May

16

O Danny Boy!

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

May 16, 2008 |

danny.jpgWhen my mother gave me a copy of Danny Dunn On The Ocean Floor she was fostering my dream of someday being a marine biologist. She may have instead sparked a more latent ambition to someday be a writer. The story was exciting, I liked the characters, and I remember being struck by a ship captain reciting part of one of Ariel’s songs from The Tempest:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change…

I don’t know what got me thinking about the Danny Dunn books recently. Maybe it’s because summer is coming, or maybe it was reading about the dissection of a giant squid. Sadly the books are all out of print now. Apparently no one reads Danny Dunn anymore. While a lot of the science was, well, junk, or even paleofuturism, there were some interesting details. In the  ocean floor adventure the submarine encounters a giant squid, and, unlike the monster in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, the squid Danny and friends encounter is curious, timid, and camera-shy. 

The books were also, in their own way, progressive for their time. While Danny’s mother is a housekeeper, she’s also a single-mom working to support herself and her son. The father figure role is filled by the avuncular Professor Bullfinch. And one of Danny’s friends, Irene Miller, is, well, a girl. Nowadays a girl who plans to be a physicist and is actively encouraged to pursue that career wouldn’t be so surprising, but when she was introduced in Danny Dunn And The Homework Machine in 1958 it was a little unusual. Irene is  Danny’s equal, if not his superior, in scientific interest, and she’s light years ahead of him in common sense. Early on in Danny Dunn-Time Traveller, Danny makes elaborate plans to take apart a pair of binoculars to build a telescope–before Irene points out that he could just use the binoculars. His other friend Joe is a poet, bringing the humanities and science together. Jimmy Neutron’s world falls far short by comparison.

The characters and even the plots may have been simple, but the stories were just fun. Danny’s other friend was Joe Pearson, a poet–bringing the sciences and humanities together. The series was conceived by Raymond Abrashkin who, suffering from ALS, was paralyzed. Jay Williams, a prolific author on his own, worked with Abrashkin to write the
stories. Abrashkin died in 1960 after the publication of Danny Dunn On The Ocean Floor, which was fifth in the series, but he’s credited as co-author of all fifteen books. The series only ended after the death of Williams in 1978.

Critical reaction was mixed; some critics loved the books and praised the excellent science (well, sometimes) but others complained about the simplistic characters. Since the stories were usually propelled by Danny doing something disastrous, one critic even said, “adults may wonder why the professor does not remove his laboratory and inventions from Danny’s vicinity.” But a strong theme throughout the stories was that science shouldn’t be off-limits to anyone. Professor Bullfinch recognized in Danny the potential to be a great scientist, and was determined to teach and encourage him. The stories also weren’t sequential in the way contemporary readers might expect. Each book was given a fresh start; although there were references to Danny getting his friends in trouble in the past, these were never specific. There was also no romance–and no need for it. Irene might someday be a future research partner of Danny’s, or she might have her own lab. Abrashkin and Williams were content to let their characters deal with the present. The books were about fun and adventure, and sometimes that’s enough.


Comments

3 Comments so far

  1. Erik Stell on May 16, 2008 8:27 am

    I’ve talked to a lot of writers who have a story like this one. It typically begins with a family member giving a book that reaches in and grabs ahold of our creativity and sparks inspiration.

    For me it started with John Bellairs, but would later be added to by the likes of Bob Salvatore and Robert Jordan.

    Perhaps I should dust off my old writing projects…

  2. laughingwolf on May 16, 2008 8:37 am

    was ‘jonny quest’ based on this series?

  3. Christopher on May 16, 2008 7:08 pm

    Interesting question. I don’t think so. Johnny Quest came on while the Danny Dunn series was going strong (some time in the 1960’s) but had a much higher action element and, from what I remember, emphasized fantasy over science. In the Danny Dunn series was often questionable they did try to start from a credible basis, even though they often drifted far from it.

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