Part 1 Trixie Memories

So, in the next few days I hope to start reading the Trixie Belden series again from the beginning. In case you don't know about Trixie Belden here's a quick run down - Trixie is a young girl (I think 13 or 14) who lives with her family on a farm near the Hudson River in upstate New York (I think) that is too far out of town for her to see many of her school friends outside of school times. Then one day the Wheelers, a rich family, moves into the mansion on the hill near the Beldens farm and Trixie becomes fast friends with Honey Wheeler (a girl her own age) and together they soon find themselves embroiled in a series of mysteries along with a bunch of their friends and family. I know, I know, you're thinking what makes that different to that other, more well known girl detective? (you know the one, Nancy what's her face) Well, I'll tell you, Trixie is just an average girl, she's not beautiful, she's not rich, she's not super smart, she does chores at her farm, looks after a little brother, has a totally undisciplined dog and in general is just a fairly "real" kinda girl (despite the fact that over the 4 decades of the books being originally published she only ages like 1 year) who you can easily identify with when you're a young teenager.

I haven't read the series since I was a teenager so I want to compare my love back then to what I think now as I read each book. I'm going to be starting with the 34 "basic" books in the series (I don't yet have the "mystery quiz" books or the rare numbers 35-39 but I hope to eventually have them too) because they are what I have after YEARS of trying to get a collection together. Books 35-39 are like the Holy Grails for Trixie collectors and I've seen them going for around $50+ PER BOOK. Out of those 5 I only ever read the one with the fire (35 I think).

I thought, before I start reading these books again I'd take some time to remember how I started reading them, why I loved them and what my memories of them are like so that after I read them again I can compare what I used to think with what I think now.

So, here goes with a walk down memory lane...

I must have been maybe 11 or 12 when I first picked up a Trixie book. My older sister had left her copy of 'The Sasquatch Mystery' sitting in the lounge room when she was out one day and I was fascinated with bigfoot, yetis, loch ness monsters and other cryptids so I naturally HAD to pick it up and have a read through it. I remember that by the time my sister got home I was hooked and I wanted to finish the book and had to wait a couple of days til she'd finished it but she said I could borrow it and then afterwards, if I was keen, she'd let me borrow the other books she had in the series. So a few days later I got and finished reading through 'The Sasquatch Mystery' and then started on an adventure starting from book 1. I think maybe the fact that 'The Sasquatch Mystery' was my first Trixie book was the cause of Hallie being one of my favourite characters (even though she's only in two books that I remember) and the fact that something seemed to be between her and Dan made me think Dan was cool, even though he's probably the least used of the main characters.

Anyway, my sister was kind enough to start lending me the books in order and I devoured them and fell in love with the world of Trixie and Jim and Honey and the other Bob-Whites. It wasn't until much later that I realised that the first books in the series were written originally in like the 1940s so that's probably why the characters seemed like they were just such nice people, they came from a simpler time yet they were easy to identify with, they were far from perfect and seemed to be the first book characters I could see myself in.

So, my memories of specific books I'll try to keep in posts about those books as I re-read them and I'll talk about the characters as they are introduced in the series but there's a few memories I'll put here now to see if the books end up matching them...

The events of the books I remember clearest are the BIG things - the fire at the Frayne's mansion in book 1, the flood in 'The Happy Valley Mystery' (that terrified me the first time), Trixie being kidnapped in the Lynch's caravan that kinda thing. I also remember Trixie's slide down the log chute and her hands being sliced up by pine needles in 'The Sasquatch Mystery', their adventures in Bob-White Cave, the prophecy from book 12, Bobby being bitten by a snake and attacked by a mountain lion or cutting his knee on a diamond in various books, learning that chewing apple seeds is poisonous in large quantities, the cool stick figure code, the stale air almost suffocating Trixie in the one with the Emeralds, the avalanche at Meads Mountain, the LMN tree (lol), Jims cousin and her marriage and didn't Hallie get tied to a bed in that one?

We mostly had the paperback "oval" covers and a few in what most collectors call the "short and uglies" (I remember having 'The Black Jacket Mystery' and 'The Mystery of the Blinking Eye' in the short and uglies quite clearly) and just looking at those covers brings back memories from most of them but for some I look at them and can't remember them at all.

Anyway, I'm going to blog about each book as I read them, starting with a bit about what I remember of the book and then what I think as I read them so if you were a Trixie fan feel free to comment on each blog as it comes :)

Also, I think that Jim is the reason that today I find strapping red heads quite distracting (if you know what I mean)