Books

I love to read and have as long as I remember.  

So, here are some of my favorites during different times …..

As a child, I read, a number of the Oz Books by L Frank Baum.  I wish I could say I still had them, however they were passed down to my sister and brother.  Then, when my mother determined we were too old for certain books, she collected them and gave them away.  Good thing/bad thing.  Today, I have a small collection of children's books, some I read, some my children read.  I like books.

So, like the world at large, I read the first book - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  Everyone know what it’s about – Dorothy and her dog Toto are swept away in a cyclone to the Land of Oz.  All she wants is to return home and is directed to the ruler of Oz, The great and powerful Wizard.  On the way to the wizard, she meets Scarecrow, Tinman, and the Cowardly Lion.  Everybody learns something about themselves and Dorothy ultimately gets home. 

When I got ready to write this piece, I looked up the Oz books.  There are 14 - written from 1900-1920.  I don’t recall all of them, but I do (sorta – been a year or two) recall these.

The Marvelous Land of Oz. 

Ozma of Oz

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

Tik-Tok of Oz

The Scarecrow of Oz

The Tin Woodman of Oz

I also read several of the Happy Hollisters books by Jerry West (a pen name for Andrew Svenson).  These books, written in the early 1950’s, were about the Hollister family.  The family has fun adventures together, and when mysteries arise, the five children become amateur sleuths and are allowed to investigate and solve the mysteries on their own.

And, of course, I read many of the Nancy Drew books by Carolyn Keene (and here is something I didn’t know until today, these books, along with The Hardy Boys books were written within the Stratemeyer Syndicate.  It was a customary practice to assign pen names to various book series so more than one author could write for the series.  So, while a number of authors actually wrote the Nancy Drew books, they all used the pen name Carolyn Keene and for the Hardy Boys, used Franklin W. Dixon).  Something to add to your file of strange and weird information.

The Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series was begun in 1930 and ended in 2003.  In the books I read, Nancy is a 16-year-old high school graduate, living in the town of River Heights with her father, attorney Carson Drew, and their housekeeper, Hannah Gruen. As a teenager, she spends her time solving mysteries, some of which she stumbles upon and some of which begin as cases of her father's. Nancy is assisted in solving these mysteries by her two closest friends and cousins, Bess Marvin and George Fayne and occasionally by her boyfriend Ned Nickerson, a student at Emerson College.  And Nancy was everything a girl could want to be – a fine painter, skilled driver, a sure shot, excellent swimmer, skillful oarsman, expert seamstress, great cook, fine bridge player, played tennis, golf, danced like Ginger Rogers and could administer first aid like the Mayo brothers.  Plus she solved mysteries!  What's not to love.

There were others of course but these still stand out as favorites in my childhood memory.  Tomorrow, teen years.

Take care.