The Bobbsey Twins

#4 The Secret in the Sand Castle by Laura Lee Hope (Stratemeyer Syndicate), 1988.

Before I begin, I’d like to acknowledge Sean Hagins, for supplying me with photos of this book! Usually, I take pictures of books myself, but I just couldn’t find a physical copy of this one. Sean is a big fan of the Bobbsey Twins, particularly the New Bobbsey Twins mysteries, and you can see some of his video reviews as well as videos about his photography work on his YouTube channel, SJHFoto. Thanks, Sean!

The two sets of Bobbsey Twins and their parents are spending a few weeks in an old house at Beachcliff Bay. It’s sort of a working vacation for their parents. Mr. Bobbsey owns a lumber yard, and he’s helping a local builder, Jim Reade, to either find some antique Victorian wooden gingerbread house trim or make new ones to match a home restoration project. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bobbsey is planning to write a travel article about the area for their local newspaper.

The house where the family will be staying is called the Wilson house, and it’s one of Mr Reade’s recent renovation projects. Flossie is the first in the family to go inside, and she is startled by what she thinks is a ghost. It turns out that it’s only the caretaker, Pete Smedley, taking the old dust sheets off the furniture. It’s not entirely reassuring because Pete says that there are stories about the old Wilson house being haunted by the ghosts of its former owners, who drowned in the nearby bay. He says that he knows when the ghosts have been there because they move things around and leave trails of water, seaweed, and seashells. Mr. Reade thinks that Pete’s stories are nonsense and that the strange things he’s observed are due to windows in the house being left open or something like that.

The inside of the Wilson house is as elaborate as the outside. The Bobbsey twins unpack their things and claim rooms for themselves upstairs. Flossie is quick to claim the biggest room with the best view for herself, and she asks Bert to help her move a mirror she likes into her room. They don’t have anything to hang the mirror, so they set it on Flossie’s bed. Strangely, they later find the mirror still on the bed but broken, and they don’t know how that happened.

Nan is curious about the Wilson family and the history of the house, so she and Freddie take a trip to the local library. There, Nan learns that the last two members of the Wilson family were a brother and sister, called Clay and Jennie. They were both artists, but they never made much money. Badly in need of money, they apparently robbed an armored car and stole gold bars. They tried to escape in a boat, but it was lost in a storm. The Wilsons apparently drowned, although their bodies were never found. The police thought they might have hidden the gold somewhere before getting on the boat, but nobody ever found the gold they stole.

Mr. Reade tells the children that his son, Jimmy, is entering a local sand castle contest, and the Bobbsey twins decide that they would like to enter the contest, too. Nan thinks they should try to build a replica of the Wilson house in sand. Unfortunately, Jimmy turns out to be a troublemaker, and it doesn’t look like he wants to be friends with the Bobbsey twins.

While the girls go to the store, Bert and Freddie decide to check out the old root cellar at the house, and someone traps them inside. The girls let them out when they get back. Then Flossie finds a secret passage and hidden stairs. Mr. Bobbsey says that it was once a servants’ entrance that had been sealed off. Later that night, a ghostly figure tries to enter Nan’s room! Could it have been Jimmy. playing a nasty prank, or is it someone looking for the lost gold? Could it even be a real ghost?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

From the beginning of the book, I had a favorite suspect. However, this is one of those mysteries where there is more than one person involved, and they’re not working together. In the end, I was right about my main suspect, but having a second person doing suspicious things made the mystery more interesting. The title is a little misleading because the story is really about the search for the hidden gold from the robbery, not about the sand castle contest. The sand castle contest is more of a side issue, although studying the design of the house to build the sand castle version leads the kids to the solution of the mystery.

Because this book is from the late 1980s, there are things in the story that were more a part of my childhood than the lives of 21st century children, like renting videotapes. I was about the age of Freddie and Flossie when this book was first published, so it’s a bit of a fun nostalgia trip for me, both because I read books in this series when I was young and because some of the things the kids do in these stories are similar to things I did at their age.

12 thoughts on “The Secret in the Sand Castle”

  1. As I mentioned in the last book review, thank you very much for the photo credit! Speaking of photos, I have the original photographs used as a basis for the artist to make his drawings (models were posed in a studio with minimal props to give the artist an idea of what was wanted for the books).

    Also, if you like, I will be happy to lend you the 14 Wanderer books (I have started rereading the series, and am up to book #13. I will finish this penultimate book, as well as #14 before the weekend is over barring unforeseen events)

    This book that you are reviewing is among my favourites. I’ve said this before-in my opinion, this is the golden age of the Bobbsey books, before the series took a “baby-ish” turn in the latter half of the New Bobbsey Twins series.

    You said, you were Freddie and Flossie’s age when this came out. I was a bit older than Nan and Bert. This series is the one where I bought them all brand new-the Wanderer series was hit or miss as the one bookstore in my town didn’t carry the Bobbsey Twins, so I bought them as I found them. (I remember buying #2 Pirates Cove new, and also #7 and #11. The rest I bought in the late 80s when the New Bobbsey Twins were coming out. I requested my bookstore to special order them, and once I pre-paid for them (and I badgered the owner a lot), he finally agreed.

