Where would we be without Nancy Drew? She had the perfect situation, didn't she? Adult privileges, money, good friends, a housekeeper to take care of things at home, and a father who always knew that she could do what she wanted to and come out of it all right.

I seem to recall a few stories where there were girls who acted in full "mean girl" form, but they were dismissed by Nancy, Bess, and George as unhappy and ignored. Many of them apologised later. Doesn't anyone wish that we had been able to do that? Instead of recommending therapy for the nasty ones, tell the rest of the kids to ignore them. Hmmm. Novel concept.

Poor people were always "sallow" and thin and frequently shivered for lack of warm clothes. Bad guys had bad teeth, bad accents, hats with deep brims, moustaches or cheap suits. Bad women looked "cheap", their clothes were flashy and tight, and they wore too much perfume and too-bright lipstick or even (Heaven forbid!) rouge.

Nothing permanent happened to anyone, right was restored, babies returned to their mothers, cats rescued, the hungry were fed, and so on and so on, and it was all due to the efforts of an unassuming redhead who didn't "put herself forward".The worst things that happened involved minor first-aid or easily escaped bonds, and the world was restored to some sort of order before 200 pages were reached.

One thing that I found kind of hilarious when I re-read the first book (The Secret of the Old Clock) several years ago, was that Nancy packed iron! That's right, she carried a purse-sized revolver with her everywhere. I had completely forgotten about that.

The series, as well as the Hardy Boys (another story altogether) is being reprinted in its original form. It's targeted at adults, of course, the books are expensive, but I think it's a mistake for contemporary kids to ignore them altogether. I think they need to know that it's all right to NOT spend a ton of time on all the navel gazing that's so popular now.

Why not expose them to a girl who took all adversity as a challenge, who trusted her friends, and who treated everyone well? I think the "old Nancy" is a fun read and an interesting role model for kids. She was reliable and trustworthy, did her best to help, was always well-groomed, respected adults, and never whined. What's not to like?

I did look at the new books in the stores and was deeply saddened by the dumbing down of the text. It bothers me to see books that have always been aimed at the same age group drop about five reading levels. Why do that? Do we think kids have gotten less intelligent or able over the years? And if they really can't read at the level of the originals, whose fault is that?

Sadly, as a collector of the Grosset and Dunlap kid's series, I've often found that the books published in the early days (1930s) were printed on inferior paper that didn't stand up to the years. Often later editions are in better condition, and frequently worth more money that the firsts.

We must keep in mind that this series started in 1933, during the height of the depression. While this accounts for the poor quality of paper and binding in the first editions, it also accounts in large part to the books popularity.

For most girls, there was no money for pretty clothes and cars. Magazines were a luxury for many, and I have no doubt that these books were passed around and lent to friends who couldn't afford them. There was no leisure time to solve mysteries and go on trips with friends, everyone was focused on survival, or finding work.

I also find it interesting that food was always described in full and much was made of home cooking and trips to cafes. Even stopping for tea was described in loving detail. I wonder how many girls envied Bess her access to sweets?

Nancy, for her time, was very liberated. She didn't have to quit school to work and she didn't marry immediately. She acted independently, and instead of asking her father for permission, frequently called (or wired) him after the fact to let him know where she was.

This series, at its inception was a masterpiece of marketing. Thousands upon thousands of girls were able to enter a life that most could only dream about. It was an escape from the reality that was all around them, and a reassurance that sometimes everything does turn out for the best.

Hi MessyONE,

I liked your original post better than this "Another Thought," which, I feel, gets bogged down in faux sociology.

When I read the Nancy Drew books in the late 1950s, I got them at the library. (A poor kid didn't BUY a book and pass it around.) When I read them, my parents were establishing a life much better than the poverty-striken one of their teenaged years in the 1930s. And so I was insulated from much of what they might have felt reading Nancy Drew (which my mother did not read; she had to go to work right after the 8th grade).

Reading the books, I was aware that Nancy came from a family and tradition "fancier" than mine, but I never felt it was something I could not attain. The books were not an escape for me, but presented a role model of independence and good thinking skills.

(And when I read them, I really did think that if I worked hard enough, everything WOULD turn out alright, because that's what I was seeing in my own family. Of course, later, I would grow up and learn otherwise -- both in real life and in the more mature books I read.)

(Didn't we meet on the Art board, where you described your family's reaction to the Richard Serra exhibit at MoMA?)

Mary Ann

I got Nancy Drew from my public library too, in the 1980s. I was a bookish kid and she was for me both a role model and friend. What I remember now is how she was a middle ground between the tomboy George and the girly-girl Beth--Nancy was proof that you don't have to choose. Maybe I was picking up vibes from the "you can have it all" 80s, but I think that girls today (heck, women too) aren't all that often shown that third choice: the reality that most people can and do subscribe to Ms. and Cosmo and Backpacker and the New Yorker--or whatever they want.

