Trixie Belden Series by Kathryn Kenny #1-39

I finally finished the series! I loved these books when I was a kid and I still enjoy them today. I have to admit though that the last ones were not that interesting. I bought the majority of these books with babysitting money. I found some at garage sales and some at the local auction, but the majority of them I sent away to the publishers for. I think the last one published was in 1984. The first one was published in the 1940's. They brought back some of the series a few years ago, but they weren't big sellers so they only printed 15. I was disappointed because I was hoping to collect another set so that both of my daughters could have a set. But after reading the newer ones where they attempted to bring the terminology up to date I was glad they didn't re-publish the rest.

These are my top 5 favorites from the series:

Numbers 1 and 2

The Mystery of the Mansion and The Red Trailer Mystery

In the first book Trixie meets Honey. They befriend run-away Jim Frayne. In book two the girls go with Honey's Governess Miss Trask to find Jim Frayne who has run away from his cruel step-father.



Book number 9, The Happy Valley Mystery. The Bob-Whites go to the Belden's Uncle Andrews farm in Iowa. There they solve the mystery of his disappearing sheep...one of my favorites because at the end of this book Jim give Trixie his ID bracelet. I always was a sucker for a little bit of romance with my mysteries!

Book number 13, The Mystery On Cobett's Island. The Bob-Whites meet Peter on Cobett's Island. They learn to sail, help Peter's mom put on a tea benefitting the local library and solve an old mystery that helps a young widow and her son.



Book number 25, The Sasquatch Mystery. The Bob-Whites go to Idaho on a camping trip with the Belden's cousins in Idaho. There they are introduced to the local legend of the Sasquatch. Is there really such a thing or is someone trying to scare the Bob-Whites away from their camp? Very fun!



This is the cover to book 1 in the re-released books. They printed 15 books of the series. Very nice covers. I was very disappointed though in the way the publishers chose to re-word some of the old terms used in the originals. They said that it was for clarity, but I think it muddied up the clarity and aged them even more. One that stuck out to me was that in the original series the Bob-Whites teasingly referred to Trixie and Honey as Schoolgirl Shamuses. In the newer versions they changed that and called them "Moll-Dicks" I had to look that up! A Moll is a female companion to a gangster and of course Dick is a slang for private-eye. Nobody talks like that these days so how the publisher thought that that was updating the books is beyond me. It took away from the original and made this favorite series hard for modern day kids to understand. That's my rant on that!

I enjoyed revisiting my childhood favorite series. I read the series to my oldest daughter when she was about 8 or 9 and I'm looking forward to reading them to my grand-daughter.