A favorite "young fiction"

Nancy Drew is 80.  She was a favorite heroine of mine and I inherited a nice collection of hardback books from my cousin, Kathy, when she "outgrew them" - like her clothes she handed down.  Fun to have an older cousin!  But, when I went to college, I left them at home in my closet and after I returned when my freshman year ended, they were gone!  Apparently anything I left behind was assumed unwanted and went to the D.I.  Be careful what you do with your valuables when there are vulture siblings wanting your space when you move on, even if only temporarily.   Click here to read about this young girls' favorite read.  I first fell in love with her when our Girl Scout troop attended a play put on by older Girl Scouts, adapted from one of the Nancy Drew mysteries.  I can't recall which one, but it piqued my interest in Nancy for sure!  Was it The Secret of the Old Clock- Carolyn Keene's first?  How disappointing to learn as an adult that Carolyn Keene wasn't even a woman, but a man, Edward Stratemeyer!  I guess the cross-gender pseudonyms weren't only women posing as men to get published.  Ultimately there were women versions of Carolyn Keene as well.

When it comes to the classic series of 56 Nancy Drew books, there were eight ghostwriters — five women and three men. But two women — Mildred Wirt Benson and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams — wrote most of the books. Benson was the first ghostwriter, and Adams was Stratemeyer's daughter who took over the company when her father died.