Recently, I thought about the Trixie Belden books. I first came across them while I was in school and I remember really enjoying the series. So I looked it up in the library and found that the first book (and only the first book) was available as an ebook.

The Secret of the Mansion is the first book in the Trixie Belden stories and it starts with Trixie wanting a horse. Sadly, her mother says no, but Trixie quickly befriends Honey, the new girl next door who does have a horse. Honey Wheeler is rich and lonely, and even though she seems rather timid at first, she and Trixie soon become friends. When they find Jim, a boy hiding from his stepfather in a house said to hide half a million dollars, the three decide to find the money to help Jim.

The first thing I noticed about this book is that Trixie’s parents are very involved in her life and that’s a good thing! In fact, Trixie feels happy that she has involved parents, and I think that’s a refreshing change from stories where the children are largely unparented. That said, most of Trixie and Honey’s adventures are away from the watchful eye of their parents, which is typical of kids.

Another thing I liked was Trixie’s sense of responsibility. She did make one mistake early on in the book, and she reacted well to it. I think grounding Trixie’s character as someone who has responsibilities to her family made her a realistic character because she couldn’t just drop everything to investigate and her relationship with her younger brother and her friends was very endearing.

The actual mystery isn’t very exciting. For me, this book is really a set-up for us to know and like three of the main characters so that we’ll continue reading the rest of the books in the series. Personally, this works for me – I’d love to continue reading the series but I’ll need to find the other books first!