Nancy Drew
 

I'm a fan, so were my mother and grandmother, and so are my daughters! My favorite: Secret of the Golden Pavilion.

Observations: why isn't Nancy brain-damaged after all the times she's been conked over the head by the crooks? (ditto the Hardy Boys)

Why do the criminals always plan to kill her slowly, like leaving her in the elevator to join the ghost of Blackwood Hall? (I guess to give her time to escape but in real life, they'd just take her out with a gun.)

Why are these people always described thusly: George-athletic, Bess-plump, Burt-stocky, Dave-rangy?

I loved reading Nancy Drew as a child. For some reason I could never get into the Hardy Boys though.

My favorite Nancy Drew was one of the "new" ones, where Ned pretends to be engaged to some other girl, b/c she's the bad guy. There's also some skydiving involved. Can't remember the title though.

I loved Nancy Drew. : ) My favorite was "The Clue in the Jewel Box."

My daughter has one of the Nancy Drew computer games, where you have to go through and solve the mystery! It's a lot of fun!

Dee

I still love Nancy Drew, especially the old ones. The first one I read was "The Mystery of the Tolling Bell." I remember reading it at Girl Scout camp. I still have all my old ones, too.

My blood sister absolutely loved Nancy Drew and had all of her books that were published in the 60's. She only has a son so I've inherited all those books to give to my daughter if I ever have kids.

The weird part is I've never read a Nancy Drew book in my life.
Carolyn Keene did write another series with only about 17 books. The series was called The Dana Girls. I loved those books.

Besides the Dana Girls, I loved Trixie Belden. I have every book that was published and am really excited that they are releasing them again.

Ever heard of Encyclopedia Brown?

Yes! And the Bobbsey Twins.

Carnation, my mom told me that the reason they use the same descriptive words over and over (I had noticed the music in every dance club was "pounding") is because they're written by different people, but they're trying to make it LOOK like they're written by the same person. Because of course Carolyn Keene isn't writing "the new Nancy Drew Files".

Ooooh, I loved Encyclopedia Brown too!

Oh, that's why they did that!

I loved the Bobbseys...I was the third generation in my family to read those too. My favorite Bobbsey books: Goldfish Mystery, In Volcano Land, and At School.

I love Nancy Drew too! My mom (who also used to read them) got me started on them when I was a little girl. I think the first one I read was "The Bungalow Mystery". My favorite is "The Clue of the Broken Locket". I still have all of my old ones and am toying around with the idea of fleshing out my collection if I ever have money again! :)

Oh boy, thanks for starting this thread up again!

I fleshed out my collection thanks to eBay and Amazon. Some of my originals were read so much that they're falling apart!

I used to love Nancy Drew. The library where I grew up had a pretty good collection, and I blew through them. I can't really remember all that much about the stories, though... it's been many years.

I liked Nancy Drew, but I adored Trixie Belden. I've still got my collection at my mom's house.

I liked the Trixie Belden books but I fervently wished that she would stop saying, "Gleeps!"

I read Nancy Drew growing up. However, I distinctly remember my mom reading the Bobbsey Twins to me as a girl before bed when I was six or seven. They were her copies from around the 1940s and some of the still had the original jacket covers on them - with the picture of the younger set of twins. I don't think she trusted my young hands with them.

I read through all of the Nancy Drew books at the library. My mom had "The Bungalow Mystery" and that's what started me.

I loved Encyclopedia Brown even more though. He always came up with the most interesting things to solve the cases. To this day, there is still one about a spelling bee/contest that I can recite the clues and how he solved it. :)

At the risk of exposing my hidden nerdiness, two summers ago when I was taking a really hard and boring summer class, I re-read all my old Nancy Drew mysteries during study breaks and as an excuse to procrastinate. But it was awesome! :)

I always was interested in the Nancy Drew cookbook too, but I don't think they publish that anymore. I suppose I could get that on eBay. Does anyone have that?

I love Nancy Drew and attribute my mystery-solving skills to her. Has anyone seen the Nancy Drew movie? I caught it on ABC Family. I also read the adult book about the "real" Nancy Drew.

I have a huge box of Nancy Drew that my ten year old daughter has started reading for Accelerated Reading (AR) points. I've been amazed at how many things I've had to explain to her, things that are now outdated. ("Radiator" in a house comes to mind right now-you know, just things that are no longer a part of our everyday lives. Same thing when she was reading Ramona books.) I also have a good many of the original Bobbsey Twin books, and I loved them, as well. I just went and looked at copyright dates of some of the Bobbysey Twin books, and one of them was 1927, one 1932, and others in 1940s!
A friend recently gave me about 20 Trixie Belden books w/ dust jackets, but I never read those as a child.
Has anyone ever heard of the Billy Green Hill/Aunt Minerva books? They usually had red covers. They are very old, my grandmother read them to me, butthey would be "politically incorrect" these days, a la "Little Black Sambo." I have added two to my collection in the past ten years, and they were very pricey.

I had the old series of Nancy Drew books--the yellow hardback, and I had all of them. When we got ready to move to Florida, my sister sold them at our garage sale by mistake..for $1 a book...:mad:

I always wondered why the characters were described that way as well. To me, I always thought that George would have been like Jo on Facts of Life.

Do you remember when it was a very short TV series? Uggh!

Read all the Trixie Belden stuff as well..and Encylopedia Brown.

Anyone remember Cherry Ames, Nurse?

I love Nancy Drew. I have read various incarnations of them.

At the risk of showing my age, the yellow books were the new ones when I started reading Nancy Drew. I preferred the hand-me-downs from mom & her sisters - they were blue with jackets. (I think I stopped reading when they came out in paperback.)

I used to *LOVE* reading ND!! My parents would scold me for reading when I should be sleeping - "just one more page, PUHHHHLEEEEEEEEZE!!!!" hehehehe

I remember the hair-color being an older word I didn't understand: "titian"? I do recall that the newer ones had a different word and then the paperbacks used "redhead". (or, that's how I remember it anyway)

I remember Cherry Ames!! The box o' hand-me-downs had some scattered Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden and Cherry Ames! (Gosh, I wonder where those books are. I know they were on a shelf in my room in mom's house when I left for college...)

THANKS FOR BRINGING BACK THOSE MEMORIES!

'Jalopy" and "chums" had me wondering when I read my mother's Nancy Drew books. The Cherry Ames books had a lot of those words too and you know, I never wondered once why she went through so many jobs!

I never heard of Donna Parker, Cherry Ames, Billy Green/Aunt Minerva, or the Dana Girls.

Anyone ever read The Boxcar Children? They solved mysteries too, although my favorite was the first book (also titled The Boxcar Children).

I store my Nancy Drew books with my Boxcar Children books. :)

Our library didn't carry Nancy Drew/ Hardy Boys etc claiming they were fomulaic and basically the equivalent of "brain-candy". Unfortunately my mother agreed. So I borrowed them from my friends!:)
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In terms of dated expressions:

When I was quite small, I read a book called B Is For Betsy.

In Chapter 1, Betsy is about to start school for the first time. She is going to first grade (this was written in the pre-nursery school and kindergarten days). The boy next door teases her about the switch in the corner and poor Betsy is quite worried. I could never figure out why a light-switch would be frightening!
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Back to brain-candy, I had the same issues with my daughter reading those Babysitter Club books.

See, I was a big reader and I liked the Babysitter club books even though I realized that they were formulaic. I read a ton of other things too, but reading those is nice because they're no brainers.

I still have my fluff fantasy to relax in between the hard science fiction I prefer