I keep a catalog of all my books, but because my Hardy Boys collection has been in storage, an opportunity to finally catalog them finally came about and I discovered that I have a lot of doubles! Never noticed that back in the day.
Also, I’m not sure where they all came from, many were just in the house, and I read and kept them for myself. Some were my brothers’, and there are different names inside the cover of many of them, names I don’t recognize.
The first one I read was “The Secret of the Old Mill”, and I remember sitting on the step of Allendale Elementary’s second-grade classroom, and later reading it on our front porch. It was a big deal as it was a “real” book and not some children’s book with a lot of illustrations like we were used to.
The older, non-blue cover books were actually all re-written for their later blue cover releases, or heavily modified as it was believed that they were too deep and complex for young readers, or had some “offensive” material in them. I remember being captivated by these stories and characters, with nothing negative taken away from the experience. The two white books on the upper-right are modern reprints of the originals.
The oldest of these is from 1928. I didn’t fully realize that these non-blue covers originally had paper jackets with illustrated covers until much later.
And now, unfortunately, they are back in storage. Not enough shelf space available!
randyrydberg.org 