As an avid reader, I spent the majority of my childhood summer days inside, flipping pages and taking in as much adventure, love, and knowledge as I could. One of my favorite companions was Nancy Drew whose clever mystery-solving tactics always held me in awe and admiration. I remember reading the book and asking my mom what the word "sleuth" meant--it turns out it means "detective"--and thus, Nancy helped my vocabulary to grow. I was always puzzled when, from one book to the next, the physical description of Nancy changed. In one book, Nancy would have red hair, in the next she would be a blonde, and in the one after that the author would compromise between those by giving her titian hair. Finally, after years of curiosity, I solved that mystery... the Nancy Drew books were "ghostwritten." In other words, the creator, Edward Stratemeyer, gave several different authors the outlines of the books and had them write them for him since he didn't have the time. All the authors were published under the pseudonym, Carolyn Keene. How crazy is that? I often wondered how Nancy Drew books were still being published, and out comes the truth. Here is the article that led to this discovery: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-story28a-2010mar28,0,4785469.story.
I hope this is not just news to me... it gave a whole new momentum to my Nancy fetish.
Love,
Hilary
i frickin loved nancy drew
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