Why Nancy Drew was (and is) My Role Model

I loved to read as a child, and my first “big girl” books were the Nancy Drew mysteries.

Growing up in the Midwest, I didn’t always see strong women. I was fortunate to have a mom and two grandmothers who had dynamic personalities and taught me to be myself. Granted, my mom really, really wanted me to love Barbie as much as she did, but she also willingly let me play in the dirt with Tonka trucks.

Nancy Drew was very different from most of the girls I grew up with and met in school. She was an inspiration for me in many ways:

1) She depended on herself to get the job done. Nancy often found her way out of a locked closet or a sealed up attic, and she could replace a flat tire on her roadster. She also didn’t need her boyfriend Ned to define who she was in the world and unlike most fairy tale characters, she didn’t need a guy to rescue her.

2) She supported diversity and inclusion in her friends. Nancy’s two best friends, George and Bess, were as different as night and day, but each had strengths and were always there to help Nancy. She embraced her friends despite their differences and was fiercely loyal to them (as they were to her). She also made friends with just about anyone, from the police chief to the kid down the block.

3) Nancy was smart and always prepared. Nothing fazed her. She had a flashlight in her car, a screwdriver in her purse and a first aid kit tucked away somewhere. A ghost running down the hall of an old Victorian didn’t rattle her – she could puzzle out the way it was all staged.

4) Nancy was always nice, but also tough. She was kind to people and had excellent manners. But if a bad guy or a customer stepped out of line, she was not afraid to be tough and set the rules.

5) Nancy Drew is timeless. I have nieces who are reading the exact same books I read and it thrills me to see the legend live on. A company called Her Interactive started designing video games for girls and chose to base them on Nancy Drew mysteries. Best of all, they have stayed true to her character in the games.

An interesting side note: In recent years I have found some of the original Nancy Drew books from the 1930s and they are a VERY different read from the books that were rewritten and republished in the 1950s and later. Nancy is younger in the original books and has more spunk to her. However, the books reflect their time with racist language and references in them. The rewrites may have “over-sanitized” Nancy, making her a bit more polished and perfect, but the spirit is still there. In recent years the series has continued under the name Nancy Drew: Girl Detective, and includes modern devices like cell phones – these return some of the sparkle to Nancy’s personality. For anyone who wants to understand just who the author, Carolyn Keene is and was, there’s a great book, Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, that details the ghost-authoring of the series and how and why the books were re-written.

So, today, what do I still carry with me from Nancy Drew? I know how to change a tire (though I’d really rather not) and I carry a flashlight and first aid kit in my car. I learned that it is okay to be a strong, independent woman with a career. I have amazing friends who are very, very different from each other and have been my dear friends for more years than I am willing to admit. And I am 100% convinced I will find a secret trap door in an attic … one of these days.

Click here to read more articles by Tina Shakour on MeaningfulWomen.com.

Tina Shakour lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband Nasir and one very spoiled Shiba Inu named Zuko. She works for the start-up Veetle, and has been an engineer, an Internet TV “personality” and now spends her time loving video, social media and marketing. You can follow her on Twitter (@tinashakour).