Texas Pages

Posted by Leslie Snyder @ 9:22 AM Fri, Jun 15, 2007

I tried reading Nancy Drew when i was a tween, but just didn't get her. I dabbled in the Bobbsey Twins series as well. My real faves on those long car trips to see the relatives were the lesser known books in the Oz series by Frank Baum.

Posted by Betsy Simnacher @ 12:42 PM Fri, Jun 15, 2007

I was pretty much a Nancy Drew fan. I read my mother's copies from the 1930s, when Nancy drove a roadster and had a servant. (Web sites say her servant later morphed into a housekeeper.) I bought a 1950s copy of my favorite, The Hidden Staircase, recently at a used bookstore in Waxahachie. Nancy was a little like a Barbie -- just too perfect -- but the concept of a secret staircase proved just too intriguing to my pre-adolescent mind.

Posted by Mary E. DeMuth @ 12:53 PM Fri, Jun 15, 2007

The character in my first novel lived in the seventies. A small part of the plot is that she and her friend play Nancy Drew to try to figure out her parents' identities.

But it's interesting you said that about not remembering details. I only remember what the Old Clock cover looks like! And that her friend's name was Bess. And Ned, the love interest. Other than that, nothing.

Posted by Tracy Brown @ 2:32 PM Fri, Jun 15, 2007

I loved reading Nancy Drew books as a young girl, as well as the Hardy Boys. But Mike, like you I don't know that I remember any of the details, just that they solved mysteries. But I guess they served a great purpose still -- growing a love for reading.

Posted by Chris Tucker @ 3:47 PM Fri, Jun 15, 2007

Thanks for kicking off this orgy of nostalgia--the only kind of orgy I attend these days. I was mainly a Chip Hilton guy myself, but did consume a couple dozen of the Hardy tomes. Like others I can't recall a single detail of their "sleuthing," but anyone who wants to root around in Hardeyana should check this site at http://hardyboys.bobfinnan.com/hb3.htm

Posted by Judy Alter @ 6:31 PM Fri, Jun 15, 2007

I too was an avid Nancy Drew reader, and my first attempt at writing a novel was modeled after her stories--I can't tell you how awful it was! But I think the Nancy Drew books kept me on a road begun with the Little Colonel stories and the Bobbsey Twins and ending with a career as an author and publisher. If you can't get enough about Nancy, read Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her.
But all this nostalgia for the books we read as kids is timely. I can't resist mentioning that TCU Press has a book titled Boys' Books, Boys' Dreams, and the Mystique of Flight. It's about how the boys' book series featuring early pilots, published in the 30s and 40s primarily, helped shape our aereonautic culture.

Posted by Joy Tipping @ 3:53 AM Sat, Jun 16, 2007

I was more of a Trixie Belden fan. Trixie came along a little later than Nancy, with the first book published in the late 1940s -- and was a bit sassier, with daringly short hair and a best friend, Honey, who had HORSES (horses figured strongly in my early reading choices). I'm quite sure that Trixie's crush on Jim, Honey's brother, led to my own crush on and marriage to a Jim of my own.

I've often wished I had those books back -- I loaned my complete set to my cousin-in-law Myra sometime around 1978, and haven't seen them since. I suspect they're still in a box in her attic in Clinton, Mo. Hey, Myra, where're my Trixies?!

Texas connection: I interviewed singer/songwriter Sara Hickman a while back for the DMN about books that influenced celebrites, and was delighted to learn that she, too, was a Trixie fan.