Blame it on Nancy Drew

by Marcia Talley

I come from a long line of frugal New Englanders, so it’s no surprise that I tend to drive my cars until they practically disintegrate in my driveway. Thus, it was a sad, sad day when I waved goodbye to my beloved 1994 Chrysler LeBaron – which was crying out for its third transmission in almost as many years – as it was hauled away on a flatbed truck by a nice guy from Purple Heart. To replace it, I did my research, reading Consumer Reports and doing comparisons on the Internet before turning up at a local VW dealership looking to test drive a VW Eos convertible. “I want it in blue,” I told the salesman, Keith, but there was no blue model on the lot. “The paprika red is hot,” Keith said. “You can drive that baby away today.” I shook my head. He tried again, “Candy white? Island gray?”

I was in the middle of explaining to Keith why color was a deal breaker – it was going to be blue or nothing – when it suddenly occurred to me why the color was important. Blame it on Nancy Drew. She drove a snappy blue roadster, and so, doggonit, would I.

How is it that a series of novels that debuted in 1930 – decades before I was born -- have such an influence on me as a young girl that I became not only a rabid reader of mysteries, but a mystery novelist as well? How to explain why I was sitting in a squeaky leather chair, pouting until I got to drive off in a car just like Nancy’s? Another famous Nancy said it far better than I in the preface to the facsimile edition of The Hidden Staircase, "I Owe It All to Nancy Drew."

Statistics indicate that our nation’s children are spending less time reading and more time watching television, playing video games or texting. This is alarming for many reasons, not the least being this – if there is going to be an audience in future for the kind of books we write, we need to start cultivating that audience today. That’s why I rarely turn down the opportunity to speak to children and young adults, in schools and libraries, and for community groups like the Girl Scouts. The kids I’ve met may be spending a lot of time in front of a television or computer screen, but I’ve found that they’re endlessly fascinated by mysteries, too.

Not long ago I was giving a talk during “Career Day” to a group of seventy 5th graders, and I asked how many of them had seen the television program CSI. Papers on the librarian’s desk fluttered as nearly every hand shot up. At a high school in my husband’s home town the English and Science departments collaborated on a joint study unit, “Forensic Science in Literature.” I was the literature half of the program. On a balmy autumn weekend in San Diego, I gave the keynote address for a brilliantly organized Girl Scout sleepover that included a hands-on CSI workshop -- crime scene, evidence specimens, microscopes, white lab coats and all – followed by a mystery-writing workshop.  And next month, on Friday October 19, I’m looking forward to partnering with Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Forensic Science in a hands-on CSI/Creative Writing Workshop for teens as part of the Virginia Literary Festival.  

 

Remember that line in the 1989 Kevin Costner flick, Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come?” The same could be said about mysteries. J.K. Rowling turned millions of children on to reading with the adventures of Harry Potter, and if standing in line for hours in order to be the first kid on your block to read a book that’s more 700 pages long doesn’t prove that if you give kids good books, they will read them, I don’t know what does.

If we write them, they will come.

Do you need a gift for a youngster? Remember the solve-it-yourself mysteries featuring Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown, the boy detective? For middle school children, how about Mary Stuart’s classic, The Moonspinners; or The Name of the Game was Murder by Joan Lowrey Nixon; Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game; or Chris Grabenstein’s Haunted Mystery series. And for the high school crowd, you couldn’t do better than to recommend Josephine Tey’s timeless classic, Daughter of Time; Margaret Maron’s Bootlegger’s Daughter; She Walk These Hills by Sharyn McCrumb, or anything by one of the Femmes Fatales. And Agatha Christie, too, of course.

My stint as an Edgar judge for the juvenile mystery category made it clear that authors are still turning out such masterpieces, tomorrow’s classics like the books among this year’s Edgar award nominees, or those that were nominated for an Agatha Award in the same category.

In my travels, I’ve discovered that kids, just like their parents, want to know ‘where do you get your ideas?’ and are fascinated when an author talks about the whole creative process, from the germ of an idea up through publication. At one presentation, a bright-eyed 4th grader examined in amazement the marked-up, copyedited, Post-it note bedecked manuscript I’d brought along. “You mean grownups don’t get it perfect the first time either?”

