Tiny Grass

I was reading in the paper just this morning that a Nancy Drew movie is going to be released very soon. To say that I’m excited would be an understatement.

Looking at the pictures from the covers of all the old books in my newspaper brought so many memories back from when I was much younger. I read every single one of the original Nancy Drew stories when I was a pre-teen, maybe around 9 or 10 years old. I love that age - it is probably the age when I remember myself being the happiest, so the memories are sweet.

I would walk to the library, about 2 miles away, with my best friend Meg. All the Nancy Drew books were on two lower shelves just under the card catalogs in a tiny room. I’d pretty much camp out on the floor and read the backs of the books for all the story descriptions as other patrons stood over me using the card catalog. I probably took home about 5 Nancy Drew books each time we went to the library, and I’d be finished with them in about 2 weeks, I’m guessing. And then I remember the sad days - when I had read almost all of them, and I’d be frantically looking on the shelf for one that I hadn’t read yet. Oh, the disappointment when I couldn’t find one, and the happiness when I did find one hiding at the back of the shelf.

The Nancy Drew books I got from the library were probably from the 50’s and 60’s - the yellow hardcovers with the picture on it. But after I got through all of the ones that the library held, my father introduced me to the really old ones he had in the attic - the blue hardcover originals from the 30’s. I read many of those too, most of what we had in the attic. I loved them all. I do remember being confused by some of things mentioned in the books from the 30’s. For instance, what were these “chains” that people put on their cars in bad weather?  I couldn’t quite grasp how they would work.

For some reason, I hadn’t considered reading these books to M yet, but I might give it a try.  He really likes spooky mysteries, and we often read long books, so it just might work.  If not, I just might read some just for myself.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 11th, 2007 at 3:44 pm and is filed under books, reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.