I would be a fabulous girl sleuth.
To showcase just how well I fit into the female detective role, here’s a photo of me with a deerskin hat and a pipe.
Only I couldn’t quite figure out how to just draw in Picnik, so I made both my hat and pipe out of bird stickers.
Looks totally natural, right?
I’m thinking about my gumshoe skills because I just finished reading Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak. I’d always thought Carolyn Keene was the author of the Nancy Drew series, but apparently I was terribly ignorant because Nancy Drew was actually the brain child of Edward Stratemeyer and written by Mildred Wirt Benson & Harriet Stratemeyer.
Yet as simply as I’ve described it, the real behind the scenes is quite complex and disputed. Ms. Rehak does a fabulous job of not only presenting each side’s story, but also immersing the tale within the time it took place.
Nancy Drew was one of the first book series written to appeal to girls and was written by a woman and then published under a female-led syndicate only a decade after women received the right to vote.
It’s that dynamic that gives the tale its heart, along with the drama, passion, and determination that combined to make Nancy into the girl the whole world knows.
Looking back, I should have made a bird into a magnifying glass
Regrets,
Megan
Will the Real Carolyn Keene Please Stand Up? A Nancy Drew Expose{ 31 comments }
