I have to admit, I didn’t do a whole lot of reading in the Children’s Classics Mystery Challenge during the past month. But I did take some time to re-visit one of my dear childhood friends: Nancy Drew.
I headed to the basement, to the row of yellow-spined Nancy Drew mysteries collected during my childhood, and pulled out book #1: The Secret of the Old Clock.
Memories
It’s been many years — like, more than 20 years — since I pulled out a Nancy Drew mystery. But the first thing that struck me was the memories. The endpapers of these books are so familiar to me, probably because I spent a good portion of many summer days studying them, memorizing them. My editions (copyright 1959 but most likely printed in the 60s) dedicate the end-papers to black and white sketched vignettes representing the early books in the series.
I know without having to look which one represents The Mystery at Lilac Inn (Book 4, one of my favorites), and most of the others stir something in my mind as well, bringing back vague memories of scenes, conflicts, and clues from the books that were once my regular companions.
And right there, inside the front cover, is proof positive that this copy of The Secret of the Old Clock has been mine for a long, long time.
As you can see, good handwriting has never been one of my strengths. But clearly, this book was important enough to me to track down a sticker and use it to label this Nancy Drew mystery as mine.
“Luck was with me this time.”
As I read through The Secret of the Old Clock, I couldn’t help but smile. The approach to plotting a mystery novel — yes, even a children’s mystery book — has certainly changed.
These days, authors insert more confusion, more roadblocks, more red herrings to stump their detectives. As for Nancy Drew…well, every chapter had her easily finding another clue and she quickly connected the dots to solve the mystery. Even her attempt to go for a walk to forget about the puzzle for a while resulted in her overhearing an important conversation.
And when she conveniently found the keys to a van under the floor mat where she “thought” some people “might” put their keys, she admitted, “Luck was with me this time.” Oh, Nancy — I’d say luck was with you throughout the book!
Nancy, herself
Reading this first book of the series reminded me that I loved Nancy Drew. More than that, I wanted to be Nancy Drew. And it’s not hard to see why. Nancy is spunky, determined, smart, tough…and she saves the day. Ten-year-old me aspired to be just such a girl.
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I thoroughly enjoyed my trip down memory lane to re-visit a childhood “friend,” and I look forward to reading several more Nancy Drew mysteries in the coming months.
Be sure to visit 5 Minutes for Books to see what others have been reading in the Children’s Classics Mystery Challenge this month.
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