utterly girl detective

[phyllisgabor]

Recently I went to a Mennonite superstore that was a dry goods shop, a scrapbooking shop, a deli, a gift shop, a book store, and an antique mall, and I was amazed to see dozens and dozens of Nancy Drew books in the book store. I flipped through them and boggled at the cover art and reflected on the cultural icon that is Nancy Drew

Comments

[eight_bits]

In addition to the one TRIXIE BELDEN book I inherited from her own childhood, I remember my mother buying me some Nancy Drew hardcover reissues at a Dollar Store when I was a kid and finding them SQUARESVILLE. I only read one Nancy Drew book (I don't remember which) when I was growing up, but I actually think the most fascinating thing about the Nancy Drew series were Bess Marvin, the Chubby Best Friend, and George Fayne, the "tomboy".

I actually just weeded a bunch of the Nancy Drew On Campus books from the library. The cover art is terrible and FAKE FUN abounds:

[phyllisgabor]

I've been reading the original 1930s/1940s books when I can find them, and Nancy is a little less of a goodie two shoes in the first editions (the books were all revised starting in the late 50s and continuing until the 70s to keep Nancy up with the times). But yeah, Bess and George (George especially) are more interesting than Nancy because they're not so damned idealized.

Ewww, that cover! The best thing I can say about it is that at least Bess looks kind of Hollywood chubby. If I can get through the MYSTERY STORIES without killing myself I might move on to the NANCY DREW CASE FILES next. They have a Jem and the Holograms type elan I can get into: