Nancy Drew

As a girl, Lynne A. Battaglia says she read the typical childhood books. But the U.S. attorney for Maryland has no difficulty naming her favorite character. "Nancy Drew," she declares without hesitation, saying the fictional teen-age detective was a role model. "Nancy Drew represented the woman that I wanted to be. She had integrity, she spoke her mind." Battaglia, 50, who grew up near Buffalo, N.Y., says she came from a background in which a woman was considered accomplished if she married and had children.

AN ASSOCIATED Press story last week profiled Millie Benson, a 96-year-old author who still writes a column for the Toledo Blade but is best known for bringing to life a young detective named Nancy Drew. Benson wrote 23 of the original Nancy Drew stories under the pen name Carolyn Keene. She got paid $125 per book, according to the AP story, and never collected royalties from the books, movies, board games and other products flowing from the adventures of Nancy and her sidekicks, George Fayne and Bess Marvin.

If you grew up reading Nancy Drew mysteries, your pulse may quicken to hear that Simon and Schuster is publishing a new, updated series. Thumbing through the new books will awaken fond memories. Bess Marvin and George Fayne are still Nancy's close chums. Ned Nickerson remains her "special friend," although his extracurricular activities include reading books at Emerson College rather than quarterbacking the football team. Nancy's father, Carson Drew, is still a hot-shot local lawyer, and Hannah Gruen -- the Drews' housekeeper -- continues to fret over Nancy's safety (albeit with considerably less cause in the modern books)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.