Families that love books have their personal favorites.  And a lot of those favorites are “hidden gems” – books that many other families have never read, or never even heard of, but remain classics to other people.

I asked several Millis parents about their hidden gems.

Judy O’Gara has a first-grader and a pre-schooler.  She told me about several hidden gems.

Judy suggested Peter Reynolds’ The Dot and Ish.  Both are wonderful books, perfect gifts or reads for budding artists and their parents.  The Dot tells the story of a young girl who says that she just can’t draw, and is challenged by her teacher to draw… a dot.  And it turns out to be a really marvelous dot!

In Ish, a young boy is dejected when his older brother ridicules his drawings as being unrealistic, but his younger sister loves his drawings – sure, they may not look exactly like trees, but they are “tree-ish.”

Both books are marvelous examples of giving children encouragement and hope when they think they just can’t “do it.”  You have probably seen Peter Reynolds’ illustrations in the popular Judy Moody series by Megan McDonald; check out The Dot, Ish, and his other works.

Katie Hurwitz has a first-grader and a fourth-grader, and gave me some excellent suggestions.  For younger readers, Katie suggested When Jessie Came Across The Sea by Amy Hest.  Thirteen-year old Jessie immigrates to America from Russia and makes the trip alone, befriended by other immigrants along the way but leaving behind her grandmother, her only family.  She finds work as a dressmaker and saves enough money over the years to purchase another cross-Atlantic ticket – so that her grandmother can join her.  The watercolor illustrations by P.J. Lynch are incredible.

Katie also suggested Andrew Clements’ book No Talking.  David, a fifth-grade boy, and his classmates talk nearly non-stop, severely trying the patience of their teachers.  David reads about Mahatma Gandhi and his practice of remaining silent one day a week to bring order to his own thoughts.  David and his classmates attempt to remain silent for 48 hours, and along the way bring about a new kind of trouble from their principal.  This book, along with most of Clements’ works, is perfect for readers in grades 3-6.

Christine Steiner has a second-grader, pre-schooler, and toddler.  She suggested Candice Ransom’s Time Spies series, now up to five books.  In the first book, Secret In The Tower, after moving to rural Virginia, three siblings are sure that they will have the most boring summer of their lives, until they discover a spyglass that transports them back to 1781 to fulfill an important mission.  Proficient readers in grades 2 and up, pretty much any kid who likes Mary Pope Osborne’s Magic Treehouse series, will love the mix of fantasy, history, mystery, and adventure.

Finally, Sally Pasquantonio, mother of a first-grader, pre-schooler, and three-year old, recommends We Are Wolves by Molly Grooms, part of a series of We Are… books.  In We Are Wolves, two wolf cubs are left in the care of their uncle while their mom and the rest of the pack go on a hunt.  Of course, the cubs are disappointed, but during the day, the uncle teaches them what it’s really like to be a wolf – “we are watchers,” “we are hunters,” “we are travelers,” “we are family,” “we are wolves.”  The illustrations in this book, and any of the series illustrated by Lucia Guarnotta, are breathtaking in their detail.

The books aren’t meant to convey any scientific information about the animals, but do instill a sense of wonder about the animals.  Besides wolves, Grooms has written similar books about dolphins, bears, and tigers, and has recently included puppies and horses in the mix.  The books are perfect read-aloud selections for kids of any age, and older kids up to first or second grade will most likely enjoy the simple text and love the illustrations.

There’s something wonderful about reading a book from your childhood, something you last read 30-odd years ago.  You recall how great that book was, how you read it cover to cover in one sitting, how it defined “great book.”

You’ve thought about the book over the years.  You think maybe you’d like to read that book again, just to experience again how great, how magical, how moving it is.  You want to introduce your kids to this great book, and you think they’ll love it as much as you did.

So you make plans to read it again.  And you finally pick it up – maybe from the library, maybe from a used bookstore, maybe from a yard sale.

And you’re disappointed.  Nostalgia and greatness do not always walk hand in hand -- some books just don’t hold up well from youth to adult.  We remember the good feelings about books, and sometimes the books let us down when we re-read them.

I decided to take that chance.  I decided to re-read one of my favorite childhood books, John D. Fitzgerald’s The Great Brain, and the six books that followed in the original series, to see how they held up since being published from 1967 to 1976.

And I was thrilled to see that they held up.  They were everything good that I remembered.  They were more than just a piece of nostalgia; they remain great books.

Author John D. Fitzgerald was born in Utah in 1906, and wrote his first adult novel in 1955.  After writing a few more novels, a few textbooks, and numerous articles and short stories, he turned his attention to children’s literature, and published The Great Brain in 1967.

The books are given voice by a boy named J.D. Fitzgerald, who lives in the fictional town of Adenville, Utah near the turn of the century.  The stories mostly center on the exploits of J.D.’s older brother Tom, a born swindler nicknamed “The Great Brain” on account of his intelligence and ability to outwit kids and adults alike and turn any situation into a profitable one for him.  Tom gets into plenty of trouble as he follows his “money-loving heart,” but does demonstrate much generosity and compassion.

The stories are funny, and touching, and full of family and friendship; the characters are loosely based on author Fitzgerald’s family and community as he grew up in Utah.  Tom’s a good person for all the trouble he causes, and J.D. is his often unwitting foil, just trying to keep pace with his brother’s great brain.

Not everything in the stories is rosy, however; outsiders to Adenville aren’t always treated kindly by the townsfolk, and over the course of the series there are pitfalls and tragedies.

So – why do these books stand the test of time?  Why would our kids want to read The Great Brain?

Most importantly, the books are really well written.  Fitzgerald wrote in a great straightforward style, almost like a journalist.  Take the opening paragraph from the first book:

“Most everyone in Utah remembers 1896 as the year the territory became a state.  But in Adenville it was celebrated by all the kids in town and by Papa and Mamma as the time of the Great Brain’s reformation.”

He didn’t write in a flashy style, or try to impress anyone with his vocabulary.  But he did breath life into his characters, giving them dialogue straight from the 1890’s but never letting any dated terms obscure the story.

And the life lessons are fascinating.  Readers learn about what it was like to grow up in a bustling frontier town at the turn of the century, and how kids used to play and fight and work and learn and live.  They’ll see how so much of every kid’s time was spent doing chores and working and how little time they had to just be kids – and how when they could play, they took full advantage of it.

The Great Brain and the next six books in the series are all wonderful; they don’t need to be read in order, but there are occasional references to stories from the earlier books, so many readers might like to read them in order.  The chapters are all written like self-contained short stories, so the books are easy to pick back up after stopping.  All the first seven books are illustrated by noted author and illustrator Mercer Mayer.

The last book in the series, The Great Brain Is Back, was written from loose notes after the author died, isn’t as tightly written as the original seven books, and is illustrated by a different artist.  It does, though, continue the story of J.D., Tom, and their family and friends.

The books are perfect for readers in grades 4 and up, while younger proficient readers will probably still love the stories but may have trouble with some of the themes and some of the period vocabulary and dialogue.  But they’ll most likely be enthralled by the stories of Tom’s great brain, as I was when I first read them, and as I am today.  Sometimes you can go back in time.