Mystery

This children’s book has a weak disjointed story, filled with highly implausible events and hackneyed plot devices. Nancy and her pals are invited by her aunt to a lakefront cabin to solve the mystery of a strange woman who has been seen “gliding” across the lake. They hear rumors of a strange green-glowing ghost like human who inhabits the nearby woods, and on investigation, actually spot the creature. They then find a secret, underground laboratory in the woods built by two renegade scientists. Between mysteries, they find time to visit a museum that contains the famed “Cardiff Giant”, a 10 foot tall “petrified man” produced as a hoax by a local farmer in the 1860s. (The pseudonymous “Carolyn Keene” of this book incorrectly claims that it was carved out of wood, whereas it was actually chiseled out of stone.)

Contrived plot devices abound. Nancy keeps being mistaken for another woman whom she resembles, a woman who is robbing and defrauding people in the area -- this being a tired plot mechanism used in previous Nancy Drew books. Nancy finds footprints of one of the scientists and is able to tell that he must be in his late 30s or early 40s. Predictably, one of the friends gets “knocked out” by the perpetrators (Nancy and her friends are always being “knocked out” in these stories, as if people have an on-off switch that is activated by being hit in the head). Nancy’s friend is bit by a “very poisonous” centipede, and Nancy watches in fascination as another friend uses a tourniquet and bleeds out the poison. The Nancy Drew of this book had never heard of this procedure, despite the fact that the Nancy of Book 6 in the series (Secret of Red Gate Farms) had used the identical procedure in a case of snake bite.

Resolution of each of the mysteries is an insult to the reader. The mysterious “gliding woman” turns out to be someone walking on stilts in the lake. She’s trying to use the stilts to feel around for an ancient Russian carriage that might have been buried somewhere in the lake. The renegade scientists are working in their secret, underground lab to try to solve the secret of how lightning bugs emit light – which they hope to patent and use to make flashlights and the like. They dress up in a green glowing suit to chase away intruders. And the woman who looks like Nancy Drew is a professional jewel thief who is married to one of the evil scientists, and who is trying to get money to fund their research. Poorly literate ten year old girls may find all this quite exciting and inspirational. Surely, however, there are better things for them to read.... ( )

Having just read the article about graphic novel versions of Nancy Drew, I was curious to reread one of the original versions. In some ways, it reads rather dated. Some of the prose is pretty stilted. For example, when the girls' boyfriends arrive with a man in tow for Aunt Eloise, he is introduced as "Miss Drew, I'd like to present my uncle, Professor Matthew Bronson, B.S., M.A., PhD. He's going to be teaching chemistry at Emerson this fall" (p.99). In addition, there is a lot of detail regarding making meals and what they eat. The characters also face real dangers---more than one is hit on the head and knocked out. One is bitten by a poisonous bug; another comes across a burglary in progress; another fights off a captor. However, the prose keeps the storyline from being too scary; I kept thinking that a current version of the story would not have people walking into the woods at night over and over to find criminals. It just seems way too dangerous for the audience to be believable.

A library could do a display of Nancy Drew books and the graphic novel versions. Perhaps it could be part of a larger display celebrating mysteries and include mystery books for various age levels. The library could even host a mystery interactive theater presentation or hide clues in the library and let patrons do a search as part of a youth activity.