Alvin's Swap Shop

I loved this kind of book when I was young. This is one of those books that's about an ordinary kid who does extraordinary things, and yet is just believable enough to make the reader want to go out and try it. This is in the tradition of Encyclopedia Brown, The Mad Scientists' Club, Henry Reed, and the Great Brain books, and this book compares very favorably to most of the others I just mentioned. Alvin Fernald is a typical American boy (albeit, in a somewhat naive 1960s kind of a world) who is different from his peers in one important way: He has a Magnificent Brain (MB). What's charming about this is that Alvin doesn't actually seem to be a genius; he just has the willpower and the creativity to sit down and think logically about the problems that he encounters, often using a visualization technique to stimulate his mental juices. He is enthusiastic and confident, and knows that he can make great changes to the world if he applies himself. In this particular book, Alvin gets the idea to run a Swap Shop, in which customers can come and exchange an item with another in the store (an idea later ripped off in the Turtle Street Trading Company, by Jill Klevin). As they build up stock by swapping for increasing numbers of items, they are sucked into a mystery involving Pim, a foreign boy on the run who enters their store because he is desperately hungry. In the end, Alvin's Magnificent Brain comes up with a plan that can save Pim. Highly recommended.

I read this book aloud every year to my 6th grade class, and it never fails to capture my students' attention. This inventive novel starts out at the beginning of summer vacation in a small town in Indiana. It totally captures the delicious feelings you experience when the whole summer lies in front of you and there is nothing to do. The plot is clever and fast paced. During the climax my students are yelling out the next number for the setting on the treadmill that the villian, Scarface, unwittingly steps onto. It is a hoot.