When I was ten the kids in my neighborhood started a rather odd obsession. For a time the Trixie Belden series was released with new covers, giving those books from the 50s, 60s, and 70s a kick in the pants. Note how hip and cool these covers were:
Awwww, yeah.
So the girls on my block started a Trixie Belden obsession. We loved her short hair, the way she called her mother “moms”, her gang The Bob-Whites, and her penchant for touching the mysteries that prissy little Nancy Drew would probably avoid. I mean seriously, did Nancy ever come face to face with a Sasquatch?
Not likely! Clearly I had a thing for preferring knock-off mystery characters to their better known Stratemeyer Syndicate contemporaries (I love The Three Investigators and to this day abhor The Hardy Boys).
Anyway, the problem with our Trixie love was that the darn books weren’t all in print with these snazzy covers. Some of them you had to track down, like old Sasquatch here. This being a pre-internet era, we set about trading the hard to get ones in an attempt to finish the whole series. It’s an instinct a lot of kids have. When they love a series they want to read all the books out there. But what can they do when that series is out-of-print?
Fast forward to last Friday and I’m hanging out with my children’s book group talking about titles they’d like to see added to the library system. Suddenly they all start talking about The Baby-Sitters Club. And no, not the graphic novels or the recently released original four. No, what they want are the originals with their terrible 80s hair and copious scrunchies. The ones that look like this:
The kids don’t care how old those covers are, by the way. They systematically plow through them caring not a jot about the lack of cell phones or references to something called “VHS”. Scholastic, in the depths of their cruelty, makes the full list of BSC titles available to kids. But do they actually publish those books anymore? No! (Is it bad that I totally geeked out over The Hairpin’s The Baby-sitters Club: Where Are They Now? recently? The info on Janine is DEAD ON. And the Dawn . . . oh, the Dawn.)
So here is what it comes down to. What makes a series catch fire with a generation of kids, long after that series has effectively died? If kids found my beloved Three Investigators today would they enjoy them as much as I did (and they weren’t exactly young in the 80s, y’know).
Occasionally publishers will try to republish books that were once hits in the hope of making them viable moneymakers today. Trouble is, it rarely works. Take BSC. When Scholastic republished the first four books they did so with what may have been the dullest jacke
It's the bellbottoms on the hippy dippy minstrel that I love.
- Comic book bloggers and children’s literature bloggers are two sides of the same coin. Our interests often run parallel. The degree to which the academic world regards us is fairly similar (though admittedly we get to have Norton Anthologies while they are sorely lacking any such distinction). I don’t read my comic book blogs as frequently as I might, but once in a while the resident husband will draw my attention to something particularly toothsome. Such a case was this series on Comic Book Resources. A fellow by the name of Greg Hatcher makes a tour of the countryside each year, finding small towns with even smaller bookshops and thrift shops. This year his has posted his finds and the children’s literature goodies are frequent. In part one he pays homage to a surprise discovery of Kieran Scott’s Geek Magnet and shows the sad state of Sacagawea-related children’s literature in gift shops today (though I sure hope the Lewis & Clark gift shop also has the wherewithal to carry Joseph Bruchac’s Sacajawea: The Story of Bird Woman and the Lewis and Clark). In part two Greg discovers the oddly comic-less Janet Townsend novel The Comic Book Mystery, finds the name Franklin Dixon on a book that ISN’T a Hardy Boys novel, and waxes eloquent on the career of illustrator Kurt Wiese. In part three he locates some very rare and pristine Trixie Belden novels (which I adored as a kid). And finally, in part four he introduces us to the Danny Dunn series, shows us a hitherto unknown Three Investigators cover, and discusses Henry Reed (with illustrations by Robert McCloskey, of course). If you enjoy bookscouting in any way, these posts are a joy. Take a half an hour out of your day to go through them. Greg writes with an easy care that I envy and hope to emulate. Plus I loved the idea of giving photographs inserted into posts colored notations the way he does. I’ve already started to try it myself. Thanks to Matt (who, I see, recently credited Better Off Ted, for which I am grateful) for the links.
