Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew And The Women Who Created Her (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
Rating: 4* of fiveThe Publisher Says: A plucky "titian-haired" sleuth solved her first mystery in 1930. Eighty million books later, Nancy Drew has survived the Depression, World War II, and the Sixties (when she was taken up with a vengeance by women's libbers) to enter the pantheon of American girlhood. As beloved by girls today as she was by their grandmothers, Nancy Drew has both inspired and reflected the changes in her readers' lives. Now, in a narrative with all the vivid energy and page-turning pace of Nancy's adventures, Melanie Rehak solves an enduring literary mystery:Who created Nancy Drew? And how did she go from pulp heroine to icon?The brainchild of children's book mogul Edward Stratemeyer, Nancy was brought to life by two women: Mildred Wirt Benson, a pioneering journalist from Iowa, and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, a well-bred wife and mother who took over as CEO of the pioneering Stratemeyer Syndicate after her father died. In a century-spanning story Rehak traces their roles--and Nancy's--in forging the modern American woman. With ebullience, wit, and a wealth of little-known source material, Rehak celebrates our unstoppable girl detective. My Review: When I was about nine, I went through a Hardy Boys phase. My mother, who went from buying Oldsmobile-priced cocktail dresses at Henri Bendel and Chevrolet-priced suits at Bonwit Teller to working three jobs to support us, never said no when it came to buying me a book. So I read my way through the catalog, and looked around for more. Mama somewhat diffidently pointed out the Nancy Drew books. I asked if she solved crimes. “Yes, and drives a blue roadster,” said the wily old girl, and I had another school year's reading at a quarter a book. (Used. We most often bought used...Mama said the words didn't wear out and who cared about the cover anyway?)Ever after, I've had a “thing” for All-American boys and girls who just damn well do it for themselves. From such acorns....Mystery-reading pleasure was a given. Mother and sister were big consumers of the genre. I got my own books, and they were not mysteries, but good heavens a boy can't survive on a book a week! I mean really! So I read their mysteries. I checked mysteries out of the liberry. I read all the Hardy Boys (always preferred Joe to Frank, Iola be hanged) and Nancy Drew (what a maroon Ned Nickerson was!) a couple times each. They lost their luster about the time I found good SF.But do you ever forget that first kiss? I know I haven't. Nancy, Frank, and Joe...oh my how I treasured their orderly world. No one behaved badly (my narcissistic parents were astonishingly insensitive and ill-mannered in their divorcing) without consequences, and crimes were punished. I liked that a lot! And I still do.Melanie Rehak apparently did, too. She set out to tell the story, public since the 1970s at least, of the origins of Nancy Drew, Girl Sleuth. All the ookie bleccchhhy part about families in conflict over Smothers-Brothers-y “dad always liked you best” and “I sit here with mom and you swan about” and so on; all the fish-out-of-water growing up of a major tomboy with a ginormous brain, in a rinky dink dink little wide spot in the road, leading to Iowa State and college degree in the 1920s; all the nasty mean greedy behind-the-scenes moneygrubbing everyone seems to have thought nothing of.It's as good as a novel. It's as much fun as a Nancy Drew story to unravel. It's not perfect, but it's got a lot of story and it tells the story concisely, yet without leaving annoying holes or piling numbing crap all over the reader.The focus is on Nancy, her “father” Edward Stratemeyer, her “mother” Midred Wirt, and wicked stepmother Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. That's enough for a 600pp doorstopper, let me assure you! Author Rehak got out her laser, finely cut and carefully etched the truly important bits from these three peoples' lives and then soldered and electroplated the whole thing into a lovely, solid bracelet shaped like Nancy Drew.Even if you've never read one of these books, THIS book is a very good read, and an intriguing side window onto American culture in the mid-20th century. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Absolutely fascinating read! I know that many of us got started with Nancy Drew before moving over to Trixie Belden. This book gives the whole history behind Nancy, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, the Dana Girls and a whole host of other books many of us grew up with.Believe it or not, Nancy Drew and the above all started out as 50¢ pulp books. The early books were churned out as quickly as possible so that the author could earn $100-125 per book. (The author had to sign away their rights by the way.) Also, the reason behind the difference between the early Nancy Drew and the yellow hard cover most of us read had to do with correcting them to make them more PC. However, in so doing, the books were also shortened considerably with whole scenes chopped out often leading to disjointed reading.A good deal of the book delves into the background of the two women who did most of the writing. This is actually quite interesting as it is also a very good history lesson. Women's rights, the crash of 1929, the effect of the war on book publishing, and a look at our nation's history through the lives of these two women are just some of the topics touched on. The original author Mildred Wirt Benson could easily have been an inspiration for Trixie though. She despised sewing, was very athletic, and she read Peter Rabbit too.Since the book was published in 2005, it also deals with modern day Nancy including the tv show and the more recent incarnations of the book.
