Nancy Drew

Washington-- --The Mystery of the Time-Traveling Sleuth. Attractive, golden-tressed teenage actress Emma Roberts and her stalwart sidekick, first lady Laura Bush, were hot on the trail. They were seeking to uncover clues that explain the continuing appeal of the fictional teenage sleuth Nancy Drew. After all, the first book in the series was published in 1930 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, though about a dozen authors contributed manuscripts. Dozens of titles have been published, and hundreds of millions of copies have been sold worldwide, though a spokesman for Simon & Schuster couldn't provide specific figures.

Jim Trelease, author of "The Read-Aloud Handbook," explores the importance of "junk" fiction when choosing books for your child's library.Try to resist an elitist approach in which you offer only the best, he advises parents. One of the patterns that continues to surface in research is the important role that 'junk' fiction plays in forming lifetime readers. By 'junk,' I mean formula fiction such as Nancy Drew and comic books.Carlsen and Sherrill's massive study of lifetime readers, 'Voices of Readers,' showed a preponderance of such books in college students' childhoods.

ONE OF THE most popular series of books for young girls has been sold to a toy company for a very pretty penny -- $700 million.Parents who have paid hundreds of dollars for American Girls historical books and the dolls and accessories that accompany them will understand the appeal of the privately held Pleasant Co., a mail-order publisher and doll manufacturer purchased this month by the giant Mattel Inc.There's something charming, even magical, about the...

Gone is the Titian hair, or at least any references to it. Now she's a reddish-blond, but the blue eyes still sparkle, the blue Mustang is still nifty transportation, and George and Bess are still along for the ride, all the way to Wilder University.After 65 years and more than 125 books, Nancy Drew finally is going to college.The aptly titled "New Lives, New Loves," the first in the Nancy Drew On Campus series, will debut officially on Friday, but copies began sneaking into bookstores last week.

Paul Frame, 80, an illustrator whose work included about 200 children's books, including the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys adventure series, died of lung cancer Tuesday in New York. He started his career in 1936 as a staff artist at Lord & Taylor, where he designed the rose that continues to appear as a symbol of the New York department store.Fred "Sonic" Smith, 45, a guitarist with the rock group MC5, died of heart failure Sunday in Detroit. He was a member of MC5 from 1967 to 1971. The Detroit-based band was credited with paving the way for many punk and modern rock bands.

When I was 10, Mrs. Manning would pay me 25 cents each to bathe her four children and put them to bed. She'd had four kids in six years, and I collected plenty of quarters from her.I would take the money, hike through the woods that surrounded our suburban neighborhood and cross a four-lane highway to what was then the Zayre's discount store. For 99 cents, I would buy the newest bright yellow, hardback edition of the Cherry Ames mysteries. I could not run back to my quiet bedroom fast enough.

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- For many young women, the age between braces and a retainer, before the freckles fade, is a moment when life's possibilities are illuminated in the darkness by a flashlight on a printed page.Nancy Drew, the teen-age heroine of more than 100 books read by girls since 1930, has shaped the imagination of generations of women."What matters in the books "is not her sex appeal but how tough and smart and adventurous she is," said Catharine R. Stimpson, a professor at Rutgers University who studies women, culture and society.

This is important: Who were the ghost writers for Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and the Bobbsey Twins?The generation of readers who grew up with these popular young-people's books finally may have an answer, and it's inside one of the 150 boxes donated recently by Paramount Publishing to the New York Public Library.The boxes contain 100 years' worth of children's book publishing history -- the first manuscripts for Nancy Drew, letters, sales records, and yes, the identities of many of the true authors of the series and their payments.

Q: When I was a girl, every Christmas I got Nancy Drew mystery books. I still have those books and would like to know their value.A: "Farah's Guide," which lists prices for all Nancy Drew books from 1930 to 1979, is available for $50 postpaid from author David Farah, 2036 Pauline Blvd., Apt. 1B, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48103, (313) 665-2661. According to Mr. Farah's article, "Collecting Nancy Drew Mystery Books," in the September 1990 issue of Mid Atlantic Antiques, all pre-1943 Nancy Drew books with dust jackets can range in price from $20 to $1,000.

George jumped to her feet. "Where do you want to start?" she asked Jackson as she went over to the coat rack and took down the coats."How about Fort McHenry?" He pulled on his jacket. "It's just across the harbor, and if we hurry we'll catch the last changing of the guard.""Sounds good," Nancy said, adding, "We can take our rental car. It's parked in the underground lot of the Lady Baltimore Hotel."Don't be surprised to find Old Bay seasoning on Nancy Drew's fingers: After legendary escapades in exotic locales such as Turkey, Scotland, Hawaii and Kenya, the fictional teen sleuth is now venturing into Charm City.

Doubtless, thousands of other women's ears perked up when Sen. Charles Schumer, introducing Sonia Sotomayor at Monday's confirmation hearing, mentioned the Latina jurist's girlhood affection for Nancy Drew books. The smart, plucky girl-detective was a role model for many women who recognized themselves in Nancy - including Hillary Clinton, Oprah, Sandra Day O'Connor and Laura Bush, to name a few. Add yours truly to the list. My father introduced to me to Nancy Drew when I was in the fifth grade.

