Just recently I found the last books that I was looking for to complete one of the series of books that I am collecting.

Last June I found The Happy Hollisters at Sea Gull Beach at a used book store in Manteca.

See my post: Manteca Book Acquisitions

The Happy Hollisters series was written by Jerry West which was one of the pseudonyms used by Andrew E. Svenson while writing for the Stratemeyer Syndicate.

Last month while in Texas I found the last two books,  The Happy Hollisters and the Ice Carnival Mystery and The Happy Hollisters and the Castle Rock Mystery, that I needed to complete the series of 33 books.

See my post: Texas Book Acquisitions

Now that I have the entire series I have started on the next phase which is to upgrade the collection. I would like for all the books in the series to have dust jackets.

In the first picture above you can see what the books look like without a dust jacket. I really don’t remember having dust jackets on any of the ones I read as a kid. I just remember the red books. The dust jacket on The Happy Hollisters and the Trading Post Mystery is very colorful.

Yesterday I found three that I was missing. I would like to have the complete series with these colorful jackets.

Here is The Happy Hollisters on a River Trip. I remember reading this one as a kid.

Here is The Happy Hollisters and the Mystery in Skyscraper City. I also remember this one as they visited Chinatown. For a little boy in Iowa it was fascinating to read about the interesting places they visited.

I have a lot of great memories of reading these books when I was a kid. However, I didn’t have access to even half of the titles. Now that I have the entire series I want to read through them in order.

I will be starting the challenge soon and will probably write some update posts as I work my way through the series.

Now to hunt for the seven books with dust jackets I am missing and possibly better ones of a few that are not in good shape.

Have you read any of the Happy Hollisters books?

Steven