Girl Sleuth

It's very rare for me to read books knowing nothing about them, and even rarer for me to buy books I've never heard of. But I was walking home from taking my pediatrics boards (which I passed, by the way...) and I passed by a used bookstore. So I thought to myself: “I deserve to go poke around the bookstore. I just took a huge test.” And then I saw this book, and the cover drew me in, so I, of course, decided that I deserved to buy a book, too. I'm really glad I did – this book is excellent!

Did you think Carolyn Keene was a real person? I did – I remember fighting with my mother about it when I was a kid. Maybe you're less naive than I and realized that even if Carolyn Keene was a person, she wasn't still writing the Nancy Drew books. But it turns out, that not only was Carolyn Keene never a real person, she, Laura Lee Hope, Franklin Dixon and dozens of others were all the figments of the imagination of the same man, Edward Stratemeyer.

This is the story of Edward Stratemeyer and the evolution of pulp fiction for children. Wonderfully, this is also the story of Edward's oldest daughter, Harriet, who took over his estate, as well as the story of Mildred Wirt, the main ghostwriter for the Nancy Drew books. Why is this such a wonderful happenstance? Because this always this book to also be the story of how two strong-willed independent women went to college and held down serious jobs long before that was acceptable. Rehak explores the state of education for women in the 1920's and follows the growth and turns of these two women and their relationship from their college years to their deaths in their 90's.

Rehak is talented no matter her scope – her minute details are precise and fascinating, but she is not afraid to expand out to big concepts like feminism, literature for children, gendering of children's literature, etc. and she manages to maintain my interest at each level.