What do You think about Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew And The Women Who Created Her (2006)?
Having been far more a Nancy Drew fan when I was young than a fan of the Hardy Boys (being male everyone pushed Hardy Boys on me ... but really, I found them boring compared to that sparkling Nancy Drew lol), I always assumed that Carolyn Keene was the sole and loving author of all those mysteries and that she perhaps was writing them from overblown memories or wanted-fantasies from her own childhood with her friends. I stumbled upon this book on a discount table and snapped it up for a couple of dollars and was shocked to find that it was a 'corporation' that authored the books. Once Melanie Rehak starts listing up the differences in Nancy and her friends looks, cars, etc, you begin to get the impression that it wasn't too carefully managed at times either. But for Nancy Drew fans, where else can one turn for a full and heartfelt history of this great series, despite its inconsistencies. The first thing I did when I had a granddaughter was buy an entire set for her ... she'll soon start reading them and I'll be anxious to see if they can still tantalize and fascinate as they did many many years ago. I'll then give her this book to read some time down the road when she needs to read a book for a report in school. The 'facts' in this book didn't ruin one feeling for the series for me and I don't think it will for anyone else either.
—Cormac Zoso
Good-natured true-mystery history of the men and women responsible for the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series of juvenile fiction.The "Stratemeyer Syndicate" was a group of ghostwriters who created the kids books based on titles and detailed outlines prepared by Edward Stratemeyer, for anywhere from $85 to $150 per book! This system lasted for over 40 years, until the small-town 19th century economics and the cult of Carolyn Keene meant the ending of the syndicate system. The main role of Carolyn Keene was then taken over by Harriet Adams, Stratemeyer's daughter, who had taken over the company upon his death, and kept it going and healthy into the 70s.Poignantly enough, as Adams grew older, and her family aged and some passed away, she took on the persona of Keene and adopted Nancy Drew as her own--even though Mildred Wirt Benson, the ghostwriter responsible for the early classics was still very much alive and very indignant about the slight.Still, all ends well as Nancy Drew lives on in the 21st century.
—Todd Stockslager
This book tells about the background of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which was responsible for producing Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, and many other childrens’ book series that were staples of my childhood. The syndicate worked by having ghost writers complete the books of each series in complete secrecy, so if the syndicate had to switch writers, the readers wouldn’t feel disloyal to the new author. This caused some tension between the writers and the owners of the syndicate, especially in the Nancy Drew series. The two main writers of the Nancy Drew books, Mildred Wirt Benson and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams (who was the daughter of the syndicate’s founder), fought for years over ownership of the massively popular series, which kept the syndicate afloat during some of the most difficult years in American history.Despite all the infighting and family drama, both Mildred Wirt Benson and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams were women who worked hard and pressed beyond the boundaries of what was considered normal and appropriate for women of their time. Along with, of course, describing the origins of this extremely popular mystery series, Rehak also goes into detail about the women’s rights movement and how the authors of the Nancy Drew series–along with Nancy Drew herself–supported and participated in this movement. It was a fascinating read, and if, like me, you grew up reading Nancy Drew, you must read this book. It’s nostalgic but surprisingly pioneering and very well researched. Awesome!Read more on my blog: http://newberyandbeyond.com/bringing-...
—Monica Fastenau
