{"id":539,"date":"2004-11-02T08:23:26","date_gmt":"2004-11-02T15:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/?p=539"},"modified":"2004-11-02T08:23:26","modified_gmt":"2004-11-02T15:23:26","slug":"does-this-sound-familiar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2004\/11\/02\/does-this-sound-familiar\/","title":{"rendered":"Does this sound familiar?…"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a super New Yorker<\/i> article on the genesis of the “Hardy Boys” and “Nancy Drew” books:<\/a><\/p>\n

Even as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were invading children’s bookshelves, there was one place you couldn’t find them: the library. The Stratemeyer Syndicate came under attack from educators and librarians from the start. As early as 1914, Franklin K. Mathiews, the chief librarian for the Boy Scouts of America, published a damning article, “Blowing Out the Boy’s Brains,” about series fiction. “Parents who buy such books think they do their boys no harm. The fact is, however, that the harm done is simply incalculable,” he argued. The series books would “debauch and vitiate” a child’s imagination.<\/p>\n

Early on, librarians condemned the syndicate’s series as tawdry, sensationalist work taking children away from books of moral or instructional value. Decades later, some educators began to argue that the books were a stepping-stone to more sophisticated literature, a way to get kids reading in the first place. (Television was now the real problem.) In either case, librarians seemed uncomfortable with the idea of reading as pure entertainment.<\/i> [italics mine] Nancy Drew was long banned from many public libraries.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As regards the italics: ewwwwwww. I’m glad my library period was well after that.<\/i> But as for the rest — (winking in J.K. Rowling’s direction) Hmm. How history does seem to repeat itself…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From a super New Yorker article on the genesis of the “Hardy Boys” and “Nancy Drew” books: Even as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were invading children’s bookshelves, there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDoes this sound familiar?... - Out of Ambit<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2004\/11\/02\/does-this-sound-familiar\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does this sound familiar?... - 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