The Happy Hollisters and the Mystery of the Totem Faces - Softcover

West, Jerry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1537371355 ISBN 13: 9781537371351

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016

Synopsis

The Happy Hollisters and the Mystery of the Totem Faces (#15 in the Happy Hollisters series)This story finds the Hollister family off to Alaska with Uncle Russ and their two cousins, Teddy and Jean. Russ Hollister, a commercial artist and cartoonist, has run out of ideas and is trying to think of a new location for his comic strip characters. The children, whose interest in the Far North has been aroused by an encounter with an old man and the totem pole he brought back as a souvenir of his adventurous days as a gold miner, persuade Uncle Russ to make Alaska the background for his new cartoon series. The gold miner has told the children that his totem pole is a replica of a pole that holds a secret, which was lost somewhere near Sitka, Alaska. The Hollisters manage to locate the lost totem pole and find, tucked away inside it, the clue to hidden treasure.A most exciting Hollister story that combines the excitement of solving a mystery and outsmarting a sinister thief with the discovery of new places, different traditions and ways of living.A new story that will certainly please all the Hollister fans who look forward so eagerly to each new book in this popular series.

About this title

About the Author:

The Happy Hollisters by Jerry West was actually written by Andrew E. Svenson, a prolific yet somewhat anonymous, writer of books for children. Jerry West was the pen name assigned to Svenson when he started writing The Happy Hollisters for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book packager well-known for its development of children's book series including Tom Swift, The Bobbsey Twins, The Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew. Many of these series were intended to have long publishing lives, and were written by multiple authors using the same pseudonym. The Happy Hollisters, however, were all written by Andrew Svenson, whose identity as Jerry West was kept secret until several years after his death in 1975. Andrew Svenson was born in Belleville, NJ, in 1910, and his interest in writing started early. He was editor of his high school newspaper and yearbook at Barringer High School in Newark, and then went on to study Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh. After his graduation in 1932, he worked as a reporter and editor for the Newark Star Eagle and the Newark Evening News. Andrew Svenson was encouraged by his friend Howard Garis (author of Uncle Wiggily) to try his hand at juvenile fiction. He joined the Stratemeyer Syndicate as a writer in 1948, where he contributed to established series as Franklin W. Dixon (The Hardy Boys) and as Laura Lee Hope (The Bobbsey Twins). The first volume in his own original series, The Happy Hollisters, was published in 1953 by Doubleday & Company, and he was made a partner in the Stratemeyer Syndicate in 1961. As he wrote and developed 33 titles in The Happy Hollisters, he was also creating additional series for children under other pen names: Bret King by Dan Scott and The Tollivers by Alan Stone. Under various pseudonyms, Andrew Svenson wrote more than 70 adventure and mystery novels for children, which were published in 17 languages and sold millions of copies. The Hollister family was modeled on his own family and he often used Svenson family events and travels as the foundation for The Happy Hollisters books. He also kept copious newspaper clippings for story ideas, and interviewed hundreds of school children and teachers for additional suggestions. These ideas were then worked into his storylines, adding an educational element that was appreciated by parents and educators alike. The children loved the stories for their elements of danger and excitement geared to their comprehension level.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1537371355
• ISBN 13: 9781537371351
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 166
• Illustrator: Hamilton Helen S.