- I sort of view agent Nathan Bransford with the same wary respect I once bestowed upon a toucan I found in the London department store Harrods. I’m grateful that he’s there and I can’t look away, but there’s something unnerving about running across him. And now he appears to have a book coming out with Dial in 2011, which is nice except that I keep misreading the title as Jacob Wonderbra and the Cosmic Space Kapow. For the record, I would give a whole lot of money to any author willing to name their titular character (childish giggle) after a bra, a girdle, or even a good old-fashioned garter. Okay . . . why am I talking about Nathan Bransford again? Oh righ
My kids will pick up a photo cover over an 80s type cover any day. I’ve begged them to read great books with old covers–no dice.
Dare I say the books are just dated? I am just over the age where I would have read both series, so didn’t, so don’t know.
I loved those original Trixie Belden covers!! The same discussion could be had about the Little House on the Prairie books – the Garth Williams covers were so much more engaging than the modern photographic covers. But I do wonder if that is my own nostalgia talking more than anything, after reading Tandy’s comment above.
As a kid, I hunted for the older Nancy Drew books, somehow thinking that they were more mysterious, and that by virtue of finding them, I was somewhat of a detective myself! I still find myself drawn to the old covers. Ever check out their upcycled reincarnations on Etsy?http://www.etsy.com/search/handmade?search_submit=&q=nancy+drew+books&view_type=gallery&ship_to=US
I went hard-core for the completist old books: Outdoor Girls of Deepdale & Mary Rose Goes to Boarding School. First was early Stratmeyer, I believe; second was an actual, real person.
Other personal faves from that time were Cherry Ames and the Happy Holisters.
Oh, The Happy Hollisters! I remember those books fondly. They were old when I was reading them off the school library shelves but I adored them. My mom informed me her mother ordered them from the newspaper, one a month, and would read them aloud to her kids. My mother’s family was migrant-worker poor so this was a big treat.
I think what captured my imagination so much was how romanticized the time was, the kids coming home from school during lunch to soup and sandwiches their mom had prepared for them. Family organized carnivals on the lawn during the summer… I also read the Bobbsey Twins for the same reasons. It was all so completely different from my small-town life in Eastern Washington, eating school lunches of grilled cheese and tomato rice soup.
I loved the Happy Hollisters too! I have a nine-year-old who comes into my library who has been slowly ILLing the entire series. If only I had understood about ILL when I was nine and trying to complete my own out-of-print series reading!
I think the 80’s were on to something – it’s called real advertising. Despite the cheese factor what makes those old covers resonate is that they portray kids doing what kids do. What in heck do these new covers with half faces and partial body parts say about the books characters or innards? Sometimes publishing tries so hard to get into a readers head that they forget, at the end of the day the kids just want a good story.
I was totally a Sweet Valley High girl. And was one of the people who freaked at the stupid size 6 change. But maybe more offensive is that instead of marketing these books for the good stories they were (if not totally soap operatic in SVH’s case) they’re trying to sell them the way you’d sell a TV series. It’s not a TV series, it’s a book. Just push the story, readers will follow.
I used the children’s section of the public library back in the dark ages when, “Heaven forfend!”, the shelves could not be contaminated with “series” books like Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys. I know my school library had old Nancy Drews which I really liked (better than the rewrites in the 60s?) and also tried to hunt down. Somehow I found Cherry Ames, Trixie Belden and The Chalet School which were also series and not allowed in the library. The last two were my particular favorites but don’t think my peers were interested at all.
The librarian before me wanted to “weed out” all the old books, Nancy Drew and Babysitters included. However, they are all still here, in all their ancient glory. And the kids still check them out, like they’re finding buried treasure.
I still have staunch fans of Trixie Belden – and new fans! I’ve introduced lots of girls to her and wish they’d republish them in good, sturdy bindings. The new babysitter club has done just fine here – the kids just want to read them and don’t seem to care what they look like at all.
I notice more of the old hardback Nancy Drews going out that the various paperback updates, from the Clue Crew to the graphic novels. And Paula, I agree with you about the old illustrated covers. I spent a heck of a lot of time looking at the little scenes depicted on the covers of the BSC and other 80s paperbacks, seeing how it fit into the story. Those pictures really told part of the story. I may have felt a little let down if the clothes a character was wearing on the cover didn’t make it into the text, but we all have to deal with disappointment sometimes.
I just read your Friending article – great btw! but Tab IS still available! It has never been unavailable (just perhaps hard to find?)