Author: Julie Campbell
Flash forward about 3 decades (lol) and I hadn't thought of Trixie and Sleepyside, NY for a very long time. I found an old copy of a Nancy Drew book at the thriftstore...and that got me thinking about all those Trixie adventures I read as a kid. I did a little searching and found the first 3 books in digital format on the NC Digital Library (big thanks to my small local library for expanding their offerings with this awesome site!). At first I was a bit afraid to start re-reading them. Would the books be too dated or too simple for me to enjoy them again as an adult? I didn't want to ruin my fond memories of Trixie, Honey, Brian, & the rest of the gang.
Finally, I worked up the courage to load book 1 on my kindle and start reading.
Immediately, I was in heaven.
Yes, the story is simple. And, yes, the verbage is a bit dated (who says dungarees anymore?), but I didn't care! My old friends were right there on the pages.....for 30+ years they had been waiting for me to return and enjoy their stories again!
Book one is actually the start of a 2-part story (The tale starts in book 1, and finishes in book 2, The Red Trailer Mystery.) It's a great introduction to Trixie, her family and friends. The basics: Trixie discovers that a new family has bought the large manor house located near their farm. She meets the girl who lives there, Honey Wheeler. It's summer and the girls quickly become great friends. The Beldens other neighbor, Mr. Frayne, is a grumpy old man, who lives in a crumbling mansion overgrown with weeds. The kids learn Mr. Frayne is ill and in the hospital. He isn't expected to survive. As kids will, they go poking around Frayne's house, wanting to get a look inside just once when the unfriendly old man isn't around to chase them off. They discover a boy hiding there. Jim, Mr. Frayne's nephew, is hiding at the house, having ran away from his stepfather. The kids start searching for the stash of money Mr. Frayne is rumored to have hidden on his estate somewhere. Jim is Frayne's heir, but he's hiding from his mean stepfather. He hopes to find the money and use it to attend college and be free of his stepfather for good. The kids have many adventures together while searching for the money and exploring the woods.
I had just as much fun reading the first book again as I did all those years ago! I'm definitely going to re-read the series, or at least the first 3 books (which is all the local library has available right now). As they add more of the series in digital format, I will read more of their adventures. It's nice to see the updated covers! The books I had as a girl looked like this:
I like the updated art better. It's more colorful and shows both girls. Very nice! But I still have my memories of an entire bookcase filled with matching beige books....all the 80's style covers. When I was leaving for college, I sold my entire set of books at a garage sale to a girl who was so excited to get to read them! I hope she enjoyed them and then passed them on to another girl! I got many, many hours of joyful reading from them!
The first six Trixie Belden books were written by Julie Campbell (Tatham). She then passed the series off to a series of authors, although they were all published under the penname Kathryn Kenny. The series was published from 1948 - 1986. It remained out of print until 2003, when the early books in the series were reprinted by Random House Publishers. It looks like they reprinted up to book 15, so quite a few books in the 39 book set remain out of print. Looks like I'm going to be hunting up a lot of used books to read the whole series! It will be worth it -- these are great books! The stories are simple (similar to Nancy Drew) but enjoyable. Sometimes it's nice to just relax and read an interesting, but uncomplicated, story. :)
On to book 2!! :)
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