The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened - by Don Robertson (Paperback)

About the Book

The third book in Robertson's acclaimed Morris Bird III trilogy follows Morris as he enters manhood and finds his first love, Julie.

Book Synopsis

Rediscover an American classic! The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened by Don Robertson is an emotionally resonant, wonderfully evocative journey back to the early 1950s that reintroduces readers to a teenaged Morris Bird III, one of the most endearing characters in contemporary American literature. Fan Stephen King puts the first book in the Morris Bird III trilogy, The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread "on the same shelf as Catcher in the Rye and The Outsiders," and calls Don Robertson "one of the best unknown novelists in the United States." Find out what you've been missing with The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened.

From the Back Cover

If there was one genuine truth that Morris Bird III thought he understood, it was that the world forever and relentlessly changed. But only in one direction--from simple to complicated.

When he was nine, Morris Bird III learned the meaning of bravery. Now, at seventeen, he's on the verge of adulthood . . . and he's fallen in love. But it's 1952 and the Korean War hangs over his head like a dangling sword--and his prickly, complicated relationship with his cold and silent father has never been satisfactorily resolved. When Morris's own mortality stares him in the face, he learns what it truly means to become a man.

The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened is the final book in Don Robertson's classic trilogy featuring one of the most endearing characters in American literature.

Review Quotes

"If you have ever been, or loved, a 17-year-old boy, get this book and read it and marvel at the tremendous naturalness with which Mr. Robertson writes." - Detroit Free Press
"You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll delight in meeting 9-year-old Morris Bird III (whom some classmates unkindly refer to as Morris Bird the Turd) as he decides to skip school one afternoon and walk across Cleveland to visit his best friend, Stanley Chaloupka, taking along an alarm clock, a jar of peanut butter, a map, a dollar and some change, and pulling his 6-year-old sister Sandra in a wagon, only to collide with history. I loved this book when it was first published in the early '60s, and I am just thrilled that a whole new generation of readers is going get to meet Morris, too." - Nancy Pearl
"Don Robertson was one of the greatest of American naturalists, and The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread is a brilliant piece of writing--a book to put on the same shelf as Catcher in the Rye and The Outsiders. What was it like to be a kid at mid-century in the midwest? Read this book and see." - Stephen King
"There is a full portrait of a funny, bright, quixotic, confused, and sometimes pathetic youngster...full of adolescent problem, wishes, and hopes. Robertson has a talent for catching the nuances of young life, expressing them in a gruffly flippant style, mixed with wry pathos." - Durham, NC Morning Herald
"Morris Bird lives with all the bittersweet humor that fills the adolescent mind, and Robertson reports it with a gentle, warm, loving hand." - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"If it plucks a half dozen times on heartstrings, it is because the novel is about decent, engaging people trapped by an inevitable anguish which too often incinerates the souls of the undeserving." - Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Mr. Robertson is a writer of real magnetism, who can make a Midwestern American city shimmer the way the suburbs of Paris or the side streets of London shimmer in other books." - The New Yorker