Ahhh...Nancy Drew

Today I was thinking about summer reading. To me, reading and summer always went hand in hand, and I relished the slow and lazy days that afforded hours and hours of just...reading. I remember that one summer I spent gorging myself on everything Nancy Drew that I could get my hands on... only moving from my favorite spot - sprawled on the living room floor - so that my mom could vacuum. Admittedly, these books are not very well written (gasp!) I know, I know...it seems blasphemous to say it, but in my opinion it's true. There are loads more books to entice girls into reading then there were in the day of Nancy Drew. I spent other summers wrapped up with Howe and Bellairs, and many, many others. But there is nothing quite like that first realization that a girl can be a hero, too.

So bundle up a girl that you love and take her to the library. There are so many wonderful books for girls out there today. Let her spend a summer being inspired by what a girl can do.

Nancy Drew
By Ron Koertge

Merely pretty, she made up for it with vim.

And she got to say things like, "But, gosh,

what if these plans should fall into the wrong

hands?" and it was pretty clear she didn't mean

plans for a party or a trip to the museum, but

something involving espionage and a Nazi or two.

In fact, the handsome exchange student turns

out to be a Fascist sympathizer. When he snatches

Nancy along with some blueprints, she knows he

has something more sinister in mind than kissing

her with his mouth open.

Locked in the pantry of an abandoned farm house,

Nancy makes a radio out of a shoelace and a muffin.

Pretty soon the police show up, and everything's

hunky dory.

Nancy accepts their thanks, but she's subdued.

It's not like her to fall for a cad. Even as she plans

a short vacation to sort our her emotions she knows

there will be a suspicious waiter, a woman in a green

off the shoulder dress, and her very jittery husband.

Very well. But no more handsome boys like the last one:

the part in his hair that was sheer propulsion, that way

he had of lifting his eyes to hers over the custard,

those feelings that made her not want to be brave

confident and daring, polite, sensitive and caring.