Months later... I think most readers loved Nancy Drew and her books because she owned a blue convertible and could drive herself any where she wanted. I also liked the fact that in the original stories she is always described as a "skillful driver".
She was autonomous. Did she ever go to school? She kept her own schedule, aside from her burden of "running the house" which amounted to telling Hannah Gruen what to do and cook. She could drive anywhere. Her father, Carson Drew, never said "where have you been, you're late, you're grounded". He doesn't seem at all disturbed that she's running around the county chasing armed burglars and getting locked in closets, as long as she's home for dinner. What planet is he from?
Everyone would like to be Nancy Drew. In addition to owning the best car she seems to be able to do everything. Drive a motor boat, knows first aid, is an excellent badminton player and is always the most popular girl in the crowd !
"Girls, it's Nancy Drew!" she exclaimed enthusiastically. "Now the fun will start!".
As we move ahead to read books about tycoons and hermaphrodites I'll just wrap it up by commenting on Harriet Stratemeyer's questionable behavior. Nancy Drew is a character with many virtues, I find it disturbing that Stratemeyer "lied" about who actually wrote the first books. Here she helps create and profit from this noble character, Nancy Drew, but I do not believe she acted nobly toward the oringinal writer, Mildred Wirt Benson. By not sharing the credit I think she belittled her own reputation. Nancy Drew would not have approved!
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