Mardigian Library News

The Juvenile Historic Collection received a significant donation when Barbara and Daniel Balbach recently gave more than 60 children’s books in memory of his parents, Clarice and William Balbach. The books were published from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s and include titles in a number of important children’s series such as Elsie Dinsmore, the Bobbsey Twins, Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue, Mildred (a friend of Elsie Dinsmore), Ruth Fielding, and Nancy Drew.

Elsie Dinsmore was a series of 28 titles written between 1867 and 1905 by Martha Finley. The books were immensely popular and some of the titles were recently re-issued. The library now owns a copy of all the Elsie titles except Elsie and Her Namesakes, the last in the series.

The Bobbsey Twins series is the longest running series for children, written by various authors under the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope and published by the Stratemeyer Syndicate in its original series from 1904 until 1979. Many titles in the series have been modernized and are still being published today. Following the exploits of a family with two sets of twins, aged twelve and six, the series is aimed at young readers. As the mystery series Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys (also Stratemeyer Syndicate series) became popular in the 1920s and 1930s, the Bobbsey Twins stories also began including gentle mystery themes. The Balbach donation included six titles in this series, the oldest being The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge (1913).

Another famous series represented is the Nancy Drew series with the titles The Clue in the Jewel Box and The Mystery at the Ski Jump. Many young girls have avidly read this series that began in 1930 and is still being published today. Nancy Drew stories have been modernized and updated over the years. She gradually aged from sixteen to eighteen during her many exploits and although she does occasionally travel around the world solving crimes, her hometown of River Heights (a fictional town near Chicago) is obviously a hotbed of criminal activity and a place best avoided!

Through the Fire was written by George Lose in the late 1800s, telling the tale of a young woman working as a maid for a well-to-do Chicago family after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. As we were cataloging titles, we discovered that no English editions of Through the Fire had been cataloged in OCLC, an international database of library holdings for 57,000 libraries worldwide containing information for over 87 million titles. We were both surprised and pleased to find a title that was truly unique! Our librarians cataloged and entered the title into the database so that it can be discovered by researchers and readers.

Other titles in the donation include Wreck and Sinking of the Titanic, a memorial written immediately after the Titanic’s sinking, containing many photos and drawings created especially for the book. Pollyanna was written by Eleanor H. Porter in 1913, and went on to spawn a series of titles, sometimes called "The Glad Books", still popular today. Six titles by Grace Livingston Hill, an author whose first book was published 130 years ago, in 1877, were also added. These are the first titles we have by this prolific author who is well known for her inspirational and wholesome romance novels for girls and whose works are still being published today.

The addition of the titles donated by Mr. & Mrs. Balbach greatly enhances our Juvenile Historic Collection that was established in 2001 when the Grand Rapids Public Library donated the May G. Quigley Collection of books to UM-Dearborn. The Juvenile Historic Collection is used extensively by students in the School of Education to research the history of children's literature and to study authors, themes, trends, etc. We heartily thank Mr. & Mrs. Balbach for this generous donation!

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