I'd like to say a little something about Nancy Drew...

I have been a Nancy Drew Mysteries fan for many years. For the last ten or so, I have wondered why. I'd like to outline some of the problems I have had with Nancy and her adventures while reading these mysteries, after which maybe I can figure out why I still collect them, still read them, and still like them (even if it is a grudging like).

The first issue with which I take umbrage is the standard description of Nancy that takes place at the beginning of every story. Here are a few to give you a sample:

• Attractive and eighteen-year-old, with reddish-blond hair.
• Attractive, with strawberry blond hair.
• Blue eyes, with reddish-gold hair. (In this one, Nancy isn't labeled attractive; that compliment is reserved for the Drew's living room.)
• Eighteen-year-old, blue eyes, slender and attractive, with strawberry blond hair.
• Attractive, eighteen-year-old, strawberry blond.
• Slender, attractive girl of eighteen with reddish-blond hair.
• Slender, with titian hair.

I could really go on - I find the same thing in book after book after book. Perhaps I wouldn't resent it so much if I didn't somehow feel less than the wonderful Nancy Drew because I'm not slender, don't have reddish-gold, reddish-blond, or strawberry blond hair, and am not eighteen. Perhaps I also resent the fact that in direct comparison to Nancy, her friend Bess Marvin (who, when pictured in all the books is a bit of a Marilyn Monroe look-a-like) is shamefully overweight, panicky, and obsessed with food. But even if I could get over the physical descriptions of Nancy, I might just get hung up a little when it comes to Nancy's many talents, all somehow amassed before the tender age of eighteen.

• Thorough understanding of Morse code
• Tap dancing
• Tap dancing messages in Morse code
• Proficiency at golf, even with an injured hand
• Driving boats
• Flying planes
• Riding horses
• Dancing
• Sign language
• Ghost defense
• Trap door-finding
• Submarine operation
• Knowledge of poisonous plants and animals
• Breaking and entering
• Lock-picking
• Sailing
• Swimming
• Skin-diving
• Tennis

Needless to say, Napoleon Dynamite's numchuk and computer-hacking skills can't hold a candle to the many things that Nancy Drew can do, and I admit I feel a tiny bit resentful when I think that at age 25, I still can't do any of these things.

Aside from any of the all-too-obvious evidences of perfection in Nancy, I find it interesting that she always escapes at the right moment (with all her dignity intact,) she always figures out the mystery, and she always seems to convert someone in the story from a life of crime to an attitude of pathetic Nancy-worship.

Why do I like these books? If forced to admit it, it may very well be for all of the reasons listed above. If nothing else can be said for them, they are at least predictable, and predictability is something to be appreciated.