And the End of Encyclopedia Brown

Reading obituaries of Gore Vidal brought to my attention the recent death of Donald Sobol, the creator of Encyclopedia Brown. I loved these books, and read them all many times. Of all the academic honors I have received, none has pleased me more than being known to my grade-school classmates, briefly, as "Encyclopedia Bedell."

Sobol once said of himself, “I am totally unqualified to be a writer. My childhood was unimpoverished and joyful. Even worse, I loved and admired my parents.”