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Danny Dunn #15
Danny Dunn and the Universal Glue
Danny Dunn goes fishing and, with some old friends to help him, ends up saving a dam
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 15, 2022
Danny Dunn - Environmental Activist! And so we reach the last installment in the Danny Dunn series. Would it surprise you if I said that all of the major characters die and the town of Midston is destroyed? Well, it should, because by now you should know that just isn't gonna happen - although Midston comes as close as it ever has to being destroyed!
I have very distinct memories of discovering this book in a shopping mall bookstore in my early teens, being really excited that there was a DANNY DUNN book I hadn't read, and then bringing it up to the register with some embarrassment because I was long past the age of its intended audience. But here we are again, and I'm glad to say that the series goes out on a respectably solid outing that reflects Williams' growing sense of the responsibilities that science was facing up to in the 1970s. Here, the focus is on Environmental Science (as well as hydrolics, molecular adhesion and chemistry) as Danny and his Mom become embroiled in a dispute with a local chemical factory, and its belligerent owner Mr. Blaze, who may be leaking waste into the town's drinking reservoir. As Midston's dam begins to show damage on the eve of a large storm, can the Professor's newest invention (an adhesive that bonds to the monolayer of water on almost anything) be of help?
Well, of course it can, what did you think? The familiarity that Williams' has been showing with the characters and the general concept in recent outings continues here - Joe is laid back, Irene is smart and moral (described here as torn between becoming a biologist and a physicist), Danny is industrious, Bullfinch is understanding (if described as "rumpled" and "stained"), etc. Even Snitcher gets in a last appearance and gets to say the immortal line “I’ll get even with you, Danny Dunn!” (no you won't, kid, your series is over!). Sadly, no Dr. Grimes (although he does get a mention). The usual paces are gone through - the accident that causes the creation of the Universal Glue (which Bullfinch names Irenium, as she figures out the solution to the problem of how do you make a container for a substance that sticks to everything) involves a huge "Dagwood" sandwich that Danny builds which Bullfinch takes a bite of, and is quite a nice moment of comedy. Even an element from very early in the series, the oddments to be found in Danny's pockets, makes a reappearance.
On the other hand, there are some nice singular moments in this final run through. Joe gets to come up with an inventive solution for once and Danny's mom has more time on stage, as she's the head of the Citizens’ Environmental Committee - Mr. Blaze even accuses her of being an Eco-Nut (Mr. Blaze hadn't yet learned that all he needed to do was wait a few more years until Ronald Reagan got into office and then he wouldn't need to worry about any environmental laws and could start buying politicians and lawmakers whenever he wanted - I assume Midston became a cancer cluster like my hometown). Danny himself has two singular moments this time out - he deliberately and knowingly pulls a destructive prank to help his Mom (which he gets caught at and shamed for and has to apologize over) and he actually questions his character quirk that has driven the plots of the series since the beginning:
"The way he was feeling, Danny was just as happy to be alone. He perched himself on a stool at one of the lab benches, and stared out at the lawn and garden. It seemed as though, for the past few weeks, he could do nothing right.
'Why am I the way I am?' he mumbled to himself. 'I have these great ideas and then foof! they blow up in my face. What I need is a special kind of control, like what they put on engines to keep them from going too fast. A safety catch, maybe, so that when I got an idea I’d be stopped from doing anything.'
He picked up a pencil and began doodling on a scrap of paper, drawing circuits and switches.
'The way it would work,' he said to himself, beginning to get interested in spite of his misery, 'is, I’d have a machine mounted on me somewhere that would monitor my blood pressure, heartbeat, and maybe my brain waves. Then, see, when I got a really exciting idea and my heart started to pound and my brain got active, the machine would pick that up. It would send a shortwave signal that would set off an alarm. Let’s see... I’d have to have the alarm set in Mom’s ear, like a hearing aid...'"
(Perhaps DANNY DUNN, TRANSHUMANIST BIOFEEDBACKENGINEER was in the planning stages?)
And there's something very satisfying in all of Midston being threatened and ending up saved by a combination of science and action, and that all three friends are in on the latter.
And so off go Danny, Joe and Irene to the malt shoppe, chanting the last line of Joe's new poem: "We do not ask for medals or pagodas — Just ice-cream sodas!" A nicely simple and sweet ending to a series already progressing swiftly out of its moment in time...
Some further thoughts - those who enjoy playing the Wold Newton game unveiled by Philip José Farmer would probably realize that the main entry point for Danny would be his missing father, who died when he was an infant. I also have a sneaking suspicion that Euclid Bullfinch had an older brother (or perhaps an uncle?), a biologist who died in the jungles of Peru due to the mad scientific experiments of Dr. Alexander Thorkel (aka Dr. Cyclops).
