A brief overview of the books

A few people mentioned to me that they didn't know there even were Bobbsey Twins books in paperback after the original series ended, so i thought i'd give a brief explanation of how the series progressed.

    Most of you know the original series. It had a total of 72 books and was printed from 1904 thru 1979.

    Then in 1980, Wanderer marketed another Bobbsey Twins series as kid mysteries in the format of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. This series is here:

In 1986, Minstrel books took over the series, titled it "The New Bobbsey Twins" and started again from #1. I started reading the series with the end of the Wanderer books, but it was REALLY hard for me to find the earlier books in the series (i was a kid, and the one bookstore i could easily visit wouldn't order them), so i remember the New Bobbseys much better than the Wanderer books:

     While i enjoy the entire collection, after #17 of the new series, the stories got a LOT more babyish and less interesting. For example in books 1-17, the Bobbseys stopped a jewel thief, enemy spies stealing plans for a US helicopter, a smuggling ring etc. In books 18-30, they stopped some kid planning to mess up the science fair, a mother who tried to sabotage someone's cookies at a bake sale, a prize pig owner, etc. UGH! Maybe the publishers thought these kiddie mysteries would better appeal to younger readers, but not so much for me!

    Also, i thought i'd give a sneak preview of things to come: a couple years ago, i bought the old pictures used by Paul Jennis (the artist of the New Bobbsey Twins books 4-17) that he used to draw the illustrations. I'll show them when i get to the books, but as a sample, here's one of my favourites where Nan is chased by a (model) airplane on a pier a la North by Northwest:

     So stick around! Plenty more to come!