What was your favorite children's mystery series?

Please welcome new blogger, Shari Randall, who makes her debut today. I met Shari through the Chesapeake Chapter of SinC. Our stories were chosen for publication in, Chesapeake Crimes: This Job Is Murder, released last year by Wildside Press. Chesapeake Crimes: Homicidal Holidays, to be released in 2014, will include our new short stories, too. Shari's vocation as a children's librarian adds a new perspective we appreciate. Thanks for joining WWK, Shari.  E. B. Davis

By night I write, by day I am a children’s librarian at a midsize public library. All day I answer questions, such as:

·         “My teacher says I need to find a photograph of Plato for my report” (think about that one)

·         “Do you have any books about images of fascism in Weimar Germany?”

·         “Where’s the bathroom?”

By far my favorite question is,

·         “Can you help me find a good book to read?”

The most fun I have is talking books with young readers, who have the uncomplicated passion for stories that some lucky adults retain. A young man came up to the desk today and told me that a book I had recommended, Ellen Raskin’s Newbery Award winning mystery The Westing Game was now officially his favorite book. (I love the “officially”!)

I am surprised and thrilled that so many favorite books and characters that I loved years ago are still on the shelves, and are still read and loved by young mystery fans today.

Favorites like Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol, Cam Jansen by David Adler, Herculeah Jones by Betsy Byars, Hank the Cowdog by John R. Erickson, and Rob Roy’s A to Z Mysteries delight young mystery fans as much as they delighted their parents.

Nate the Great - Original

Nate the Update

Many of these evergreen series have kept up with, and changed with, the times. Gertrude Chandler Warner’s Boxcar Children mysteries originally appeared in 1924; the latest title, number 133, The Return of the Graveyard Ghost will be published September 1, 2013. The Boxcar Children even have their own Facebook page. Some series characters have moved well into middle age, and have had significant makeovers. Nate the Great, who recently celebrated his 40^th birthday, has a new look.

Of course, the stalwarts Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys are still going strong. These characters and stories have been retooled over the decades to reflect the tastes and expectations of their readers – and sell to their parents. Nancy has undergone many transformations, morphing into a cute third grader (Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew series) and into the what-were-they-thinking Nancy of the Nancy Drew Case Files. 

 Everyone goes through an awkward phase, and this series, like that haircut you got in the 80s because everyone else did, is best forgotten.

Everyone goes through an awkward phase

Frank and Joe Hardy have also changed with the times, and some of the updates have received uneven reviews from parents. One mom complained to me that the Hardy Boys book her son had checked out had an “inappropriate” alibi –  a suspect was making out with his girlfriend at the critical time and was cleared of suspicion. (Lucky guy!) The latest incarnation, the graphic novel series The Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers, has Joe and Frank fighting terrorists with a secret group called ATAC (American Teens Against Crime).

Hardy Boys go graphic.

New favorites like Nancy Farmer’s Enola Holmes stories and Penny Warner’s charming Codebusters books are easy to recommend, since they give readers what they want: characters to cheer for and exciting plots with plenty of clues for budding detectives to follow. Michael Buckley’s Sisters Grimm series imagines that the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales were actually case files, and Bruce Hale’s series about Chet Gecko, a fourth grade lizard and self-styled gumshoe detective, plays with the tropes of the hardboiled detective story with delightful results. My favorite Chet Gecko title? Farewell, My Lunchbag.

What was your favorite mystery series when you were a child?