The Great Brain!

One of my most favorite and oft read books of my childhood was The Great Brain at the Academy.  The Great Brain is the first book in the series.  These books take place between 1896 and 1898 in the made up town of Adenville, Utah.  Here is the wikipedia entry on the series.   I really liked this book, but after talking to my friend Rachel, I started to look at it in a new way, especially the book's depiction of Native Americans.  Rachel and i talked about the way in which books like the Little House on the Prairie series show Native Americans as wild and awful.  There is some of that in here.  There is also a scene where JD, the narrator, Tom (the Great Brain)'s little brother, tries to help a friend kill himself.  I would imagine that this would cause QUITE an uproar today.  But the thing is, I read this as a kid and I didn't even remember that part.  I don't know.  It is hard to look at kids books in the same way anymore.  Life is much more complicated when you start thinking!