The Happy Hollisters

Description

This series recounts the adventures of a young American middle-class family solving mysteries from their home on Pine Lake in the city of Shoreham (no state is ever provided). The Hollister family includes five children, their parents, a family of cats, a dog and a burro. Pete is the oldest of the Hollister children and is 12 years old. Pam, or Pamela, is 10 years old and very adventurous. Ricky is a red-headed, rambunctious 7-year-old and Holly is a 6-year-old tomboy. The youngest is Sue, age 4.

Their father, Mr. John Hollister, owns a general store named The Trading Post, where he sells hardware, sporting goods, and toys. Mrs. Elaine Hollister tries to help her children solve mysteries and is always ready with handy tips for solving cases.

Joey Brill and Will Wilson appear as rivals of the Hollister family in most books. While not actually villains, they appear as obstacles and annoyances to the Hollisters' mystery-solving efforts in most plots. Usually their disruptive actions are shown to be the result of lack of awareness, apathy, or indifference, rather than malicious motives.

List of titles

Publishing history

The series was published between 1953 and 1970. Volumes 1-4 were published by Doubleday. Volumes 5-19 were published by Garden City, a Doubleday imprint. Volumes 20-33 were published by Doubleday. All subsequent reprints during this time period were done by Doubleday. New books were also made available as part of a subscription series with prices ranging from $1.00 to $1.50 per title.

The series was translated into over ten languages worldwide. English publication was discontinued at the end of 1983, but since 2010 it is being reissued in both trade paperback and eBook formats.

Influences

This series is unique in that the characters are based on Svenson's family from Bloomfield, New Jersey. In the series, Pete represented real son Andrew Jr., Pam represented daughter Laura, Ricky represented Eric, Holly represented Jane, and Sue was a composite of Svenson's two youngest daughters, Eileen and Ingrid. Even the dog and cat had real counterparts; "White Nose" was really the family cat, Mickey, and collie "Zip" was real border collie Lassie.

Joey Brill was based on a real person as well, although everyone claims to have forgotten his real name.

Jane (Svenson) Kossmann recounts that her father placed other real characters in this series, including her social studies teacher Mrs. Farber. She also relates that some of the stories in the books were based on stories from her Girl Scout Camp and her brother's Boy Scout Camp escapades.

Writing and editing

Svenson had his children, and later his grandchildren, review and "edit" his books. Jane remembers getting to the end of a chapter in an early rough draft of one book and realized she could not read on since the book was unfinished. After begging her father to tell her how the book ended, she was irritated by his response – that he didn't know how it ended since he hadn't written it yet!

Jane also recalls that while her friends at school knew that The Happy Hollisters were based on her family; no one thought it was "any kind of a big deal. It was just another job to them — although they thought it was strange that my father worked from home sometimes, and sometimes all night and weekend." She reports that he tended to write in concentrated sessions, sometimes for what seemed like three days straight. When he "locked himself in his office to write", no one was allowed to disturb him. She reports that he took breaks from writing to swim at the local YMCA, ride his racing bicycle, or punch a boxer's punching bag he had set up at home.

Translations

Twelve of the books have been translated into Swedish. The whole series was translated into Spanish, and sold in Spain and several Latin American countries under the title "Los Hollister". The whole series was also translated into Norwegian, as Lykkebarna. At least 11 of their adventures were published in a German adaptation as Die fröhlichen Falkenbergs under the name of "Gerhart West". Eighteen of their adventures were also published in France by Hachette in its "Bibliothèque Rose" imprint under the name "Les Joyeux Jolivet".