Nine Red Herrings Or Otherwise Extraneous Facts From 'Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective'

• “[H]e went home and asked his mother for a big piece of cardboard. She gave him a dress box from the Bon Ton Store, which she had been saving.”

• “Encyclopedia did not lift his eyes from his book, How to Build a Nuclear Reactor.”

• “The Tigers were busy racing garter snakes.”

• “The [egg]-spinning field was the smooth marble slab under the statue of Thomas Edison.”

• “The Browns were having left-over meatloaf for dinner one night when the telephone rang.”

• “He stopped to look at the stuffed mountain lion Mr. Eckstrom, the taxidermist, had just put in the window of his shop.”

• “Encyclopedia hopped down and put the tooth in his pocket. He was going to give it to Charlie Stewart, who collected teeth and kept them in a flowered cookie jar.”

• “’I couldn’t find one of my sneakers,’ the boy detective said, looking around him.”

• “’Mom,’ said Encyclopedia, ‘can I have another piece of pie?’ Mrs. Brown signed. She had taught English in the Idaville High School before her marriage.

Tom Scocca would like to add the additional note that Encyclopedia’s given name is “Leroy Brown.”