- Anna Maria Junus
Women's Wednesday: Trixie Belden
The day of women writers and women in literature. *****
The Red Trailer Mystery, which is number 2 in the series, was my very first Trixie Belden book. I was already a Nancy Drew fan, but I ended up liking Trixie and her friends even more. Initially created in 1948 by Julie Campbell who wrote the first six books, it was then put under the umbrella name of Kathryn Kenny and written by in house ghost writers. Julie had also created the Ginny Gordon series and wrote books in the Cherry Aames and Vicki Bar series. I have not read Ginny or Vicki and only read one Cherry which I didn't like because I'm not into nursing. Trixie was just a little older than me. I was about eleven when I first read her, and Trixie was thirteen. She had friends, including older brothers that treated her well. She had adventures. She went places - not far - not like exotic locations, but places in the U.S. She belonged to a club called the Bob Whites that she created with her brothers and her best friends - and she solve mysteries. She didn't have unending money or a fancy convertible like Nancy. She had to go to school and do chores and take care of her little brother sometimes. She was an ordinary girl, unlike the more glamourous Nancy. Where Nancy wore the latest fashions, Trixie was running around in blue jeans or shorts only wearing a skirt when she had to. In the 40's, 50's, and 60's when most of these books were written, girls wore skirts and dresses to school. She was smart, not particularly girly, made mistakes, hated her freckles and curly hair and her name Beatrix, was envious of her best friend Honey Wheeler with her good looks and tons of money, loved her family, had a crush on one of the other Bob Whites, and got herself into trouble. Nancy was someone I wanted to be, Trixie was more like the girl I already was - only she had friends and adventures, and I was at home reading books.
Unlike the Nancy Drew mysteries, which were unrelated to each other except for the characters, Trixie books initially followed a time line, going through holidays and seasons and referring back to
previous escapades. She aged from 13 to 14 and then they stopped that keeping her at 14. Otherwise she would have been a 51 year old Trixie when the series ended in 1986. I would have still followed her. I would still follow an 84 year old Trixie which is what she would be now. She may not be as spry, but she would still be smart and have come to terms with her freckles and curly hair. And I doubt she would have grown up to be Nancy Drew. She would have still been Trixie, still preferred jeans and shorts although could probably dress up very well, still best friends with Honey Wheeler, and still be getting into some kind of trouble. The Trixie Belden series has 39 books in 8 different English editions plus editions in other languages. Turns out I own 26 of the books in 5 editions. Yes, I have mismatches in all kinds of sizes in hardcover and paperback because that's what happens when you haunt used bookstores.
I found a couple of websites devoted to Trixie Belden. Trixie-Belden.com The Trixie Belden Homepage The Sleepyside Zone
