Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

This month is dedicated to series- series we read as kids and also children's series we discovered as adults:
Mystery series like Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, The Hardy Boys, The Famous Five, The Secret Seven
Family series like The Boxcar Children, The Bobbsey Twins, the Betsy-Tacy books and so on.

This is the month to share any series books you are reading. Have fun and happy reading!

I keep running into the book What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge, published in 1872. It's part of the Carr Family series. I think I'll start with this. The ebook was $.99 in the U.S.

That's a good deal, Kathy.

I decided to read a Nancy Drew mystery first. The Clue in the Old Stagecoach was available as an ebook, so I decided to read that one-it was a fun read, and one that I hadn't read before.

I just finished Pollyanna Grows Up by Eleanor H. Porter. It was a fun read.
Apparently Pollyanna was such a popular character, other authors continued the series.

Thats interesting that the other Authors picked up the series.

I finished What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge. It's the first book in the Carr Family series. I enjoyed the story and think I would have liked it as a child.

I've read the other two Katy books but don't remember that many details, but I did enjoy them.

I was very ill when I was 5 years old. I had mumps, chicken pox, scarlet fever... as well as the normal flu, so my parents got me The Bobbsey Twins. :)

I loved The Bobbsey Twins!

Me too and I wished i was a twin!

I'm an only child so even one sibling would have been nice.

I just finished reading Trixie Belden and the Gatehouse Mystery by Julie Campbell.
I always liked the Trixie Belden books better than Nancy Drew and I still do. This book is more about families and fun, not just solving mysteries.

I had at different times in my life, a brother, sister, two half brothers, and an assortment of step- brothers and sisters, but after age 13 I was an only child at home. And I was the eldest. My brother is crazy, and my daughter says she could tell we were related. I haven't seen him for well over 30 years, but he posts about what he's doing sometimes on facebook. My sister is ultra-religious but she misses us, and I know she cries sometimes too because she told me. I saw her about 25 years ago i think. She doesn't post much on facebook, so I wonder what she's up to mostly. She does exercise and is fit, but thinks I look younger than her heh.

Rosemarie wrote: "I just finished reading Trixie Belden and the Gatehouse Mystery by Julie Campbell.
I always liked the Trixi..."

I always liked Trixie Belden better than Nancy Drew too! I'd buy them for $1.00 from a local variety store. I had volumes 1-15, but sold them at a garage sale when I was in my 20s. Too bad!

I only had two volumes but sold them too. Fortunately, I was able to read this on Libby, with the illustrations that I remember.

I never was all that much into Enid Blyton’s adventure series, but I do enjoy her school stories, especially the St. Clare’s series.

Our little public libary didn't have the St. Clare's stories, but I'm sure I would have enjoyed them.

I read another of the Betsy-Tacy series, Betsy in Spite of Herself by Maud Hart Lovelace.
These books are based on the author's own childhood and teen years in Mankato, Minnesota.

Rosemarie wrote: "Our little public libary didn't have the St. Clare's stories, but I'm sure I would have enjoyed them."

I read the German translations Enid Blyton’s St. Clare’s novels (Hanni und Nanni) as a twelve year old and also listened to the series on tape. One of my favourites, so yes, I was pretty majorly shocked a few years ago when I tried the English originals not only to discover just at how semantically different much of the German translations are, often replacing that which makes the novels typical British school story fare, but also that the series has been continued by anonymous German ghost writers ad Infinitum, with the titles still being claimed to have been penned by Enid Blyton.

That is interesting, Manybooks. I wonder why especially that series caught on in Germany.

Rosemarie wrote: "That is interesting, Manybooks. I wonder why especially that series caught on in Germany."

Much of Enid Blyton is popular in Germany, and most of her series have been continued by ghost writers.

Rosemarie wrote: "I read another of the Betsy-Tacy series, Betsy in Spite of Herself by Maud Hart Lovelace.
These books are based on the author's own childhood and teen years in Mankato, ..."

I read many of the Betsy-Tacy books to my daughter when she was about seven. We enjoyed them a lot.

I have just finished reading The Great Airport Mystery by Franklin W. Dixon, part of the Hardy Boys series.
This was a better mystery than the Nancy Drew book I read earlier this month.

I know I'm late to the party here, but I'm also a Trixie Belden fan. I had a complete set when I was a kid, and read them to tatters. They re-issued them about fifteen years ago, and I couldn't resist buying the first ten or so - I had hoped that my daughter would be interested in them, but that was not to be.



I pick them up and read them sometimes, though, so it wasn't a waste of money. And I will keep them forever.

My daughter didn't read Trixie Belden either. Back in the 80s she read Babysitter's Club and Sweet Valley High books.

Rosemarie wrote: "My daughter didn't read Trixie Belden either. Back in the 80s she read Babysitter's Club and Sweet Valley High books."

My girls and I read all of those. And there was a series where all the kids had terminal illnesses. I can't remember the name but we read all of those too.

I think the author of the books with dying characters is Lurlene McDaniel. My daughters avoided those.

Yes. That was one of them. It was important for my girls to read them because when Charity was 10, her best friend Tammy got spinal cancer. Charity is in her 30s now, but Tammy is still only 10.

And then Bethany's little friend Eddie will always be 5. And he was the first boy to give her a kiss - on the palm of the hand though! She wouldn't let him kiss her on the lips.

It's sad when children lose friends like that.
An excellent book that deals with that topic is A Summer to Die by Lois Lowry.