No, I didn't name my kids Nancy and Ned Beeswax...but maybe I shoulda

When I finally talked Jake into getting my huge box of Nancy Drew books down from the attic this week, and Ross and Jane got a gander at all 60 or so of them, and their eyes lit up, and they got all excited and started reading the titles to each other, I thought: this is a great moment. My kids love my Nancy Drews. They are fighting over The Password to Larkspur Lane. They want to know, what could be The Clue in the Old Diary? They have already read through about 10 of them so far, including the Mystery of the 99 steps, the Clue in the Crumbling Wall.

Maybe I should have stuck with my original plan (cooked up nearly thirty years ago), and named my first and second born children Ned and Nancy. Turns out, they would have liked it.

I know I learned in my children's literature class at BYU that "plot drives us, but we learn from character." I know that Nancy is perpetually 19 and cruising around in her hot convertible, and perhaps is sort of a tease because she's led Ned on for nearly 80 years, only calling him when she's in a tight scrape and needs help or brawn that Bess and George can't provide, and not because she's had an epiphany and realized she can't live without him, or his romantic pecks on the cheek. I also know Nancy doesn't teach us anything about the human experience, beyond the awesome human experience of solving mysteries with clues that seem to fall right into your lap.

I know that Carolyn Keene is just a pseudonym, not for just one prolific lady, but for many ghost writers who fleshed out stories outlined by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, who also came up with the Bobbsey Twins and the Hardy Boys, as well as dozens of other series. Nancy was first published in 1930, just weeks after big daddy Stratemeyer's demise. His daughter took over from there. And I also remember the way my professor scrunched up his face like he smelled something rotten, as he tried to tell us we should dissuade our future pupils (I was an elementary ed major for 2 years) from reading stacks of Nancy Drew books to the exclusion of better, finer, potentially life-changing literature. But I don't care. My parents liked them (my Dad was strictly Hardy Boys as the party line went, but when he'd read through his school library's holdings, he said he secretly snuck a little Nancy home in his backpack.) I liked them. Now, my kids like them.

I ask, what exactly is wrong with literature that doesn't change your life? We don't expect so much of our television programming. I've got me a Stephanie Plum mystery (first try for me) for the beach this week, or there's Mary Higgins Clark, or I'm sure lots of others, that are Nancy for grown ladies. I also like me a little Dirk Pitt, occasionally, even though he's definitely aimed at the Hardy Boys demographic. Dirk's been macho and chauvinistic since the 70s, and who wants him to become a women's-libbing modern man? Besides N.O.W., of course. And probably all the ladies on The View, if they took a vote. Who else, but virile Dirk, is still in the mood for a little hanky-panky, in one of the water-logged staterooms on the just-raised Titanic, even with a fresh bullet wound? Nobody. Well, perhaps James Bond.

I'm certain, even if my Professor Sourpuss was not, that there's room for all sorts of books in this world. You might never win a Pulitzer, Dirk and Nancy, but we still love you. We like to take you to the beach, or on airplanes. We like to take you to bed with 2 pounds of See's chocolate when we've had a long, long day. Anyway, not that it is likely you ever would, since you haven't, yet: but, don't ever change.

Do you have a favorite Nancy Drew mystery? Or a good series in the same vein for grown ladies or gentlemen? Please share!

P.S. Sue, from navel gazing at its finest, started a Mormon Mommy Blog list, and she put me on it! You can be part of it, too. Go see it!