And finally - a short piece (roughly 1300 words) of closure I composed this weekend after finishing the series. I give you "Professor Daniel Dunn At Twilight" (see comments, below)
I have very distinct memories of discovering this book in a shopping mall bookstore in my early teens, being really excited that there was a DANNY DUNN book I hadn't read, and then bringing it up to the register with some embarrassment because I was long past the age of its intended audience. But here we are again, and I'm glad to say that the series goes out on a respectably solid outing that reflects Williams' growing sense of the responsibilities that science was facing up to in the 1970s. Here, the focus is on Environmental Science (as well as hydrolics, molecular adhesion and chemistry) as Danny and his Mom become embroiled in a dispute with a local chemical factory, and its belligerent owner Mr. Blaze, who may be leaking waste into the town's drinking reservoir. As Midston's dam begins to show damage on the eve of a large storm, can the Professor's newest invention (an adhesive that bonds to the monolayer of water on almost anything) be of help?
Well, of course it can, what did you think? The familiarity that Williams' has been showing with the characters and the general concept in recent outings continues here - Joe is laid back, Irene is smart and moral (described here as torn between becoming a biologist and a physicist), Danny is industrious, Bullfinch is understanding (if described as "rumpled" and "stained"), etc. Even Snitcher gets in a last appearance and gets to say the immortal line “I’ll get even with you, Danny Dunn!” (no you won't, kid, your series is over!). Sadly, no Dr. Grimes (although he does get a mention). The usual paces are gone through - the accident that causes the creation of the Universal Glue (which Bullfinch names Irenium, as she figures out the solution to the problem of how do you make a container for a substance that sticks to everything) involves a huge "Dagwood" sandwich that Danny builds which Bullfinch takes a bite of, and is quite a nice moment of comedy. Even an element from very early in the series, the oddments to be found in Danny's pockets, makes a reappearance.
On the other hand, there are some nice singular moments in this final run through. Joe gets to come up with an inventive solution for once and Danny's mom has more time on stage, as she's the head of the Citizens’ Environmental Committee - Mr. Blaze even accuses her of being an Eco-Nut (Mr. Blaze hadn't yet learned that all he needed to do was wait a few more years until Ronald Reagan got into office and then he wouldn't need to worry about any environmental laws and could start buying politicians and lawmakers whenever he wanted - I assume Midston became a cancer cluster like my hometown). Danny himself has two singular moments this time out - he deliberately and knowingly pulls a destructive prank to help his Mom (which he gets caught at and shamed for and has to apologize over) and he actually questions his character quirk that has driven the plots of the series since the beginning:
"The way he was feeling, Danny was just as happy to be alone. He perched himself on a stool at one of the lab benches, and stared out at the lawn and garden. It seemed as though, for the past few weeks, he could do nothing right.
'Why am I the way I am?' he mumbled to himself. 'I have these great ideas and then foof! they blow up in my face. What I need is a special kind of control, like what they put on engines to keep them from going too fast. A safety catch, maybe, so that when I got an idea I’d be stopped from doing anything.'
He picked up a pencil and began doodling on a scrap of paper, drawing circuits and switches.
'The way it would work,' he said to himself, beginning to get interested in spite of his misery, 'is, I’d have a machine mounted on me somewhere that would monitor my blood pressure, heartbeat, and maybe my brain waves. Then, see, when I got a really exciting idea and my heart started to pound and my brain got active, the machine would pick that up. It would send a shortwave signal that would set off an alarm. Let’s see... I’d have to have the alarm set in Mom’s ear, like a hearing aid...'"
(Perhaps DANNY DUNN, TRANSHUMANIST BIOFEEDBACKENGINEER was in the planning stages?)
And there's something very satisfying in all of Midston being threatened and ending up saved by a combination of science and action, and that all three friends are in on the latter.
And so off go Danny, Joe and Irene to the malt shoppe, chanting the last line of Joe's new poem: "We do not ask for medals or pagodas — Just ice-cream sodas!" A nicely simple and sweet ending to a series already progressing swiftly out of its moment in time...
Some further thoughts - those who enjoy playing the Wold Newton game unveiled by Philip José Farmer would probably realize that the main entry point for Danny would be his missing father, who died when he was an infant. I also have a sneaking suspicion that Euclid Bullfinch had an older brother (or perhaps an uncle?), a biologist who died in the jungles of Peru due to the mad scientific experiments of Dr. Alexander Thorkel (aka Dr. Cyclops).
