A review by robnobody
Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak

This of course goes along with my whole love of "esoteric history" books. I found the whole process behind which the Nancy Drew books -- and the Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins, etc. -- were created and published fascinating. We tend to think about books and their characters being the result of a single author's work, maybe later to be expanded upon by other authors in what are often considered "not the REAL" stories. But that's not how these books worked at all, which were really created by committee in a lot of ways, and have been handed off from hand to hand while maintaining a consistent authorial "face." This of course necessitates those who DID work on those stories to have a different sort of relationship with them than authors who more fully "own" their creations. It's also an interesting look into a genre that is too often sidelined or snubbed as not "real" literature, but can be much more influential than people often think: the juvenile series. These can often be kids' first introduction to "real" reading beyond, say, picture books, and due to their open-ended, ongoing natures (unlike planned finite series like Harry Potter) kids can grow up reading them and still have new ones to share with THEIR kids.

Also, Nancy kicks ass.