Plucky teen sleuth stands test of time
Published 9:00 pm Saturday, July 23, 2005
She was the first “It Girl” in print. And for generations her manners and mission to solve mysteries from her hometown of River Heights to the deserts of Peru have charmed readers across the country.
I knew I liked Nancy Drew the second I read the following sentence in “The Secret of the Old Clock”: “Becomingly dressed in a tan cotton suit, Nancy set off in her convertible for the shopping district.”
A sleuth with a strong sense of fashion and penchant for shopping. And one who drives about town in a dark blue convertible given to her by her doting lawyer father, no less. Now, that’s my kind of role model.
Would we have liked Nancy so much if we only got to know her in one book? Probably not. Her staying power is rooted in the Nancy Drew series – one book after another, each a different mystery. Unlike other books we call series, Nancy Drew books go on and on, and they don’t carry one major plot line that weaves through each book (like a certain book you’re all reading right now or have already polished off!).
Nancy Drew made her bright debut in 1930. The author has always been listed as Carolyn Keene but, as you probably already know, that was a pen name.
Numerous people, men and women, wrote the dozens of mysteries we’ve come to love. But the first to tackle the project and make our favorite young detective famous was Mildred Wirt Benson, who penned 23 novels including the first three. The stories were later revised and updated.
If you’ve never read the books before, summer is a great time to get started. At about 180 pages they’re a quick, fun read. And it’s not tough to find the books. You can easily spot them in libraries and bookstores, and perhaps in your mom’s attic or at garage sales. Just look for the classic yellow book covers. And don’t worry if you don’t read them in order. It’s simple to pick up the characters right away. I admit I haven’t read them all, but that didn’t stop me from diving right in to book 44 the other day, “The Clue in the Crossword Cipher.” Nancy leaves River Heights with her two good friends, Bess and George, to follow their new friend Carla Ponce back to her home country of Peru and help her unravel a mystery that has been in her family for hundreds of years.
You can bet that Nancy, who is eternally 18 years old, solves the mystery – with plenty of danger, loads of style and enough cliffhangers (literally and figuratively) to make you reach for the next book without ever taking a break.