And finally - a short piece (roughly 1300 words) of closure I composed this weekend after finishing the series. I give you "Professor Daniel Dunn At Twilight" (see comments, below)
September 29, 2016
Maybe because I am older, or maybe because this was the last of the Danny Dunn series, but it seems "less" than others in the series...
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Danny and friends Irene and Joe become involved in three discoveries in Midston: a new superglue, a contaminated water supply by industrial waste, and mysterious damage at the local dam. The three discoveries come together and only Danny knows how to save the day in time.
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Danny and friends Irene and Joe become involved in three discoveries in Midston: a new superglue, a contaminated water supply by industrial waste, and mysterious damage at the local dam. The three discoveries come together and only Danny knows how to save the day in time.
February 7, 2024
In this Danny Dunn book, Danny and his mother deal with an environmental issue about how a chemical treatment plant is affecting the local environment. Danny gets into the usual trouble due his tendency to rush into an action without thinking about the consequences. Still, he becomes the hero by seeing a dangerous situation involving the local water supply and using a compound developed by Prof. Bullfinch.
April 9, 2025
Danny Dunn and the Ice-Nine.
It must be nice when the polluter is one man who answers to a citizens’ committee instead of a relentless Chilean mining conglomerate.
Professor Bullfinch invents super-super glue. There could have been more wacky glue scenarios. There were a couple, but not enough, because Danny and his friends are busy figuring out why the town water supply tastes like unsweetened lemonade.
Will the first guess on who is polluting be correct? Can you carry a birch bucket full of water several miles by bicycle without it spilling? How do you explain environmentalism to the children of the ‘70s? What’s wrong with a kilt made out of a blanket in a courtroom?
This was fun. Could’ve had more hijinks. Yes, we should test chemicals before releasing them into the environment. Good exposition, Mrs. Dunn.
It must be nice when the polluter is one man who answers to a citizens’ committee instead of a relentless Chilean mining conglomerate.
Professor Bullfinch invents super-super glue. There could have been more wacky glue scenarios. There were a couple, but not enough, because Danny and his friends are busy figuring out why the town water supply tastes like unsweetened lemonade.
Will the first guess on who is polluting be correct? Can you carry a birch bucket full of water several miles by bicycle without it spilling? How do you explain environmentalism to the children of the ‘70s? What’s wrong with a kilt made out of a blanket in a courtroom?
This was fun. Could’ve had more hijinks. Yes, we should test chemicals before releasing them into the environment. Good exposition, Mrs. Dunn.
March 29, 2018
Funny and fun, but not as much as other books in the series. Also, (spoiler alert!) Danny’s deliberately gluing Mr Blaze in his car does not seem true to his character at all.
December 8, 2022
A good adventure ans a clever use of the titular glue. Also, for the first time Mrs. Dunn has a life outside of the kitchen and an important part in the story.
August 14, 2023
The final and 15th book in the Danny Dunn series. Enjoyed them.
April 2, 2010
A friend of mine said that he used to read these when he was a kid. I figured it would be pretty mundane stuff, but it wasn’t. Danny Dunn was pretty cool – there’s actual science involved. It’s like science and science fiction for the 8 year old boy! And Danny has two best friends – Irene and Joe. Irene is another science nut and Joe is a literary genius (well, maybe for his age – I wasn’t ALL that impressed with his verbal prowess). About 160 pages – I read it in a little over an hour. Fast paced, grabs you right away with a mystery to solve, and explanations throughout of the science background of things. Quite interesting. I can see boys really getting into this series, especially the ones who want to know how things work and see possibilities for invention everywhere. These seem to have held up pretty well since 1977 when they were written. There are a bunch of other Danny Dunn novels – at least 14 others are listed on the back cover of this one.
In this particular book, Danny and his friends go fishing and when Danny gets dunked in the water he notices that it tastes funny. He tells his mom about it, as she’s involved with a group of environmentally concerned citizens and they discover that the pollution is coming from a nearby factory. Danny’s dad, meanwhile, has invented this super glue that sticks to anything! It comes in handy later on when the kids realize that the pollutants are actually eating through concrete.
In this particular book, Danny and his friends go fishing and when Danny gets dunked in the water he notices that it tastes funny. He tells his mom about it, as she’s involved with a group of environmentally concerned citizens and they discover that the pollution is coming from a nearby factory. Danny’s dad, meanwhile, has invented this super glue that sticks to anything! It comes in handy later on when the kids realize that the pollutants are actually eating through concrete.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews