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Read Thread: An excerpt

An excerpt
Board: Nancy Drew Detectives
Nov 17, 2005 1:08pm
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I was at the library the other day and ended up picking up a Nancy Drew simply to revisit. When I was a kid, I had all of them, all the Hardy Boys, and Trixie Beldens. Probably due to one of those book by mail, but it seems like there were two novels in each book.

Mom taught reading, bringing the kids up their grade level of reading. Being the always sick kid and thus, hanging out in her office a lot after doctors appts, I got to know many of her students. The ND, TB, HB sets were divided up among some of the kids I got to know well that truly were interested in reading, but had a hard time with it.

Yes, this trip down memory lane, brought to you by MoWizLiz.

Last night however, straight out of the book from the library:

Nancy crossed over to the ancient tree, gazing with renewed interest at its bigness.

"Mr. Ranny, please tell me where the hollow 'letter box' is, " she eagerly said to her companion.

Ranny showed her a cleverly concealed cavity far up the truck at a point where two of the boughs came together. It was nearly out of reach for one of Nancy's height, so she stood up on tiptoe to peer into it.

"It seems to extend far back into the tree."

"Yes," the prospector agreed. "At one time, a swarm of bees decided to adopt that hollow, and until we could get rid of them, Annette and I thought we'd lose our letter box."

Nancy thrust her hand into the opening, but brought it out empty.

"It looks as if my hunch weren't such a good one, Mr. Ranny."

"What did you expect to find?"

"I don't know," Nancy admitted. "Something just seemed to tell me to come to this old oak. I had a feeling that I might find a communication of some kind by Mr. Chap."





/waggling eyebrows.
Re: An excerpt
Board: Nancy Drew Detectives
Reply to: #11188 by mowizliz
Nov 17, 2005 1:25pm
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Wow, I never realized how perfectly that excerpt from Hollow Oak fits! Someone ought to make a Message in the Hollow Oak LB and use the quote...... As memory serves, isn't there an illustration in the book that depicts Nancy reaching in to the "hollow?" Amanda and I were out letterboxing once and found the box inquestion hidding in a burned out oak tree. We got all excited about it being a Hollow Oak, so we took pictures - I believe one of those yellow chicks was involved.

-- Princess Lea
Re: An excerpt from Hollow Oak
Board: Nancy Drew Detectives
Reply to: #11192 by Princess Lea
Nov 17, 2005 3:05pm
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I was just looking at those chick pictures from the "Hollow Oak" letterbox the other day. Unfortunately, I am not on my home computer or else I would up load one for you guys to see! We even included the piece of paper with the clue from the book. It was cute.

I enjoyed the Dark Side of River Heights many of the ideas were ones that I had had in the past!

I also enjoyed Not a Girl Detective by Susan Kandel, A modern mystery with alot of Nancy references!

Also worth checking out is Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak. Especially if you are coming back to the series and would like to know more about how the series started and who wrote the books from the 30's-70's.

-Amanda
Re: An excerpt
Board: Nancy Drew Detectives
Reply to: #11188 by mowizliz
Nov 18, 2005 10:17am
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Great excerpt! We used to hid letterboxes when we were kids, of course, not knowing anything about letterboxing and way before it became popular in the US. Now I'm wondering if we got the idea from Nancy Drew!
The Aroostook Sleuth
Re: An excerpt from Hollow Oak
Board: Nancy Drew Detectives
Reply to: #11193 by Amanda from Seattle
Nov 20, 2005 7:17pm
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The chick always cracks me up. I think my favorite published picture is the carving disaster one. Makes me laugh every time.

All y'alls talk about the influences triggered some old memories that I thought were long ago forgotten. One was that there was a loose tile in the area outside the girls bathroom at our elementary school, off the main walking traffic pattern. Some of my friends and I would leave notes for each other underneath the tile. That went on for a year!

Good call Princess Lea on identifying the book RIGHT AWAY!!!
Re: An excerpt
Board: Nancy Drew Detectives
Reply to: #11188 by mowizliz
Dec 27, 2005 7:59am
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OMG! That was my FAVORITE Nancy Drew book when I was a kid. No wonder I grew up to be a letterboxer... ;-)

My 9-year-old daughter ("Mystery Girl") is an avid reader and mystery fan, and we are trying to get her interested in ND... she doesn't always respond well to suggestions, but she took the Encyclopedia Brown bait. We're hoping the boxed set of 6 NDs she just got will encourage her! And, I am dying to find her a Trixie Belden book too! I think I probably liked Trixie better as a kid, she was less "dated" than Nancy.

Just found out last week there is a series of Nancy Drew computer games for PC - too late for Santa to pick one up. Anyone try them yet?

MoonBunny
Re: An excerpt
Board: Nancy Drew Detectives
Reply to: #13723 by MoonBunny
Dec 27, 2005 12:08pm
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Quote Just found out last week there is a series of Nancy Drew computer games for PC - too late for Santa to pick one up. Anyone try them yet?


I have been collecting them since they were first launched (I even got to do some consulting for the company as they needed some "expert" information on Nancy's world!), but had never had the opportunity to play them because they only work on a PC platform and I am a diehard Mac person. Well my husband has been bringing his work laptop home with him on weekends and so my 11-year-old and I have finally had the chance to play them. They are great! Not dumbed down - luckily there are hints available (you call Bess & George for hints) otherwise we would be hopelessly lost - they are hard to solve! Some of them are super spooky too (don't start with Curse of Blackmoor Manor - it was so scary we had to take a break). The one they did based on Secret of the Old Clock was cute - it was set in the 1930s. There are now 13 games available. The funny thing is that there is now a generation of girls who only know Nancy from the computer games, and some of them didn't even realize that she was a book character originally!

-- Princess Lea
Re: An excerpt
Board: Nancy Drew Detectives
Reply to: #13740 by Princess Lea
Dec 27, 2005 1:19pm
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That sounds so fun!! I didn't realize there were computer programs like that. What kind of timing would be involved in finishing one? I'm curious what committment level it would take to play.

Cadenza
Re: An excerpt
Board: Nancy Drew Detectives
Reply to: #13744 by Cadenza
Dec 27, 2005 8:20pm
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Quote That sounds so fun!! I didn't realize there were computer programs like that. What kind of timing would be involved in finishing one? I'm curious what committment level it would take to play.


The games are advertised as "20 hours" of play (of course you can save the game as you go along and don't have to play all 20 hours straight). It goes faster if you are good at solving puzzles and keep track of things on a notepad.

-- Princess Lea
Re: An excerpt
Board: Nancy Drew Detectives
Reply to: #13761 by Princess Lea
Jan 1, 2006 6:37am
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We did at last get one for Mystery Girl - we picked up a twin pack, "The Haunted Carousel" and "Danger on Deception Island". Yesterday was our first time to sit down with them. Mystery Girl loved it - she caught on to the way the game worked very quickly, and spent a couple of hours at it. It is hard though! I was very impressed, one of the puzzles she had to solve was to fix a circuit panel using the correct resistors in series!

I imagine it will be many hours of fun for us. Thanks Princess Lea for your "expert advice" - they did a great job with Nancy!

MoonBunny
Re: An excerpt
Board: Nancy Drew Detectives
Reply to: #13875 by MoonBunny
Jan 1, 2006 10:20am
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Quote We did at last get one for Mystery Girl - we picked up a twin pack, "The Haunted Carousel" and "Danger on Deception Island". Yesterday was our first time to sit down with them. Mystery Girl loved it - she caught on to the way the game worked very quickly, and spent a couple of hours at it. It is hard though! I was very impressed, one of the puzzles she had to solve was to fix a circuit panel using the correct resistors in series!

I imagine it will be many hours of fun for us. Thanks Princess Lea for your "expert advice" - they did a great job with Nancy!


I'm so glad that Mystery Girl likes the games (with a name like that, how can she go wrong?) My daughter and I just finished Deception Island yesterday! There is a part when Nancy goes to a beach and finds a hidden box (in the shape of a clam) with some clues in it. She later refers to it as a geocache! But she just took the clues and did not exchange them for a McDonald's Happy Kids toy or anything, so I think she broke the geocaching rules. It would be funny to see if someone on the staff at Her Interactive is a geocacher - they are located up in the Seattle area, so maybe Amanda can convince them to come over to letterboxing instead.

-- Princess Lea