Sunday, July 19, 2009

Nancy Drew one more time

The reputation of Nancy Drew has been growing for the last 50 years as women who read books in the early series move into positions of power and prestige. Perhaps her greatest recent fame has come from the hearings of Sonia Sotomayor, the latest candidate for the Supreme Court. Now the N.Y. Times us about some of the other women who have declared they were fans of the girl-sleuth while they were growing up. Even though libraries often did not purchase these series books during the 1940s and 1950s, many American girls found them on their own, traded them with friends, and were strongly influenced by them. What was the appeal? Probably the independence and cleverness of Nancy who refuted all the images of dumb, timid girls that other media of the time presented. Nancy was a thousand times stronger than all the little sisters who tagged after the heroes of boys adventure books favored by schools and libraries. While Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn had adventures, girls were supposed to sit back and wait to be rescued. Nancy inspired all the fervent readers who longed to have adventures of their own. And see where she has led--to presidential candidates, Supreme Court justices, and Secretaries of State. Let's keep today's Nancy Drews in our libraries to inspire other young readers.

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