That's part of what really turned me off on the movie (from trailers, I will NOT be going to see it): Nancy is the hero of her own story, she is Everything and can do anything. She essentially has no character arc. Adding one in is unnecessary, and in this case is actually detrimental to the life of the character. The arc, I think, is actually within the reader, as we aspire to be hero(ine)s ourselves. (Also, I really hated that she was made anachonistic. Way to diss on the character you're hoping will make you lots of money, there, movie.)

MessyONE, your point about Nancy not getting married is a good one. In her book "Girl Sleuth", Melanie Rehak says that a previous girl detective series (also written by Mildred Wirt) plummeted in popularity once the heroine got engaged, and Stratemeyer explicitly made a romance plotline for Nancy verboten.

Absolutely nothing "faux" about it. If you look at all of the G & D books of that era, that's exactly what the publisher was aiming at - these kids had lives that virtually no one could afford, and the books were a pure fantasy. (Degrees in English (kid lit), sociology and education.)

Parents loved them, too, because all of the protagonists were everything they wanted their kids to be, from moral to neat and tidy.

Take a good look at the Dana Girls, Judy Bolton, the Hardy Boys, even for a later example, Trixie Belden.

I think that was Judy Bolton. Once she married her G-man, that was about it for the series. Of course, he wasn't around a lot - he was off doing "secret war work", it being the 40s and all.

There's a hilarious book called "Nancy Drew, Confessions of a Girl Detective", which has Nancy having a fling with Frank Hardy and ending with every character you can think of ending up at the Belden farm.....

Loved both Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys as a kid. I've read about the history of the series and, given the writers were getting a pittance for each story (which explains why they aren't literary masterpieces in any way), I question whether anyone was consciously trying to create a new age girl action hero or just duplicating the guys' stories with a female lead. (I could easily be wrong, but just saying...) However, I will note that Nancy Drew was far and away smarter than the Hardy Boys. In many of their stories, the crimes were solved by a mixture of their perseverance and blind luck. Nancy relied on her amazing smarts. (A personal favorite was in the The Secret of the Forgotten City when Nancy, working out of her kitchen, created a faux ancient tablet, complete with heiroglyphs, that was able to fool a crook who already had real tablets in his possession!)

I had never considered the Depression timeframe and how that would pertain to food references. I think that is a wonderful angle and worth mentioning.

As for her lacking introspection, logically, what would she have to be introspective about? Every hunch she ever had was right...it's not like she was failing at solving crimes and had a lot of reason to question her ability.

Maybe because the stories were aimed at boys they felt the need to include all sorts of gadgets and DIY projects, but I remember all kinds of things. There was an ice boat, photography lab, speedboat, fingerprint lab, etc., and science was key in solving a lot of their mysteries.

I suspect that it was gender, but the boys actually "did" more things than Nancy did. Nancy, on the other hand, relied more on her own wits to deal with problems, you're right. I guess it wasn't ladylike at the time to do things like play in fingerprint powder...

As for the lack of introspection, that just wasn't a part of life that was valued at the time. You were expected to deal with things and then move on. Nancy's mother died leaving a baby to take care of, so enter Hannah Gruen to take care of her while her father worked. Dwelling on these things was a luxury that no one had time for.

A couple weeks ago, I followed a thread from salon.com and found this blog post. The blog itself is a little self-involved as all blogs can be, but I thought the post was interesting: <link>

I think it encapsulates how I feel about the old and the new Nancy and it sounds like what Meghan was trying to say.

I never did get into Nancy Drew. I read all the Hardy Boys in 3'rd and 4'th grade, then picked up exactly one Nancy Drew book. Within the the first 5 pages, she went shopping, found a blouse that a "mean girl" had accidently ripped then left on the floor of the dressing room, negotiated a discount, brought it home and sewed it up.

I stopped reading right there. Even as a young child I was very sensitive to gender roles, and there's nothing like sewing and shopping to set off red flags.

Now I'm a bit more enlightened and I would probably be able to look past this part, or see it in its historical context, or think it was cute, or something. But at the time, all I could think was that the Hardy Boys would never do something like that, so why should Nancy Drew? Why should I read about someone who liked shopping and sewing? Why kind of interesting adventures could she possibly have, and what other stereotypes would she exhibit? After all, it's hard to hijack a speedboat and creep into a pirate cave while keeping your blouse clean.

Don't know what this says about me or Nancy Drew, just that an update *could* be a good thing.

However, revolutionary as she was, she was also very much a product of her time. The incident with the blouse was probably included to ground her a little and put her more in tune with the reality that her readers lived in.

There's nothing wrong with shopping and sewing either! I used to do the shopping, then go home and knock off what I saw in the stores on my trusty Singer. Still do, on occasion - some of the stuff that's on the rack these days has lousy fit and finish, and I really am that picky.