Oh, Brittany, how I wish!

 

Comments

[Donna Hudgins]

Long live the Mother Goose Reading Corner I created for my grandchildren. It was under our stairs in our great room leading upstairs. A decorative swan objet d'art was under there. Swan, goose what did they know! I have done it for each of my five grandchildren. Ater the first few reading times with first one, my daughter arrived for child pick up, saying Ok. Where is the MGRC? I'm now on #5 who is 3. Thanks to MGRC they have become readers.

[krisneri]

Marcia, I once bought a Triumph Spitfire convertible because it approximated Nancy's roadster. But you're a better fan than I am -- I got mine in green because I thought that was a better color for me. I told myself Nancy would understand.

As a bookseller, I only see the kids who read, not the ones who don't. (Mostly) It warms my heart when I see how much some kids still love books. When they bring them to the counter and show me what they found and are so excited, or when they don't want to hand them over for scanning because they can't bear to let go of them -- oh, does that give me hope!

[Skipper Hammond]

Wish you had led a sleep-over for my Girl Scout troop. A CSI workshop sure sounds like more fun than weaving pot holders.
But tell me, please. Why do people complain that kids today don't write but then complain they spend so much time texting? Text means written words. Kids are writing when they text, just as truly as Western Unions telegraph operators wrote.

[Elaine Viets]

No mystery why you chose that blue roadster, Marcia. It's a beauty. When I worked at a bookstore, I saw how many kids loved books. Their parents brought them to the store. Guess that explains where they learned to like books.

[Marcia Talley]

Hi, Donna! Thanks for stopping by. I've actually SEEN your MGRC, so I know what a special place it is! I, too, read to my daughters and read to the grands. One of my faves is Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever. Was mortified to discover when I went to purchase copies for my grandkids that the new editions had eliminated Laura's favorite story, Pierre Bear, because it was "sexist" and "advocated violence." WTF? Seems Pierre "bought" a bride (he met Mrs. Pierre when he stopped into the trading post where she was working behind the counter) and then he killed a seal to make her a coat. It's FICTION, people!!! Anyway, I managed to find copies of the original edition on the internet so my grandkids can love Pierre Bear just as much as my daughter did.

[Marcia Talley]

Kris, I once bought a paperback for a little guy at a Barnes and Noble who had been left to his own devices in the children's section while his mother went to get her hair done!! When I gave it to him (with the sales receipt attached so his mother -- when she ever appeared -- would know it'd been paid for) he clasped to his chest and said, "I can keep it? For ever and ever?"

As for the car, it matches your eyes, right??

[Marcia Talley]

Skipper, you're right about texting being writing, of a sort. Sadly, it's so ephemeral and, I don't know about you, but it's like reading code! Reginald Hill wrote a book, The Price of Butcher's Meat, that was about 1/3 email messages with no punctuation and little capitalization and I found it a tough slog. An interesting concept, though. Multiple viewpoints, and Andy Dalziel's POV was from a tape transcription.

As for the workshops, they are W-A-Y more fun than making potholders or sit-upons. LOL.

[Marcia Talley]

Elaine, you and I have love affairs with our cars! How is Black Beauty doing?

[Karen in Ohio]

Holy cow, someone left a child alone in this day and age? What a great idea, to give him a book, Marcia.

I'm in the process of downscaling my life and making decisions about which books to keep and which to donate. I'm totally stymied by the children's books, hundreds of them, from my three kids' childhoods. So many amazing memories, and my grandson loves them, as well.

[Marcia Talley]

Karen, it's hard to choose, isn't it? We kept all the Little House Books, the CS Lewis, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Landmark classics, Mother Goose, Grimm, HC Andersen ... the list goes on. You might ask your kids to decide which ones to keep, and tell them they need to be ruthless! I donated a lot of my books to a friend who collects books for libraries in the poorer parts of West Virginia, but I'll bet there are needy libraries/schools in Ohio, too. I'm off to Cleveland (where I was born) in about a week for Bouchercon. Will be touring for 3 days before hand with the Deadly Divas. Check out the schedule on the Deadly Divas webpage and if you're nearby, hope to see you.

