Whenever I see this, I think of an Encyclopedia Brown story. I don’t remember the whole story, but somehow culpability for the crime he was investigating was proven by initials that had been carved in a tree long ago and thus were now high up on the tree, as it had apparently grown considerably in the interim.
He proved that this was fraudulent, as trees grow from the top rather than the bottom, so the initials would have been at roughly the height at which they were initially placed.
Dude I loved the concept of Encyclopedia Brown but so many of the resolutions revolve around the most obscure of knowledge. Like yeah you get to figure out who don it but holy crap relying on knowing the exact dimensions of a US dollar bill to identify the coin collector as the culprit is quite a stretch for 8-12 year olds
I meant it’s the whole you have to try to figure out who was lying before reading the last part. I’m realizing as I type this it could’ve entirely not been an intentional part of the reading experience of those books and just something my mom inserted when she was reading them to me
The problem with the encyclopedia brown crime-solving was that everything was predicated on being guilty until proven innocent. Almost every single one of his ‘cases’ was never really solved, the perp usually just confessed as soon as a single lie was ‘proven.’
Whenever I see this, I think of an Encyclopedia Brown story. I don’t remember the whole story, but somehow culpability for the crime he was investigating was proven by initials that had been carved in a tree long ago and thus were now high up on the tree, as it had apparently grown considerably in the interim.
He proved that this was fraudulent, as trees grow from the top rather than the bottom, so the initials would have been at roughly the height at which they were initially placed.
edit: Grammar.
Dude I loved the concept of Encyclopedia Brown but so many of the resolutions revolve around the most obscure of knowledge. Like yeah you get to figure out who don it but holy crap relying on knowing the exact dimensions of a US dollar bill to identify the coin collector as the culprit is quite a stretch for 8-12 year olds
Wasn’t knowing obscure knowledge the concept of Encyclopedia Brown?
I meant it’s the whole you have to try to figure out who was lying before reading the last part. I’m realizing as I type this it could’ve entirely not been an intentional part of the reading experience of those books and just something my mom inserted when she was reading them to me
Sounds like a damned good mom. Kudos to her for working so hard.
The problem with the encyclopedia brown crime-solving was that everything was predicated on being guilty until proven innocent. Almost every single one of his ‘cases’ was never really solved, the perp usually just confessed as soon as a single lie was ‘proven.’
Holy cow, 40 year old memory unlocked.
Happy to be of service!