The Bobbsey Twins’ Adventure in Washington

The Bobbsey Twins’ Adventure in Washington was published in 1947 and takes the family to the United States capital. The book reads in places like a civics lesson for young readers. The Bobbseys visit the White House, the Capitol Building, the Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, the Library of Congress, and several other landmarks, with the narrative pausing for brief educational explanations at each stop.

The plotline involves a slightly mysterious senior congressional staffer named Mr. Halliday who has been receiving threatening letters, and Nan and Bert eventually figure out that the supposed threats are actually a misunderstanding stemming from a younger cousin’s prank. The political content is carefully apolitical, which was the series house style. The Cold War period in which the book was written is essentially invisible in the text. As a late-1940s Bobbsey volume it is competent rather than memorable.