After work today, I was browsing the books at my school’s library when I spotted the Nancy Drew series. Like many girls growing up in yesteryear, I’d done my share of perusing that young “sleuth’s” adventures. Feeling a bit nostalgic, I picked one of the oldies (i.e. the originals, not that modern day garbage) off the shelf and skimmed through the pages.
I must say I got a good chuckle out of the heroine’s stilted speech mannerisms. At one point, I read something along the lines of, “‘I must report this incident to the authorities,’ Nancy said to herself”. In another place she describes a certain man to her friends as being “unscrupulous”. Seriously, when was the last time you heard an adult use that word in normal conversation, much less a teenage girl? Strangely enough, these books were written for young adolescents and pre-adolescents. I’m trying hard to imagine my kids being able to wade through this kind of children’s literature from several decades ago. It’s not working too well, and part of me is sad for that.
The weird thing is, although I know most of the odd words went over my head, I realize now that learned a lot of vocabulary from books like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Or at least I was exposed to a lot of good vocab. Today’s kids books seem to be so dumbed down or smart-alecky. They just don’t write books like Freckles, Rifles for Watie, Stuart Little, or, well . . . even Nancy Drew’s adventures for children anymore.
Makes you want a little more “unscrupulous” writing, doesn’t it?
Made for Eternity 