And, yes, the mother did. At least it wasn't in a parked car on a hot day, but the CRM gave her a piece of her mind when the woman returned!

[Silk Questo]

I don't think it's fully appreciated how many generations of girls found their lifelong courage and ambition on the pages of Nancy Drew mysteries. Maybe she was a tiny bit of a spoiled with her powder blue coupe and her amazing amount of freedom to run all over hell's half acre solving crimes ... but for me she was the original teenage feminist. Like you, my Nancy Drew fixation has driven me (finally in middle age) to write mysteries. Right now I and my 4 writer friends have challenged ourselves to write 5 novels in 5 months (see our page on FB). I know we're crazy, but wish us luck.

[Marcia Talley]

5 novels in 5 months? Eeek! I hope that's one novel apiece, not five each! LOL.

[Ray Flynt]

Once again you've prompted me to think about early influences. I recall enjoying BOXCAR CHILDREN, about a group of orphans who, at one time, lived in a boxcar.

Aside from living in a town that had three different sets of railroad tracks running through it, I'm sure those stories cultivated my interest in trains, which are a part of my own mystery series.

[Marcia Talley]

Ray, I still love the mournful sound of the whistle as the train rumbles through town in the night. Back to my mid-west roots, I guess.

[Deb Romano]

I devoured all the Nancy Drew books as a youngster. What books I did not purchase with my saved allowance I received as gifts from my parents. Reading was as important to them as brushing your teeth! I am grateful to have been taught a love of reading by parents who were also avid readers. They read to us from a very early age. My maternal grandmother not only read to us, she often acted out the stories, particularly fairy tales! Here I am, in my sixties, and I can still picture my tiny little white haired grandmother trotting aound the room, depicting Cinderella's horse-led coach! Such a precious memory!

All this is leading up to saying that a light went on in my head when you talked about Nancy Drew's influence on your choice of car color: Maybe THAT'S why I insisted that my first car had to be blue! About half of the cars I have owned have been blue. My first NON blue car was a lemon (no, it was not yellow:-) and when no garage in town could fix it any longer, I replaced it with a blue car.

I am jealous of all the youngsters who have the privilege of having an author speak to their groups/classes. I still regularly reread some of my favorite childhood books and have recently begun purchasing copies of some of my other favorites, particularly classics such as Alice in Wonderland or Peter Pan.

Some of the games my siblings and I played with each other as kids were based on characters from books we read.

Really, reading has positively influenced my life in more ways than I can ever count!

[Marcia Talley]

Deb, I'll bet you were like me -- reading under the covers with a flashlight. When my dad took the flashlight away, I devised a method of reflecting the light from the hallway onto the pages of my book using a handheld mirror. Oh, I was a lil' rascal!

[Deb Romano]

Marcia,
I did the hallway thing, but I did it without a mirror. If I stretched out at the foot of the bed,I was close enough to the hallway light to be able to make out the words -until my parens went to bed. They shut out the light then!

When my youngest sibling was born, my parents were torn between two different names for her. As the oldest child, I was allowed to cast the tie breaking vote. One of the names was the name of a character from one of the classics. (You can easily guess which name I pcked!)

[Dana]

Marcia, yes! You were right to hold out for the blue!

For many years, Mr. G and I used to take our young nephews and nieces to bookstores over Christmas break. Didn't matter if they bought books or CDs or games or magazines, we just wanted them near the books. And I think it took!

[Marcia Talley]

Dana, I send the nieces/nephews Amazon gift certificates so they can buy books. But you can buy ANYTHING on Amazon these days (I just bought a case of Sucanat - natural dehydrated cane juice - because my Whole Foods has discontinued it, the inconsiderate wretches.) But I digress. Anyway, I feared they were buying toys or tunes or video games but, amazingly, they seem to be buying books!