The Case of the Sharpened Minds

I'm sad to announce here the death of writer Donald Sobol. Many kids may find his name merely familiar, but when I tell you that he was the writer of Encyclopedia Brown, and perhaps more importantly to my class, the Two-Minute Mysteries, any child who has ever been in my class knows his work very well.

Sobol died last Wednesday in South Miami at the ripe age of 87.

Personally, one of the things I love about his mysteries, whether they be Encyclopedia Brown (slightly longer form) or Two-Minute Mysteries (shorter form) is the same thing I love about any episode of Law & Order. They all fall into the same cadence from episode to episode, mystery to mystery. We know this guy's guilty, but what little detail will Dr. Haledjian catch him on? What is the hole in the story?

Sobol's mysteries are rich with the regular characters (Dr. Haledjian, Inspector Winters, and Sheriff Monahan) as well as the recurring gang of ne'er-do-wells, tricksters, and thugs such as Cyril Makin, Mrs. Sydney, Octavia, Bertie Tilford, and the beloved Nick the Nose. I love reading these out loud to my classes. I love doing the voices, letting the kids try to guess (even some who never seem to figure out that the clue is actually something from the text, and not "why would a Russian guy ever go to the beach?"), and putting the bookmark back in the book even though the students are begging for just one more. I also love that, in order to solve about a half-dozen of them, you need to have a full working knowledge of Pullman trains.

Truly, I have no idea what Mr. Sobol would have thought if he had heard me read one of his mysteries out loud. I gave Dr. Haledjian a voice which probably comes from that of Robert Stack, Nick the Nose ("the greasy little informer") was from the Bronx, Mrs. Sydney's voice sounded like she'd been smoking since she was about ten, Inspector Winters talks like Batman, and Sheriff Monahan was every small-town sheriff you've ever seen on television.

He never knew it, but he has brought a sense of continuity to my classroom that permeates the whole school year, and then year to year after that. I'm at karate camp right now, which is always an interesting mix of people. But just a few minutes ago I went out to the lunch room and told each person who had been my student in the past (quite a few out there) about Sobol's death. The response was the same from each of them: "Oh, man! I used to love Two-Minute Mysteries!" We all did.

So long, Donald Sobol. So long, and thank you!