A review by bargainsleuth
What Is the Story of Nancy Drew? by Dana M. Rau, Who H.Q.

4.0

For my complete review, and to see all my other Nancy Drew reviews, visit www.bargain-sleuth.com

What is the Story of Nancy Drew? is the latest in the popular children’s series books that started with Who Was or Who is. Now they’ve moved on to What is and the series is as popular as ever; my girls’ former k-8 school had a ton of these books. I’ve read a few and found them to be accurate and interesting, allowing children to read about people and events. Now they’ve tackled my beloved Nancy Drew. How accurate and compelling would they make her story?

This book is a great introduction to my favorite teen sleuth. It starts with her origin, created by Edward Stratemeyer in 1930, a publisher of popular book series’ like The Rover Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, and starting in 1927, The Hardy Boys. With the smashing success of the Hardy Boys, Stratemeyer decided to create a girls’ detective series book. He wrote 3-3 page outlines and sent them to a 24-year old writer named Mildred Augustine Wirt. Wirt was paid the princely sum of $125 per book and based on those rough outlines, wrote the first three books. She made Nancy smart and resourceful and fearless, curious and pretty and independent.

While the bibliography lists a few sources that are outdated or information in them has proved to be wrong, overall it’s a solid start for the young Nancy Drew fan.