Where Did
Your Love of Mysteries Begin?
– by Heather Weidner
When I’m asked about where did my love of mysteries start, I always say that Scooby-Doo and Nancy Drew were my gateways to the mystery world. But as I look back on my favorite children’s books, I realized that the first mystery that really hooked me was actually a picture book, Jon Stone’s The Monster at the End of the Book. Grover, the blue fuzzy protagonist, spends the entire book fretting over the monster who is supposed to make an appearance on the last page of the story. In hindsight, this is where I was discovered a passion for suspense, mystery, plot twists, clues, and irony.
Saturday morning cartoons were also the beginning of my mystery-watching addiction that has blossomed to include true crime shows, podcasts, and a host of murder documentaries. There were so many cartoons in the seventies with crime fighters and puzzle solvers like Scooby-Doo Where Are You, Josie and the Pussycats, The Funky Phantom, Captain Caveman, Jabber Jaw, Goober and the Ghost Chasers, Speed Buggy, Lassie’s Rescue Rangers, The CB Bears, Deputy Dawg, Mumbly, and Devlin, and I watched them all.
Cartoons and my picture books started a love that grew to include a whole host of books as soon as I discovered the library. In fourth grade, my friend and I raced to finish the yellow-covered Nancy Drews, and then we moved on to the Hardy Boys and the Three Investigators. (And it didn’t hurt that Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevens starred in The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries every week on TV.)
Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, like the Mystery Inc. gang in the Scooby-Doo series, were ordinary kids who were able to solve mysteries that the adults couldn’t. They had freedom to explore, cool transportation, and friends to help them solve the crime and bring justice. I devoured these books and moved on to Two-Minute Mysteries, Agatha Christie, Edgar Allan Poe, and Arthur Conan Doyle.
Mystery and
crime fiction followed me to college where I took the best course offered in our
English department, Dr. Magnuson’s “Mystery and Detective Fiction.” He
introduced us to the history of the genre, key tropes, subgenres, and the
“rules” for writing crime fiction, but the best part was that I was required to
read an entire syllabus of new-to-me authors.
My love of
mysteries started early with cartoons and books. It also didn’t hurt that I was
a C. K. (cop’s kid), and murder and true crime were regular topics at our
dinner table.
Where did
your love of mystery and suspense start?
I usually blame Nate the Great, a picture book detective. Honestly, the first one in the series (just titled Nate the Great) is a very well done mystery with clues that a kid could use to solve the case. The rest of the series (which we discovered with my brother) were fun, but not as good.
ReplyDeleteI watch this series with my grandson, Mark! I enjoy it!
DeleteI love that so many mystery readers started their love for the genre as children!
DeleteAlthough I am sure my love subconsciously began with the books my mother and I took out of the library each week when I was three or four, it was the Bobbsey Twins, Cherry Ames, and Trixie Belden that cemented mysteries for me. On TV, it was a Mickey Mouse Club rerun ( I didn’t know the episodes weren’t new) of a Spin and Marty serial.
ReplyDeleteBobbsey Twins books are the first I recall, and next I remember were the Hardy Boys and a few Nancy Drew before I quickly turned onto my father's favorites: Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie and Nero Wolfe.
ReplyDeleteAll favorites!
DeleteYou've named some of my favorite childhood cartoons! And I had such a crush on Shaun Cassidy. Be still my heart.
ReplyDeleteMe too!
DeleteI loved Nancy Drew books, but they were hard to come by. My real introduction to mysteries came from my aunt's love of Agatha Christie. When she was done with one, she would bring it for my mother to read. At that point in her life, my mother was totally overwhelmed by the demands of house and myriad small children, so she would thank my aunt and put the books on the bookshelf. I had learned early on to conceal my reading of anything my father considered to be "adult material" (although I'd skip the "stupid" scenes with sex, which I didn't comprehend anyhow) so I would secrete the mysteries away under my mattress and be careful about when I read them.
ReplyDeleteNancy Drew and all the other teen/young women amateur sleuth books. I graduated to my mother's Victoria Holt, Phyllis Whitney, and Mary Stewart books, and then the paperbacks at my grandparents' summer cottage: Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie, Perry Mason, John Dickinson Carr and Rex Stout.
ReplyDeleteI had to look twice to make sure I hadn't written this! We had the same inspirations, right down to The Monster at the End of this Book!
ReplyDeleteYou all are my people!
DeleteAh, nice trip down memory lane! I think I was a teenager when I actually started thinking of the things I loved as mysteries. I enjoyed all those TV shows of the time: Columbo, McMillan and Wife, McCloud, Quincy, etc. And of course, Murder She Wrote...
ReplyDeleteI love the 60s and 70s detectives, too. I would watch them with my grandmother.
DeleteSo sweet! Nancy Drew for me and then I moved into Daphne du Maurier. I was probably too young to read Rebecca, but I saw it on a television movie and my parents had the book on their shelf. Hooked!
ReplyDelete