See what we mean? The Great Brain is a schemer, for sure, working other people's misfortunes to his own advantage and earning a pretty penny in the process. No really-the kid's parents actually pay him. He makes money by befriending the new kid in town.Hey, they can't get ice cream at all at home… He charges poor kids a penny to lick an ice cream spoon.

And what do you know? It just so happens he has a lot of money riding on the dog. He figures out how to find two kids lost in a cave with their dog.gets him sick, Tom wins in the end when he takes possession of John D.'s real Indian beaded belt as payback. He's on the receiving end of John D.'s plan to infect his brothers with the mumps, but though John D.'the Great Brain') charges his friends admission to watch a plumber dig a hole in the backyard for a new flush toilet, the Great Brain's exploits only get bigger and more daring:

Starting off with a story about the time Tom (a.k.a. Narrated by eight-year-old John D., often called just J.D., the youngest Fitzgerald, The Great Brain is a series of connected episodes about Tom D.'s self-interested schemes. It's the year Utah becomes a state (not important to this story), the year the Fitzgerald family gets an indoor toilet, and the year Tom D., the middle Fitzgerald brother, realizes that using his Great Brain to help others makes him feel good even if he doesn't make a penny off it.įirst, though, he makes a lot of pennies. It's 1896 in Adenville, Utah, a town of two thousand Mormons and five hundred Protestants.

The adventures of the great brain