Children's Mystery Series (Pre-1970), Who read them?

[YWalker]

@jayjay

Oh, my god…is that the one where Toad sends away for a voodoo kit and makes the replacement housekeeper take to her bed for a week?

Close. That one is Mrs. Coverlet’s Magicians. The purple goo one is While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away.

[dangermom]

@Hoops

Who remembers author John Bellairs? He had a bunch of books, some of which dealt with occultism. My favorite was The Figure In The Shadows. What a cool book.

Interestingly, Bellairs used real figures from the history of occultism; for example, Eliphaz Levi, who figures strongly in The Figure In The Shadows, was a real person who continues to be well-regarded among those who take occultism seriously (this would probably earn Bellairs his own head on a platter from Concerned Parents Groups if he’d published this today).

I loved John Bellairs, and will still read them once in a while for fun. While, as you noted later on, you didn’t get the Eliphaz thing right, Bellairs did use a lot of real Catholic and occult stuff: the Blood of Hailes, lots of liturgy and Latin and priests, the Malleus Maleficarium (however you spell that), Hands of Glory and whatnot. Very educational.

There’s now a guy named Brad Strickland continuing the books, but they aren’t as good. I dunno about Concerned Parent Groups; Bellairs was never very high-profile like HP, and while I’m sure some people wouldn’t let their kids read the books, I’m not sure anyone would differentiate them from all the other ‘witch’ books out there.

[Gadarene]

Everybody in this thread needs to read Brown Harvest at their first opportunity. Heh heh heh.

It’s not a bad standalone book, and it’s even more fun to see how many references you can spot…

[Oscar999]

I Loved "The Mad Scientists Club as well as Danny Dunn.I thought both were well written and lots of fun to read.I’m 57 and I’ve gotten copies of them through Amazon and enjoy reading them even now.I hope to introduce them to my Great nieces and nephews when they are old enough.

[Doug_K]

Were there ever any pre-1970 children’s zombie series?

(Someone had to say it!)

[Oscar999]

This is the 1st time i’ve seen “The straight dope” and i’ve already gone to Amazon and bought 4 books,Thank you!

[Dendarii_Dame]

@Tamex

Does anyone remember Cherry Ames? It wasn’t really a mystery series, IIRC, but it was a series of books about a nurse who has all these different nursing jobs…she goes from being a candy-striper as a teenager to nursing school to an army nurse in WWII and then on to being such things as a camp nurse, school nurse, etc.

I found a website about Cherry here.

Our school library had all those books, and I think I was the only one checking them out that I knew of. I know I didn’t get through all of them, but they were enjoyable books. I was thinking about Cherry the other day…hadn’t thought about those books in years.

I’m a big fan of Cherry Ames. I own all 27 books and the non-fiction book of “first aide and home nursing”, complete with sketches of the distinctive caps worn by nurses at various hospitals. She was never a candy-striper–the first book covers her first year in nursing school. Also, while she considered herself a nurse first, she’s definitely a detective and solves at least one mystery in every book.

[Oscar999]

This is the 1st time i’ve seen “The straight dope” and i’ve already gone to Amazon and bought 4 books,Thank you!

[Voyager]

Whatever happened to the idea of the Dope getting money when someone bought a book on Amazon through a link from here? Cecil could have been eating steak tonight.

And welcome to the Dope Oscar999.

[SCAdian]

@Kolak_of_Twilo

Brains Benton

Danny Dunn

The Mad Scientists Club

Djuna

The Dana Girls

Judy Bolton

Trixie Belden

Timber Trail Riders

Or, which would you be most likely to re-read today and enjoy?

Brains Benton, the Mad Scientists Club, Djuna, Judy and Trixie.

On another note, does anyone else have fond memories of the Henry Reed series?

Yes.

[_3Bill]

@fessie

You betcha I know who Henry Reed is - in fact, I’ve managed to secure a few of those books.

Here’s one you missed - Donna Parker. And I think the Boxcar Children might’ve solved a mystery or two.

Anybody else remember Old Mother West Wind, by Thornton Burgess (who I somehow confused with Burges Meredith - quack quack quack quack)? Or the Beany Malone series?

When I was a kid I read a whole bunch of the Thornton W Burgess books, handed down from my father, who was reading them ca. 1920. I just picked up a copy of Mr. Mocker. I think they are all on project Gutenberg, or at least archive.org.

[chizzuk]

This thread just reminded me of The Three Investigators, whose name rings a bell but which I would never have recalled on my own. I must have read most or all of these. Also Encyclopedia Brown, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, some Trixie Belden, and The Boxcar Children. I still own about 70 of those.

The McGurk mysteries were probably my favorite. I bought about 20 of them from Abesbooks a little while ago for the sake of nostalgia. They were really fun and often pretty clever. Increasingly hard to find, though.

[Kolak_of_Twilo]

My first baby zombie!

Actually, the idea of a zombie book series for kids is an idea that might actually have legs.

At least until the fall off or something.
But seriously, I have really enjoyed passing on a lot of the books mentioned in this thread that I have collected over the years to my nieces and nephews. My youngest nephew has just recently been introduced to the Mad Scientists and loves them.

[Renifer]

Nancy Drew and Connie Blair (The Clue In Blue) are family heirlooms from my mother and grandmother.

[Magiver]

I read The Three Investigators as a kid. Couldn’t remember the name so I googled it based on their club house which was in a junkyard. They seemed interesting at the time.

[MacSpon]

I loved the first two Mad Scientists Club books as a kid. Just recently, I finally got hold of the third and fourth books (both of them short novels, rather than story collections). The third one (“The Big Kerplop”) was pretty good; the fourth one (“The Big Chunk of Ice”) was quite disappointing.

[Tom_Tildrum]

I’ll throw in the Melendy Quartet. Not really mysteries, but family adventures in the 1940s.

[Oscar999]

Oh I love the Melendy series.I read them even now that I’m 57.