With the release of the movie Nancy Drew, much has been said and written about Nancy’s place in our lives then and now. Many prominent women, including Senator Hillary Clinton, First Lady Laura Bush and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg have all commented on how they spent many happy, empowering moments in her company as children. Other women have commented that Nancy has, in some ways, been marginalized in a society where women already know how to be clever and self-reliant. Some cringe at the modernization of Nancy, while others applaud the makeover.
I preface my comments by saying I haven’t seen the movie yet, but the trailer puts it on my must-see list! I’ve loved the modern versions of my childhood books, even the animated ones. James and the Giant Peach as well as two Willy Wonka movies. The Borrowers. Even the Eloise flicks have been charming. Favorite movies such as Freaky Friday and The Parent Trap (Lindsay Lohan connection noted, and she was fabulous in both roles). Yeah, I’m trying to confine my comments to books and bookselling, but the fact is, I’m a multi-media gal, one who bridges the generations of the manual typewriter and rotary phones with the internet and DVDs.
And this brings me back to my original point.
Would we consider Laura Ingalls Wilder less relevant or marginalized today because her life was lo-tech? Nah. Her books are still loved and read over and over by young readers (and the series is in constant and popular syndication). We still learn from her life on the frontier. Have I made ices from snow and maple syrup? Yup! Do the members of my family wonder why they get [Terry’s Chocolate] oranges in the toe of their Christmas stockings? Nope.
Agatha Christie is no less relevant today because Miss Marple didn‘t have a CSI forensic team. And while I read older mysteries knowing Patricia Corwell’s Kay Scarpetta would have employed the technology she could and solved the mystery thusly, it still would have taken her the same three hundred or so pages as it took Miss Marple, and I will have enjoyed both of them equally.
And so we now have our Valley Girl Nancy. I expect the movie will have a reverse spin-off and that the more than 150 Nancy Drew mysteries currently in print will fly off the shelves this summer. And they’ll be the paperback editions where Nancy has a blue mustang, or the hardbacks of my childhood where Nancy had a blue convertible, or the original issues where the family had a blue roadster. Yes, Nancy has evolved over the decades since she first appeared in print in 1930.
What would author Carolyn Keene have to say about today’s Nancy? We’ll never know! She will remain silent because she never existed! Yes, it’s true! Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, The Bobbsey Twins and numerous other beloved childhood series were products of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Sounds ominous, a potential mystery plot of its own, eh? In some ways, yes …
Edward Stratemeyer was a writer himself, inspired largely by Horatio Alger’s rags-to-riches stories. He was, in fact, a pioneer in children’s fiction. He wrote and edited hundreds of children’s books under pseudonyms, and realizing the popularity of both series and mysteries, he merged the two for young readers. He often wrote plots summaries and had his ghostwriters flesh them out. The Syndicate was a secret society of fictional characters AND authors! And Nancy Drew was Stratemeyer’s last brain-child; the first issue was published days before he died, leaving his empire to his daughters. The Syndicate continued to produce Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and many other books long after Edward’s death. In fact, the truth of authorship didn’t come out fully until Harriet Stratemeyer Edwards changed publishers in the early 1980’s. When she left Grosset and Dunlap for Simon and Schuster to get the Syndicate’s books into paperback, G & D filed suit claiming partial ownership. To protect image, one must surmise, Harriet claimed to be author. Ghost-writers were called to testify under oath and while the verdict was split, the truth was out there. The best part, in my humble opinion, is that Carolyn Keene is now as immortal as Nancy, and continued to “write” for decades after the demise of the Syndicate.
Yup, we grew up with Nancy, and Nancy has grown up with us. Sorta.