I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, where my mom, a single mother, was both a teacher and a volunteer at the local public library. As a first grader, after school I’d spend hours in the stacks, while mom was off shelving books or doing other bibliophilic tasks. After finishing my homework, I had…
Authors make a number of conscious decisions when crafting their novels – genre, characters, plot, setting, point of view…and the list goes on. But the one question that gets answered as the series develops is that of aging. Characters are introduced at a certain age when the first novel in a series hits the shelves.…
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An observation I had in my years working for Sports Illustrated: athletes and the heroes of crime fiction have much in common, but most simply this—a ruthless clarity of purpose and an ability to perform at their best when the action reaches its climax. Below I’ve assembled a football team populated by great characters from…
Kid Detectives: The Young Crime-Solving Protégés Encyclopedia Brown possess a skill many of us wish we had or wish we were better at — knowing just about everything. If I had his skills, just imagine how good I would be at a game of trivia. Although he may be a fictional character, he inspires young…
The Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys T-shirts from Out of Print Clothing hit us right in the bookshelf. Nancy Drew The Sign of the Twisted Candles features the original cover artwork from the 1933 dust jacket by Russell Tandy. The Hardy Boys The Mark on the Door shirt features the “flashlight” series cover by Rudy…
I’ve always been an indiscriminate reader. Growing up, I wasn’t surrounded with a wealth of reading material so I read whatever I could lay my hands on. I never had the luxury of considering myself a genre reader or even the inclination: satisfying the urge to read, no matter what the material, was paramount. And…
School’s out, and your tween is ready to toss the backpack and books in a corner. But summer is a great time to discover new books, those that are not on the required reading list—and what better genre than mystery to get your kid excited about reading. Forget about Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys—there’s…
As a voracious pre-teen reader, I cut my teeth on Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, The Dana Sisters and Encyclopedia Brown mystery series. I loved the idea of someone who was close to being my age solving a mystery that had the adults in the story stumped. I loved them so much that I actually…
