Nancy Drew Challenge

Nancy Drew Sleuth Book

2013, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, From the Stacks Challenge, Nancy Drew Challenge /

Ages ago, Texasebeth sent me a copy of The Nancy Drew Sleuth Book and it’s been happily on my shelf of Nancy Drews ever since.

I finally made time to read it last night and it was awesome. I did not own this book when I was a kid so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Turns out it’s the best (worst) of all things Nancy Drew (from that era.)

– “She’s so fat, someone should put her on a DIET!”
– “Gypsy palm reading is against the law in River Heights!”
– “Don’t all the people in Chinatown have almond shaped eyes?”

I could go on, but you get the point.

It’s awesome in its horribleness. And, Nancy is a great teacher! River Heights is just crawling with girl detectives thanks to her little club!

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Three More Nancy Drews

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Nancy Drew Challenge /

The Double Jinx Mystery – birds, birds, and more birds. I never did like this one, lol.

Mystery of the Glowing Eye – awesome. I love the robot helicopter and the glowing eyes and the magnet problem.

The Secret of the Forgotten City – oy. What are the odds? Really?  Full skeleton. Gold nuggets. Gold plates. Nancy is sometimes a little too hard to believe, ya know?

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Four Nancy Drews

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction, Nancy Drew Challenge /

We spent all day Saturday laying in bed with books. My book(s) of choice were Nancy Drews because they’re the perfect books to read when you’re exhausted. Of The Spider Sapphire, The Invisible Intruder, The Mysterious Mannequin and The Crooked Banister – I liked The Crooked Banister and the Invisible Intruder the best. Lots of robot-y mechanical mysterious making it feel almost steampunk. (Someone should write steampunked Nancy Drews… Cherie Priest maybe?)

The Spider Sapphire was tough to read – Nancy and pals go to Africa… and The Mysterious Mannequin wasn’t a whole lot better because they went off to Turkey. The descriptions of those who are non-white can be tough to read and in these two, there were a lot of them.

I’m running out of Nancy Drews so it’s almost time to start tracking down the Yellow Covers that are missing from my collection. This is going to cost me a lot of money, isn’t it?

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Two More Nancy Drews

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction, Nancy Drew Challenge /

It’s been a rough week. Pretty much the only thing I had the energy to read was Nancy Drew. Long live Nancy Drew – even though I’ve pretty much decided it’s Nancy Drew that’s to blame for disordered eating and not Barbie. I mean the friendly teasing of Bess is one thing but the downright meanness in the last book, well… it’s a little too much for me. This is one of those situations where Nancy and her friends just don’t stand up to re-reading 35-40 years later.

Even when Bess is the one who’s doing great things in the story – she’s still fat. Not chubby or pleasingly plump – she’s fat. Boo, hiss!

The Phantom of Pine Hill wasn’t as bad about this as The Clue in the Crossword Cipher.

Oh – almost forgot. When I opened The Clue in the Crossword Cipher, a little piece of notepaper popped out with the name and address of someone I don’t remember from my childhood. That seems weird. I need to ask my mom about Kristy (or is it Krissy) Holder. I’m sure I should know who this is… or maybe the notepaper was left over from my sister who may have read some of my Nancy Drews after I moved out? I don’t know. There’s some niggling thing in my head that says I should know who this is. Huh. I just don’t know.

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Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Fire Dragon

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Nancy Drew Challenge /

Several nights ago, I finished the book I was reading at about 10pm and didn’t feel like that was a good time to start another really long novel, so I grabbed The Mystery of the Fire Dragon (which was still in the bedroom from the readathon last weekend) – Nancy Drews are excellent books to (re) read when it’s too late at night to start another book – or when life is really hectic. Simple, amusing, flashbacks to childhood.

It’s always funny to read about Nancy and her friends getting a passport in an hour. (Always travel with your birth certificate – you never know when you’ll need it to get that passport!) So funny.

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Nancy Drew keeps me going #readathon

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Dewey's Readathon, Favorites, Fiction, Nancy Drew Challenge /

So sad, my copy of The Clue in the Old Stagecoach is in bad shape. The binding is a mess and I was terrified I was going to lose the last 75 pages with each turn of the page. Also… gah, the girls dating different boys always throws me, does it throw you?  Thankfully, Ned and gang showed up in the end.  😉

180 pages – good late readathon book.

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The Secret of the Golden Pavilion

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction, Nancy Drew Challenge /

I’m never surprised to see my own name scrawled across the inside (or the outside) of my old Nancy Drews but I was surprised to open The Secret of the  Golden Pavilion and seeing someone else’s name – Mary Beth Nesbitt. Huh. I wonder how I came to have Mary Beth’s book. Did Jenny give it to me? Did I borrow it and not return it? Did they sell it in a yard sale – to me? A mystery! Heh.

The best part of The Secret of the Golden Pavilion is the intro welcoming the boys and girls of our newest state, heh. Nice.

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Nancy Drew – The Haunted Showboat

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Nancy Drew Challenge /

I’ve enjoyed re-reading all of my old yellow Nancy Drews and wondering about what sort of re-writes the newer versions are going through but I have to say that I think I’m most interested to see what fixes might be done to The Haunted Showboat.

Besides the fact that Nancy’s new yellow convertible had a bomb planted that she and George and Bess could hear ticking from the dash while driving… and the acid poured on the “rear mechanism” that caused the whole car to disintegrate the day after she received it as a gift from her father… and the stereotypical portrayal of people named “Mammy Matilda, Pappy Cole and Uncle Rufus”, this poor little book is set in New Orleans and there’s a wonderful long paragraph about how New Orleans used to have a flooding problem until the brilliant United States Corp of Engineers solved the problem by diverting flood water into Lake Pontchartrain. No more flooding!

Ugh.

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The Clue of the Velvet Mask

2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Classics, Nancy Drew Challenge /

There have been moments this year when I have to laugh out loud at the old Nancy Drews  – Yesterday, there were a lot of moments like that. The Clue of the Velvet Mask included a bad woman in a “Javanese” costume and every time I read the word “Javanese” I laughed out loud. I mean really. I cannot even imagine what I thought of the word when I was 10… I wish I remembered.  

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