds because it allows him to share his own rural farming/pig raising childhood with the kids.  (And Alison Krauss and Yo-Yo Ma's Simple Gifts because of the Shaker connection.  Bonus.)

 

The books are dated in terms of the free-range child aspect and cultural norms of the day.  Yet the plots are IMO very developmentally appropriate.  It fascinates me that much of modern children's literature--Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Mysterious Benedict Society--the kids are not dealing with typical problems of childhood and are instead tasked with saving the world.  I wonder if in later years we will look back and be uncomfortable with that?

[Tanaqui]

It fascinates me that much of modern children's literature--Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Mysterious Benedict Society--the kids are not dealing with typical problems of childhood and are instead tasked with saving the world.  I wonder if in later years we will look back and be uncomfortable with that?

 

That's an interesting question. It seems to me that children's literature and YA have been very influenced by the success of Harry Potter and Hunger Games lately, which is why they're currently so dominated by fantasy and dystopias, respectively. (Ancillary effect: There are vanishingly few short books for children and teens being published nowadays, especially not books of any quality. No more "Mixed-up Files" or "House of Stairs" length books. I wonder sometimes if this is perhaps detrimental to the development of slower or more reluctant readers.) Those are two genres that really lend themselves to "SAVE THE WORLD!" themes. Don't have an answer to the question, but I'm going to be thinking on it.

 

I could probably find counter-examples from earlier periods and now, but would those examples be representative?

[Bluegoat]

Interesting conversation.

 

We own many of the TGB and Soup books.  Also, Peck's A Day No Pigs Would Die is one of my husband's favorite read alouds because it allows him to share his own rural farming/pig raising childhood with the kids.  (And Alison Krauss and Yo-Yo Ma's Simple Gifts because of the Shaker connection.  Bonus.)

 

The books are dated in terms of the free-range child aspect and cultural norms of the day.  Yet the plots are IMO very developmentally appropriate.  It fascinates me that much of modern children's literature--Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Mysterious Benedict Society--the kids are not dealing with typical problems of childhood and are instead tasked with saving the world.  I wonder if in later years we will look back and be uncomfortable with that?

 

I think there are a fair number of older YA books where kids are tasked with saving the world - I wouldn't call it new at all.

 

The difference I think with HP is that it is a fantasy series that appeals to a lot kids who otherwise seem to prefer more realistic books.

[shage]

I think there are a fair number of older YA books where kids are tasked with saving the world - I wouldn't call it new at all.

 

The difference I think with HP is that it is a fantasy series that appeals to a lot kids who otherwise seem to prefer more realistic books.

Probably true that it more a mainstreaming of fantasy.

[YaelAldrich]

You know I also hated The Great Brain; we listened to the audiobook years ago, and I did not look further into the series.  Most of the bullying and its treatment of the rejection of an "ethnically not white" kid were par for the course for books written at that time, and I could overlook them.  One of my biggest objections was actually the way the book treated female characters-there are zero female characters that are "real" and have agency.  I can't even remember it now, but as I recall the only woman in the book who was not someone's invisible mother (understandable in a children's book) was a total caricature.  

Actually, in that series, there are at least two female characters that play significant roles outside of their Mama.  There is Dolly (?) the girl without a mother who is a tomboy.  The GB (for money, but then because he knows it is right to help) helps her to become more lady-like in order to become part of the community.  Sven also has a girlfriend which plays a more minor role in the last book, and their Aunt Betha and Aunt Tena play more minor but fleshed out parts in the series.

[FloridaLisa]

Lol, we listened to it on audio and I'm so glad we did. I probably wouldn't have finished if I was reading it aloud. I'd always seen it on some recommended lists (Sonlight I think?) but NO. It is a not a must read by any means. I didn't hate it but my boys will still every once in while say "The Great Braaaaaiiiin" in a mocking tone.