Trixie Belden is a thirteen year old girl who lives with her family on a farm in affluent, rural New York state. Trixie is facing the prospect of a long, lonely summer because her two older brothers are off to summer camp, and she is left behind to do chores and look after her obnoxious little brother Bobby as she tries to save up enough money to buy a horse. Reprieve from boredom comes in the form of a new neighbor called Honey Wheeler; Trixie quickly forms a friendship with the wealthy girl & they are soon having adventures.

Trixie’s other neighbor-- eccentric Old Man Mr. Frayne-- is found unconscious at the end of his driveway and is ferreted away to the local hospital where he is not expected to survive. Honey sees someone lurking in the old man’s house, so the two new friends set off to investigate the intruder. They discover Old Man Frayne’s young nephew Jim who has runaway from his abusive stepfather in search of help from his great-uncle. Trixie and Honey try to help Jim and join him in the search for the fortune Old Man Frayne has supposedly stashed away in his dilapidated old mansion.

Overall, this would be a charming mystery story for young readers. Trixie is a fun and relatable character for young girls. For the most part, Trixie’s life and adventures are harmless fun.

Unfortunately, this particular story has some disturbing elements of violence that might make it unsuitable for younger children. Fifteen year old Jim is the victim of horrendous beatings at the hands of his stepfather. Jim himself carries a gun; at one point Jim shoots and skins a rabbit for food, and later Jim shoots an emaciated, abused dog & buries him. Those sections of the book really are horrific, and my ten or twelve year old self would have been in tears and traumatized for days after reading it. For that reason, I don’t think children under the ages of fourteen or fifteen should be reading it…even though most of the rest of the book would be highly suitable for any child over ten.

The funniest thing about The Secret of the Mansion is Trixie’s insistence that her family is poor. Trixie lives in an isolated area comprised of only three estates; Trixie’s own extensive farmland is surrounded on either side by two mansions owned by millionaires. Trixie’s father is a bank officer who easily hires a doctor and private nurse when his youngest child is sick, and then sends his child and wife off to the seashore for a couple of weeks to recover. Trixie’s family may not rise to the level of wealth that enables them to employ a personal chef, governess, and chambermaids like Honey’s family, but they still seem to be doing all right. It’s hilarious (& kind of offensive, too!) that Trixie bewails her family’s ‘poverty’ at several points throughout the story…her worldview is genuinely a delusional rich person’s definition of being poor.

The end of this book implies that Jim's story will be continued in book #2, and I am looking forward to reading it. I just hope that it is a little less cruel and violent than this one. ( )

Trixie's summer is going to be sooo boring with her two older brothers away at camp. But then a millionaire's daughter moves into the next-door mansion, an old miser hides a fortune in his decrepit house, and a runaway kid starts hiding out in Sleepyside!"

Boring. Trixie spends more time riding horses and feeding chickens than solving the mystery. ( )

I first discovered this series when I was about 12 years old or so. If I remember correctly, my sister gave me the first two books for my birthday, and from there my Trixie Belden collection grew to fill my small bookcase. I absolutely loved this series! I think I identified with Trixie a bit....but the sometimes pesky, cute kid I had to deal with was my nephew and not my little brother. :) I remember wishing I could have picnics in the woods, ride horses and have adventures like Trixie, her brothers and friends.

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!

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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Thirteen year old Trixie Belden is looking at a long, boring summer since her older brothers are away at camp. Then a girl just her age named Honey Wheeler moves into the Manor House estate next door. The girls become fast friends, Honey teaching Trixie how to ride horses and Trixie teaching Honey how to ride a bicycle. Honey is a very lonely little girl who has grown up in boarding schools and is afraid of everything, but Trixie convinces her to go explore the old mansion on Ten Acres, the property on the other side of Trixie's house. Old Mr. Frayne was just taken to the hospital and not expected to live, and rumor has it he has half a million dollars hidden in the house. The girls don't find any money, but they do find one James Winthrop Frayne II. Jim ran away from his evil stepfather, Jonesy, and came to Sleepyside looking for his great-uncle. The girls and Jim become fast friends, spending every spare moment searching the rundown old mansion for Mr. Frayne's fortune. Jonesy eventually tracks Jim down to the mansion and accidentally starts a fire. Luckily Jim got out of the mansion in time but Jonesy believed he died in the fire. The next day Jim is gone, run off again before Jonesy could catch him, and Mr. Frayne's attorney shows up looking for him. Turns out Mr. Frayne did have money, and it's all Jim's now, plus Mr. Rainsford, the attorney, wants to appoint a new guardian for Jim since he has testimony from Jim's neighbors about how badly Jonesy treated him. The girls decide it's too risky for the *real* authorities to hunt Jim down and somehow talk their parents into letting Honey's governess, Miss Trask, take them on a wild goose chase to find Jim in the Wheeler's luxurious trailer. Because thirteen year old girls have much better resources for finding missing persons than the actual police. ( )