CBCA Book Week Challenge: Nancy Drew

August 20, 2012 Ka'ela Ja'el
Tags: Book Week, books, CBCA, childhood, Nancy Drew, reading

Over on her blog, Tansy Rayner Roberts is celebrating the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book Week, and she has challenged people to talk about their childhood reading.

I decided this year I want to do something fun on the blog to celebrate Book Week, as I usually forget about it until it’s too late. So I’m going to write some posts about my childhood reading, not only favourite books, but how I read them and why I still remember them.

So I thought I might try and take up her invitation.

Nancy Drew

How I wanted to be Nancy Drew. She was level headed, and smart. She got to travel, and she drove a blue convertible! (Mine would have been red) Nancy could do anything! In fact, I’m pretty sure Nancy could do EVERYTHING! Nancy and I became firm friends – firm enough that mum started to curtail the amount of time I was allowed to spend with her. Seriously, eventually I was limited to TWO ND books a week from the library. That was partly because I would stay awake all night reading them…but also partly because I may have been getting a tad obsessive about her.

After working through a substantial number of my library’s collection, I started interspersing them with the Hardy Boys, which was basically a male version of Nancy Drew, but nowhere near as cool, because they needed TWO boys to solve a crime when Nancy could do it on her own for the most part. Even if you counted Nancy’s best friends, girlie girl Bess and  tomboy George, at most that only equalled things, because Frank and Joe were often accompanied by their well meaning, but often inept friend, Chet.

And then they released a few books where Nancy, Frank and Joe teamed up, and I thought all my Christmases had come at once…even if I don’t actually celebrate it. The thing is, I think they must have been pretty disappointing, because while I remember a lot about the various ND and HB books, I remember nothing but the covers of these, yet I know I read them.

And in a bit of side trivia, one of the very first things I looked up on the internet when I first got online (way back in 1995) was information on Nancy Drew and Carolyn Keene – I was devastated to learn that she DIDN’T EXIST!  Betrayed, I tell you! But it did explain the inconsistency in writing quality that even as a twelve year old, I could spot.

Entry Filed under: Reading

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