Friday, July 31, 2009

Retro Friday Review: Nancy Drew

Nancy Drew Series by Carolyn Keen

Okay, so its about 30 minutes till midnight, I can still count this as a Retro Friday Review! Phew!

For this edition I have to go with an all-time favorite, Nancy Drew. As most of you probably know, there are hundreds of books in the ND series. I don’t even want to say how many I have actually read. I will say that I love Nancy Drew; I think a small part of me still wishes I was her. I remember going over to my friend Joy’s house in the fifth grade and there in her room was a shelf filled with Nancy Drew books. I was drawn to the bright yellow covers and soon to the amazing stories that filled their pages. Even as an adult I still love to read the stories every now and again and they always bring me back to my childhood. Nancy is a fantastic character. She is strong, smart, kind, clever, and the list goes on and on. She is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, for girls. I loved how she is able to solve all sorts of crimes in very creative ways. With the help of her awesome best friends Bess and George (I wish they were my friends too), they encounter all sorts of adventures, travel and romance.

I’m not sure when I realized that Carolyn Keen was not a real person. It was actually a pen name for many different authors, both male and female. GoodReads had some interesting info and instead of rewriting it I will just add it below.

“Carolyn Keene is a writer pen name that was used by many different people- both men and women- over the years. The company that was the creator of the Nancy Drew series, the Stratemeyer Syndicate, hired a variety of writers. For Nancy Drew, the writers used the pseudonym Carolyn Keene to assure anonymity of the creator. Edna and Harriet Stratemeyer inherited the company from their father Edward Stratemeyer. Edna contributed 10 plot outlines before passing the reins to her sister. While Harriet is often credited as Carolyn Keene, several other authors assumed the pseudonym of Caroyn Keene. Starting in 1953, Harriet authored 24 volumes. In 1959, Harriet, along with several writers, began a 25-year project to revise the earlier Carolyn Keene novels. The Nancy Drew books were condensed, racial stereotypes were removed, and the language was updated. In a few cases, outdated plots were completely rewritten.”

Nancy Drew is great reading for young girls, I can’t wait until I have a daughter of my own to share these with and I highly recommend them to anyone who enjoys a good mystery.

Other Retro Reviews

1 comment:

  1. LOVE Nancy Drew. What a great Retro post. For quite awhile there I went to the bookstore every month to get the new Case Files one when it came out. And I have all the originals. My dad and I used to read them together at night. Such good memories.

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