OverDressed for Life

One stormy night, 87 year-old Nancy Drew found herself exploring the back roads of Farrington, PA in her sky blue roadster.

Nancy tossed back her blonde curls while pondering her blessed life and remarkable stamina after more than sixty years of solving crimes.

“I owe it all to my readers,” she thought. “They’ve kept me young and alive all these years.“

Suddenly, out from the depths of obscurity came a figure standing right in the middle of the road. Nancy couldn’t make out the form in the dark and wet conditions. She screeched the roadster to a halt. Grabbing a flashlight from the glovebox, Nancy wasted no time hopping out of the car to investigate.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” came a sinister voice from the tall figure draped in a black cape.

“Are you a poor, helpless person in need of my selfless assistance?” Nancy asked.

“No, Nancy Drew,” the voice barked. “I am the victim of your perfection, slick style, and syndicated values. I am Judy Bolton and your time, Nancy Drew, has finally come.

I wrote this! In graduate school I studied children’s literature while pursuing an MFA in creative writing at Mills College. One semester I wrote a research paper titled Nancy Drew and Judy Bolton: Rival Girl Detectives of the 1930s. I wanted a fun way to start the paper so I came up with this exchange for my cover page.

The Nancy Drew series was created in1930 by syndicate publisher Edward Stratemeyer and written by Mildred Wirt under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Two years later the Judy Bolton series was published. (Created and written by Margaret Sutton.) What’s interesting about Judy is she ages over time and even gets married halfway through the 38-book series. Nancy stays forever a teenager.

Nancy crosses my mind every Halloween, probably because one year I dressed up as the girl detective. I wore a simple A-line dress in navy blue with red insets and a blue cloche hat, which is really a 1920s style, but she wears a cloche on the cover of her first book.

Nancy’s appealing fashions were depicted in the books with illustrations by Russel H. Tandy. In my paper I said that Tandy created for Nancy “sleek, simple, but elegant fashions.” Judy was no fashion slouch either, always well dressed in styles of the day.

This year will find me at home wearing a spooky jack-o-lantern black T-shirt and settled in for night of creepy old movies – like House of Wax with Vincent Price. How about you, readers? What are you up to this Halloween?

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