CBS has given the greenlight for a Nancy Drew television series. The Atlantic reports that the production team does not plan to stay completely faithful to this popular children’s book series.
In this adaptation, Nancy Drew will be a 30-year-old who works as a detective for the New York Police Department. Glenn Geller, the president of CBS Entertainment, has stated the crew is open to an actress of any ethnicity to play the titular character.
Here’s more from The Hollywood Reporter: “Nancy Drew first appeared in books in 1930 and was originally created by Edward Stratemeyer. The beloved books have been ghostwritten by a series of authors and published under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. The character has evolved in the decades since, though the original series — Nancy Drew Mystery Stories — ran from 1930 to 2003. The franchise has included spinoff series including Nancy Drew Files and collaborations with the Hardy Boys.”
Hours Spent Reading: 25.5
Books Read: 7
Pages Read: 2086
Money Raised: $707
What I'm listening to: Someone Somewhere (In Summertime)
Please remember that I'm reading to raise money for Room to Read, which builds libraries, stocks them with books, and trains people to become their librarians.
The Clue in the Diary Carolyn Keene
Oh Nancy, you're so funny. There are two mysteries-- a poor (but clean!) mother and daughter that Nancy and her friends meet at a carnival. The father is off looking for work and supposed to send money, but they haven't heard from him.
On the way home, they see a house burn down. The house belongs to a very rich, but not well-liked character. OF COURSE THE MYSTERIES ARE RELATED!
But! This is the book where Nancy meets Ned! And how! He's moving her car away from the spreading house fire and she thinks he's trying to steal it.
I listened to the first part of this and that was awesome, because all the over-drama was underscored with crazy sound effects and lots of dramatic music. I think I'm going to have to listen to more Nancy Drews for the Nancy Drew challenge. Also, it was narrated by Laura Linney and how can you NOT love Laura Linney?!
Book Provided by... my local library
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Over at Geek Buffet, I'm comparing two different editions of
The Secret in the Old Attic Carolyn Keene
The original was written in 1944, the current edition first came out in 1970. Excitingly, there are big differences between the two! Many differences occur because of the passage in time. In 1970, it’s a bit of stretch for an elderly, but still active, gentleman to be so old that he fought in WWI. Not so in 1944. Also, a soldier who recently died in 1944 probably died in WWII. You also see things like rayon getting switched to poly and more phones in the 1970 edition.
Another thing that changed is race. In 1944, the house with the old attic has “old slave quarters” and Bess utters a horrible line idealizing happy slaves. All this is cut in the new edition. Additionally, the maid, Effie, speaks in a poor, lower class dialect in 1944. In 1970, she speaks “normally.” Effie’s race is never mentioned though.
Overall, 1970 is just much tighter. 1944 tends to have a lot of cliff-hanger scary chapter endings that are explained away as really being nothing in the first few sentences of the next chapter. The 1970 version cuts most of this out. Thankfully.
The biggest change is that 1944 contains a mini-mystery of a romantic subplot with Nancy and Ned. (Ned didn’t ask her to the dance! And some icky guy is really putting the pressure on Nancy to go to the dance with him instead.) This entire subplot is cut from the current edition, which is sad. It was my favorite part of the story and it was rather refreshing to see Nancy have some doubts, even though you knew it would all work out in the end. For a deeper comparison, check out the chapter-by-chapter play-by-play over at
Geek Buffet!
Thanks for the detective work---er, analysis---very entertaining. I just pulled my Secret of the Old Clock off my mantle and looked at the pub date. 1959. Wonder what I would find in there? It says "this new story for today's readers is based on the original of the same title."
I think the 1959 edition is the same version currently being published. The original is from 1930. I've read both (but didn't do the play-by-play) and recall the stories are pretty different.