The Happy Hollisters and the Trading Post Mystery, Jerry West
One of the most fun children's series of the 1950s was the "Happy Hollisters," about the lively Hollister family: Dad owns a combination sports/hobby/toy store called The Trading Post in the lakeside community of Shoreham, and, of course, Mom stays at home supervising her active brood: the two elder, more responsible children Pete, 12, and Pam, 10, then mischievous Ricky, age seven, and sparkling Holly, age six, and finally little Sue, who's only four, plus Zip the collie and White Nose and her kittens (who stay kittens for the duration of the books). Author Andrew Swenson (Jerry West) based the kids on his own children and the stories on trips the family took, adding simple mysteries to drive the plots. I was never able to read these as a child, and began picking them up one and two at book sales or used book stores, and recently ordered three of the reprints.
Then I found out all of them are available to read if you have Kindle Unlimited, and this was the first one I had not yet read. As I somehow managed to turn up an Easter-themed one last April, and still had the Cape Canaveral-set book left to read for the anniversary of the moon landing, this book is providentially set at Christmastime.
In a previous book, The Happy Hollisters at Mystery Mountain, little Sue fell in love with a black burro, and the owner promised to send the little donkey to them as a gift for helping his family. Now it's just before Christmas, and Domingo is on the way! But when they retrieve him from the airport, he has a cryptic rhyme attached to his bridle, and even when they take him home new little rhymes keep showing up in his stall.
In the meantime, the kids prepare for Christmas at school by studying Yuletide customs in other countries, their uncle and aunt and cousins arrive for the holidays, and they participate in their dad's wonderful idea for a Christmas promotion at the Trading Post: if people buy toys for charity, he will discount them. And, to advertise the store, he's bought a complete Santa Claus outfit for the roof, Santa, sleigh, reindeer and all. It's a great promotion and they're collecting lots of toys—until sneak thieves steal the entire outfit one night! So now the kids have two mysteries to solve.
It's another breathless adventure where modern kids will gape at the idea of Pete and Ricky being able to go search for thieves with a friend (riding an iceboat on a frozen lake, no less), and the kids track down clues on their own, all with no hovering adults—although Dad and Officer Cal and several other adults seem to turn up when the Hollisters and friends need them most. The odious Joey Brill and his buddy Will Wilson are back as well, and no matter how many times they get reprimanded, they're always good for yet another mean prank.
These are great, lively books with imaginative kids who make their own fun rather than sit around and play video games, love each other and help each other unashamedly, and if some old-fashioned terms (the Hollisters have a friend who is Native American who is referred to as an "Indian") and stereotypical sex roles (the boys help with "boy" chores and the girls usually clean up, but all the kids participate in the adventures) work their way into the tales, they can be used as teaching moments to compare changing attitudes. This particular book bubbles with all the glow of a classic midcentury Christmas.
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