Nancy Drew

Former defense lawyer and retired city Circuit Judge Elsbeth Bothe has had a fascination with macabre literature since her childhood. "These preoccupations were sparked early as I tossed out Nancy Drew's juvenile sleuthing stories in favor of the New Yorker magazine's marvelously scripted articles called Annals of Crime," said Bothe. "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote This blockbuster account of the detection, trials and ultimate punishment of the two psychopaths who slaughtered an upright Kansas farming family was originally published in the New Yorker [as a]

The Baltimore-area librarian who banned the wildly popular and wildly racy "Fifty Shades of Grey" says she knew her move would spark criticism. But Mary Hastler, director of the Harford County Public Library, says E.L. James' book violated the system's policy on pornography -- and was poorly written to boot. "I've been doing this a long time, and I knew it was going to make some people happy and others unhappy. That's just a given. But if I had gone against our policy, it would have been a lot more difficult for me," she said in a profile by The Baltimore Sun's Childs Walker.

Frieda Ball's seven children rarely saw their mother on Christmas Eve. While other families were hanging up stockings and putting out cookies for Santa, Mrs. Ball's family was wondering which store she was in and what presents she was buying. And many times she stayed up all night wrapping the toys she had just bought.Back then, Christmas sales didn't start the day after Thanksgiving, says Mrs. Ball, 67. "A lot of stores would only put their toys on sale on Christmas Eve, so I saved money by waiting."

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski took off for the Senate on Thursday afternoon to cast her vote for Judge Sonia Sotomayor, after leaving Mercy Medical Center in downtown Baltimore, where she had undergone ankle surgery July 27 and what she called rehabilitation "boot camp." From a wheelchair, she said, "My vote will be cast for her" and called the Supreme Court nominee "my fellow Nancy Drew reader." The senator described how she fell on steps after leaving a July 19 afternoon Mass at the Basilica of the Assumption.

I know you've seen enough Normandy specials to make it seem like old news, but today really is D-Day -- the 50th anniversary, that is. CNN will have coverage of live semicentennial events throughout the day, and PBS has a special tonight. As for alternatives, there aren't many.* "The Kennedys of Massachusetts" (9-11 p.m., WJLA, Channel 7) -- Part 2 of 3. If you're looking for scenes of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy in this 1990 miniseries, don't bother. In the entire six hours, her character was little more than a cameo.

HAMPSTEAD -- Teen sleuths like Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys would have suspected something.But to the casual observer, the recent goings-on behind North Carroll Middle School commenced inconspicuously.Finally, however, the plot was unraveled to reveal work under way on an addition that will become the new home for the school's media center."We're excited. It's been long awaited," Principal N. Richard DeLong said of the 5,260-square-foot addition.On June 1, Craft Construction Co. of Reisterstown, Baltimore County, began work on the $40,000 project, which should be completed about the time school opens Sept.

It's like the superhero of library cards: flashy and vibrant in appearance, and able to leap over county borders in a single bound. Public librarians across Maryland are preparing to unleash the new MPOWER card, which gives the bearer the ability to borrow from any of Maryland's 174 public libraries. Yesterday, state officials chose the new library in Odenton - a fast-developing part of Anne Arundel County near the Howard County line - as the venue in which to unveil the eye-catching turquoise card, which presents different images as the holder tilts the card at various angles.

In the beginning, there was the skirt, Nancy Drew.Next, dames started saturating television like tears soaking a hanky. "Remington Steele," "Moonlighting" and "Murder, She Wrote" all boasted Bettys solving crimes the big boys couldn't -- or wouldn't -- touch.Now, the big screen has gone dizzy over doll detectives with "V.I. Warshawski," a movie about a glam-gammed gumshoe who springs to work for "a dollar and a just cause." Her job includes computer hacking, a high-speed boat chase, getting beat up and shot at, kidnapping and murder.

SHE CLAIMS TO HAVE read a thousand books, many of them more than once. She's written one book, "Bloody Fingers," and is planning a sequel, "Bloody Fingers: The Ghost's Revenge." She plunges eagerly into an interview, fidgeting with her hair, swinging jean-clad legs beneath the adult chair in the principal's office, jumping up to demonstrate how a ghost flies. Her mother calls her precociousness "scary." Her teacher marvels at "how well she expresses herself through her reading and writing."

Ask 9-year-old Sharon Turner what she likes about her after-school tutor, and the William Winchester Elementary School fourth-grader will be glad to tell you."First of all, she's not strict, she's young, she's a woman, a girl, she dresses cool, she helps me with my homework, she never hollers at you, she's understanding, she's nice, she's kind, she's got good teeth ."Sharon could go on and on about Heather Pinto, the Western Maryland College sophomore who comes to William Winchester every Thursday to help Sharon as part of the college's tutor/mentoring partnership with the Westminster elementary school.