Sightings!

Trixie Belden pops up in the strangest places. Here are a few confirmed sightings:

 

Jen tells us: "... I found a Trixie Belden sighting.  It's in a book called The Daring Book for Girls by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz.  It is on page276 on a list of books for suggested reading.  It is under the heading Old-Fashioned Girl-Detective Series.  Unfortunately Nancy Drew is listed first."

Jill (franollie) writes:

So, I'm reading Earlene Fowler's 2003 book "Sunshine and Shadow" and her main character has just read a passage from her favorite childhood book series (the fictional Molly Conners series) and her husband is asking her about the books she liked as a kid and she responds:
 
"I loved all the popular mystery series--Trixie Belden, Judy Bolton, Donna Parker, The Timber Trail Riders."

This was found on pg. 21.

 

Laurie discovered that on page 255 of Susan Kandel's Not a Girl Detective, Trixie gets a very brief mention as "a farm girl bored with the usual chores."

Laurie reminds us that the book Confessions of a Teen Sleuth by Chelsea Cain features Foxy Belden-Frayne, the daughter of Trixie and Jim.  I mentioned this book on the forum (link to review) and several fans have since read and enjoyed the book.

Details from Laurie:

Nancy Drew's son, Ned Junior, marries Foxy Belden-Frayne, daughter of Trixie Belden and Jim Frayne.  Foxy describes her mom as "a pretty famous detective in Westchester County, New York" on page 104.  She mentions that she is a "Junior Bob-White," too.  Foxy says that "Moms and Daddy are tops, and Aunt Honey  is the best" (103), but that her parents understand her "about as much as a bobcat understands a copperhead!"  (102).  Ned Junior and Foxy end up living at Crabapple Farm, where Foxy grows tomatoes and her boys  "knew how to treat copperhead bites and track a  bobcat." (149). 
 

While visiting Court TV's Crime Library's entry on the JFK assassination, Julia came across this:

about 3/4 the way down the page, here's the quote:

"Junkkarinen says she was drawn into the JFK assassination long before Oliver Stone's film. (She admits it is an obsession; her e-mail name is "barbjfk," and she notes with a laugh that her husband recently gave her a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, the brand found near the assassin's window roost at the Texas School Book Depository building in Dallas.)

"For me, I love a mystery," Junkkarinen says. "I grew up reading Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. I think it was that and the medical evidence that sucked me into it."

http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/assassins/jfk/1.html?sect=24

LynnD saw this line in  The Wife by Meg Wolitzer:

"Hello," I said into my daughter's pink Princess phone. "This is Joan Castleman." I sat on her bed beneath the bookshelf with its ancient, pristine sets of Nancy Drews and Trixie Beldens.

Here's a link to the excerpt on BN.com.

Julie and Marsha both spotted Trixie Belden books as a holiday gift recommendation in the December 13-14 (2003) edition of USA Weekend.

A Trixie sighting within another sighting.  In The Key Reporter (Fall 2002, Volume 68, Number 1), the Phi Beta Kappa newsletter, there is a section devoted to the places Phi Beta Kappa appears in literature and culture.  One submission reveals:

From "Trixie Belden and the Mystery Off Glen Road" by Julie Campbell (Whitman, 1956): " ... 'A unicycle,' Honey gasped.  'I didn't know there were any except in circuses.'"

"'Is that what you call a one-wheeled bike?' Trixie asked.

"Honey giggled. 'Of course, as in unicorn. The bi in bicycle means that it has two wheels.  I think it's Greek, like Phi Beta Kappa.'"

Limarie says that "On page 37 of Joan Hess' 1996 mystery novel, Closely Akin to Murder:  A Claire Malloy Mystery, it states the following:

'The events had occurred when I was in fifth grade, playing kickball, reading Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books, and fingerprinting my friends.'

Coincidentally, a character by the name of Trixie appears later in the book.  There's some mystery involving her name, but I don't want to give away anything."

Dilla has been spending time at the library!  She sent in six Trixie sightings found in periodicals.  A sample:

Title:  Nancy Drew, Mon Amour.

"In my crowded household, everyone read: with nine bodies and not much space, it was the best way to gain a little privacy. And often, what one kid brought into the house, others would end up reading. One of my sisters, nineteen months older, always seemed to have a Nancy Drew or a Trixie Belden hanging around. And pretty soon I was like a hawk at a rabbit hole, circling impatiently for her to finish the latest so I could get my claws into it."


Title:  Some adults find magic in books associated with kids.(The Dallas Morning News)
Author:  Bill Marvel

Leslee Covington also read Dickens and Shakespeare as a kid.

"I didn't get into `kids' literature until I was in fifth grade, when a friend got into Trixie Belden books. They're sort of like Nancy Drew books. I preferred them because she was closer to my age. I wanted to be Trixie."

 Julie G. says that "In the New York Times on July 5, 2001, the technology section has a feature article about shopping on eBay. The author of the article mentions that as a youth she loved to read books:

'The contraband books I kept under the covers featured a likeable teenage
detective named Trixie Belden who got right to the bottom of the mystery of
the old mansion and unraveled the secret of the blinking eye.'

Anyway, the rest of the article goes on about the author trying to find these books to send along to camp with her daughter. It mentions several places to find the books online.

 Kathy J. sent in this link: http://www.frontiernet.net/~bleuspri/Trixiepage.htm about a dog with an interesting name.

Renelda wrote that she is also a fan of the tv show Xena:Warrior Princess and was thrilled to read in the official fan club newsletter, The Chakram issue No.1, that Lucy Lawless, who plays Xena, was also a fan of the Trixie Belden books when she was growing up. On page five in an interview it states:

"Lucy never seems to be without a book by her bedside.Growing up she 'read things like Trixie Belden and someone else,  I forget who....'."

There is or was a punk rock band called Trixie Belden. Update:  Thanks to Jenni, we now have the following link: http://www.spacelab.net/~boss/trixiebelden/index.html

Many fans reported Annie Potts' character of M.E. on Lifetime's Any Day Now declaring she preferred Trixie Belden over Nancy Drew.

Thea found this link that suggests Trixie might be studying law.

Trixie was an answer in a November 1999 New York Times Crossword Puzzle. See for yourself. (this is a trimmed version)

In Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode #518 - The Atomic Brain, in response to two young women sneaking out of a door, Tom Servo remarks "It's Trixie Belden and Honey!"

I found mention of Trixie and the gang in an odd online book called Millbrook. She's mentioned in a couple of chapters, check out Chapter 3. (about 28 paragraphs from the bottom or use your "find in page" function)

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