On a recent day, Emma Roberts is waiting for those fateful college admission letters to come in. It's spring, so they should be arriving any day now. And it's all very exciting and unnerving, but at least for the moment she has a press junket to provide merciful distraction. Instead of waiting at the mailbox, Roberts can spend the day talking about Lymelife, the melancholy independent film she made with Alec Baldwin, Cynthia Nixon and a couple of the Culkin brothers. And she can chat about how she doesn't want to be stuck in a pop-princess Nickelodeon box the rest of her life but also still loves those roles and loves the legions of little girls who love her. She is 18 and, like anyone reaching adulthood, eager to move forward, but loath to release the sweetest vestiges of her past.

ANTIQUES 27TH ANNUAL BALTIMORE SUMMER ANTIQUES SHOW / / 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. today. Baltimore Convention Center, 1 W. Pratt St. $8. 561-822-5440 or baltimoresummerantiques.com ....................... This show features collections of more than 550 dealers from across the country and the world. Also featured is an antique books fair with 60 dealers offering rare books, first editions, manuscripts, autographs and unusual bibliographical material. This year's show includes a lecture series.

1408 Rating -- PG-13 What it's about -- A ghost researcher and writer checks into a haunted hotel room in the middle of Manhattan and earns the scare of his life. The Kid Attractor Factor -- Scary stuff, without the splatter gore of much of today's horror. Good lessons/bad lessons -- The real horror is what you take into that haunted mansion with you. Violence -- A little gore here and there, not as much as you'd expect from a Stephen King adaptation. Language -- Occasionally a little raw, as people who see ghosts are prone to swearing.

Nancy Drew paints such a smart, affable picture of girlish super-competence that it will amuse and energize 'tweens of both sexes, bring fond smiles to their elders - and compel them to recall the humor and heart pangs of their first light adolescent crush. Director Andrew Fleming and his chipper young star, Emma Roberts, affectionately update the amateur sleuth who first appeared in 1930s series books. They make her an old-fashioned girl in a floundering youth culture geared toward the Next Big Thing.

BREACH -- Universal / 29.98 A key question of post-Sept. 11 life - "Whom can you trust?" - receives quietly horrifying treatment in Breach, the real-life tale of an espionage case that unfolded early in 2001 and that would have dominated headlines for many months had it not been for Sept. 11. Robert Hanssen spent 22 of his 25 years in the FBI divulging secrets to the U.S.S.R. and then to the new Russia. He passed along the names of KGB agents on the U.S. payroll as well as emergency protocols for relocating the president.

HOSTEL: PART II -- (Lionsgate/Screen Gems) Director Eli Roth's sequel to his horror tale of college students in a foreign hostel. With Bijou Phillips and Heather Matarazzo. PARIS, JE T'AIME -- (First Look International) Twenty-one directors construct tales of love in the City of Light. OCEAN'S THIRTEEN -- (Warner Bros.) Newcomers Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin join George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Steven Soderbergh's amusing heist series. ONCE -- (Fox Searchlight) Drama about an Irish busker and a Czech immigrant making love and music together.

Washington-- --The Mystery of the Time-Traveling Sleuth. Attractive, golden-tressed teenage actress Emma Roberts and her stalwart sidekick, first lady Laura Bush, were hot on the trail. They were seeking to uncover clues that explain the continuing appeal of the fictional teenage sleuth Nancy Drew. After all, the first book in the series was published in 1930 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, though about a dozen authors contributed manuscripts. Dozens of titles have been published, and hundreds of millions of copies have been sold worldwide, though a spokesman for Simon & Schuster couldn't provide specific figures.

Parking enforcers go high-tech Officials with Baltimore's Department of Transportation have begun equipping parking enforcers with hand-held computers to issue parking tickets. They also have vans equipped with license-plate-reading cameras that identify stolen cars, scores of multi-space E-Z park meters that have replaced old-fashioned meters and two tiny, electric-motor cars that allow parking agents greater freedom in navigating downtown streets. pg 1a Michael Sarbanes to run Michael Sarbanes, executive director of one of Baltimore's leading neighborhood and regional advocacy groups, will announce today that he is running for City Council president - a move that will likely draw significant attention to the city's second-most prominent political race this year.

Go See Half Nelson -- This is a portrait of the artist as a junior high history teacher and girls' basketball coach. He's also a coke addict. But the bond he shares with one of his student-players is a sign of life in a blighted urban landscape, and the performances of Ryan Gosling as the teacher and Shareeka Epps as the girl who befriends him will make you feel whole. Sun score: A-. The Black Dahlia -- Top cops Aaron Eckhart and Josh Hartnett try to solve the instantly infamous case of a would-be starlet whose murder seemed to sum up the sick soul of post-World War II L.A. Director Brian De Palma imbues the imagery with an obsessive grandeur even as the narrative falls apart.