Elsewhere on the Internet, a friend started a discussion of the Danny Dunn books, which I absolutely loved when I was a kid.
In the series, which started in 1958, Danny Dunn is an all-American boy living in the all-American college town of Midston. He lives with his mother, who works as a live-in housekeeper for Professor Bullfinch, a scientist at the local university and is a grandfather-figure to Danny. The boy hero and his young pals have adventures with the inventions Prof. Bullfinch brings home—a time machine, a computer, antigravity paint, a miniaturization ray, and so on.
Danny’s pal includes a girl named Irene who’s a budding physicist, and a sidekick, Joe Pearson, who’s a boy poet. Notably for a series that started in the 50s, Irene keeps up with the gang.