    I must say again, I am SO GLAD to have found someone else online that shares my interests in this series, as well as the McGurk mysteries. (I see you missed reviewing quite a few of those-I will be happy to loan you my copies of that series as well-I know you’ll take good care of them)

    You didn’t mention this, but this is the first book illustrated by Paul Jennis. I had the privilege to meet him some years ago, and he is a VERY nice man who has done a lot of artwork. (As I gushed about the Bobbsey Twins, he told me that most people know him for a his more famous work, (like the portraits he’s done for several US presidents for the White House), and no one has ever mentioned his Bobbsey Twins work. Unlike Randy Barnett, and other artists that came after him, his work is very similar to the previous artist, George Tsui. One thing to look for is that he modeled himself for several of the adult roles. Since I know what he looks like, it is fun spotting him in some of the artwork

    I didn’t really mention much about the plot because you covered most of what I had to say. I have to say though that the scene of Nan painting reminds me so much of my trips to the beach in the 1990s with my friends when we would just sit around and sometimes, I would do similar things (with my camera, not a paintbrush) to capture the beautiful scenery.

    It’s so hard for me to believe that it has been 35 years since these books were released-and even almost 30 years since those carefree days when my friends were all single, and we’d take regular weekend trips to the beach!

    There are so many memories that these books conjure up for me-it’s why I like to dust them off and reread them

    Also, this was back in the days when kid mysteries were truly for kids. In contrast, I am listening (I do most of my reading by audiobook nowadays besides these nostalgic trips) to the Sammy Keyes books. They are 20 years old or so, but still the situations involve gangs, teenage pregnancy, murder, and other “adult” subject matter! And these are kids books-not young adult! McGurk and the Bobbsey Twins have suspense, and thrilling mysteries, but they are strictly “G” rated-I miss that.

    Please, feel free to share your memories of reading these great books for the first time as a kid as well. Did you also have the whole series? What do you think of the latter half?

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    1. There are a lot of things I forgot about this series since I read them when I was a kid. I just read one that I didn’t think that I’d read years ago because I didn’t remember it, but toward the end, I realized that I must have read it at some point because I remembered something that one of the kids said. I just forgot which book it was from. I never actually owned any of the books. I got them all from the library, so I can’t be sure now exactly which ones I read or in what order, although there are times when something jumps out at me, and I think, “Oh, I read that part before.”

      I’m sure that I read some of the Wanderer books before because I remember certain ones, especially the one where they went to Nepal. It just seemed like such a departure from the usual Bobbsey Twins books. I might cover them at some point, but I have more of the New Bobbsey Twins I want to cover first, and I like skipping around.

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      1. I’m curious about what you think about the twins (Bert & Flossie anyway) darkening their skin in the Nepal book. It reminds some of “blackface” although I didn’t see it that way as a kid

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      3. Yes, they were in Nepal and had to “shadow” a suspect, so Bert and Flossie not only acquired the cultural dress, but they mentioned that they used charcoal (or shoe black) to darken their skin. A little boy notices Flossie’s blue eyes, but their friend (who speaks the language) assures him that they are from a far away district where it is common!

        Like I said before, please let me know if you want to borrow any of these books! I just finished the Wanderer and will start the New Bobbsey Twins soon. Also, I can loan you my set of McGurk books. I see that you only reviewed the later ones. The ones from the 70s are the ones I grew up with (I read the others, but was older when they came out) My favourite is Phantom Frog-it’s the scariest!

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      4. Oh, that’s starting to sound familiar. I guess it’s more forgivable if they had to disguise themselves to fool a bad guy or a potential bad guy. If they were doing it just for fun, that would be rude and tasteless because it would look like they were making fun of people in the country they were visiting.

        I remember The Phantom Frog! I had to do a diorama for school about a book I read, and I did that book. I made a cute little frog out of modeling clay, and I kept the froggy for a long time after the project was over.

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      5. Did you find it scary? (Phantom Frog I mean)

        And you never answered my question-would you want to borrow the books?

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      6. As I recall, I figured from the beginning that there had to be a trick to it, but I thought it was a really unusual and intriguing trick. I can’t remember how the whole thing went now, but I remember that the word “werefrog” kept it from being too scary for me. It’s just a much funnier image than “werewolf.” Wolves can eat you, and frogs just hop around and eat flies.

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      7. Ok. Please answer my question though (I am asking because I notice that when I email people, they always seem to leave an answer unaddressed. I’m not sure if that is because I am unusual in that I ask multiple questions in one message, or if they don’t see the question. Did you wish to borrow my books?

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      9. No problem. Thanks for getting back to me. I don’t know if I told you this, but starting with COVID, I’ve opened up my personal library to trusted people I know. I didn’t send my Bobbsey Twin books out so far, but I did some McGurk books, as well as my Twin Connection and Not Quite Human books.

        Speaking of which, have I told you about some of the series that I read as a kid/young adult that aren’t mysteries (or are very brief run series)?

        You can see some of them on my youtube channel:

        https://www.youtube.com/@SJHFoto/playlists

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