day 26 of the 30 day book challenge

Day 26. First favorite book or series obsession

When I was little, Mom would take me to the public library for story time, stacks of picture books & the 10-cent discarded book rack.

The library would occasionally sift through its collection, buy updated versions & let people buy the old copies for a dime. Or, in sadder cases, books that no one wants & haven't been checked out for x period of time get added to the shelf. Either way, for me it was cause for rejoicing.

When I was old enough to ride my bike around town a bit, (as the library is less than a mile from my parents' home) my friends & I would ride to the library–sit in the adult section, spend an hour reading movie titles, try to find scandalous books, takes another hour to decide what stack we actually wanted to bring home.

I have serious difficulties in libraries. I end up with a stack of about seven, then try to narrow it down to realistic expectations. But when faced with options in reading, I tend to melt. I get all wobbly in the head & can't just take one.

This was a problem when I got to the discarded rack of the library & saw an entire row of Nancy Drew novels. One of the greatest things to come from my grandma's storage places were her daughters' Nancy Drew books. I can't remember which were only my mom's & which were my aunts, but I know for a while I had them sitting on my shelf. I loved eating my way through them.

I wanted to buy that whole row of Nancy Drew books, but there were several problems with this.
1. A friend was there. We'd recently taken to using my walkie-talkies & her detective kit to try to solve neighborhood mysteries, so she wanted in on the Drew action, too.
2. I was on my bike. I didn't have a backpack. How would I bring home a row of Nancy Drew?
3. I had four dimes. Brittany, my friend, had far more.


So I went home with a few Nancy Drews to add to the family collection & was able to read them before I grew out of my mystery-solving phase. My sister went on to read them, adding several new books to the collection.

Nancy has held up well to time–a whole new series (Nancy Drew, Girl Detective) sprang up in the last decade; she has countless web & PC games; people still talk about her on web forums. This all leads me to hope that if we have a daughter, she too may go through her neighborhood detective phase & come home with a stack of Nancy Drew.

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