Sarah Gibbard Cook
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • Contact

Reflections After Reading My First Nancy Drew

8/2/2021

4 Comments

 
Picture
Last week I read my first-ever Nancy Drew mystery. It seemed time to meet the girl whose courage and wits had influenced countless women I admire. Though I heard of her in my teens, I was a Sherlock Holmes snob; why bother with lesser sleuths?

The authors I relished back then, like Louisa May Alcott and Laura Ingalls Wilder, transported my imagination into a different time or place. Only later did I get hooked on murder mysteries as a genre. Along with the fun of solving a puzzle, many took me to unfamiliar worlds like Tony Hillerman’s Navajo country or Dana Stabenow’s Alaskan Bush.

My advisor at Oberlin College, Marcia Colish, told me mystery novels were favorite leisure reading among her historian friends. It’s no coincidence. Like mysteries, historical research is a process of finding and assembling seemingly disparate clues into a coherent narrative.

​Smart, brave women detectives with a passion for justice abound on library shelves today. I may not devour the rest of the 56 Nancy Drew titles, churned out between 1930 and 1979 by a series of ghostwriters for the same publisher as gave us the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, and the Bobbsey Twins. The writing can grate. (“I’ve found it at last!” she thought excitedly.) But no matter. In a culture that taught girls to be timid and hide their brains, Nancy Drew showed a generation of young readers another possibility.
4 Comments
Corrine Holden
8/2/2021 09:44:32 am

No Nancy Drew for me either. I had a book of the month club series called “we were there…” like “we were there on the Oregon Trail”, etc. my dad required a one page book report before the next book was due to arrive.

Reply
Sarah Cook link
8/2/2021 02:40:20 pm

That book of the month club series would have been just right for me. Your dad's book report sound like a creative way to encourage paying attention and thinking as you read. Unless it made you groan whenever a new book arrived.

Reply
Rebecca Cuningham link
8/2/2021 08:01:51 pm

I read the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, but the language and roles felt very dated to me. Hillerman is great, I like his work a lot. I am an omnivore reader; mystery, fantasy, YA, poetry, myths, non-fiction. All of them feed me in different ways.

Reply
Sarah Cook link
8/3/2021 06:29:24 am

There is such an array of wonderful books available now, for adults and young adults alike. Never read the Hardy Boys, and I don't hear men talk about them - but there were always tales of adventure about boys, I think. I suspect there is a big generational difference. When women now in their 60s and 70s were reading Nancy Drew (or not), books about daring, adventuresome girls were harder to come by and products of 1930-1979 weren't as dated. On the other hand, the girls I loved to read about showed courage and smarts but in a quieter way.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    I'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. 

    Archives

    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016

    RSS Feed


      ​get updates

    Sign up
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • Contact