I'm not sure how this happened, but it is somehow already 7:34 a.m. as I write this, and I have to leave at 8 a.m. to get to work on time. So blogging today will have to be speedy! Clearly I overslept, partly because Dave isn't feeling well and plans to stay home, so I didn't have the benefit of his alarm going off at 5:45 a.m. (Though usually I wake up naturally earlier than this.)
Maybe the cold weather has activated my hibernating instincts. That's our birdbath (above) yesterday morning -- a solid block of ice.
Work was pretty slow yesterday. The Model United Nations group has been holding a mini-conference in the library in the afternoons with students from other London schools. It means a lot of people and a lot of activity, but there's not a lot for me to do -- none of them are really using library resources, just the space. So I mostly wind up hanging out. I did work on gathering our monthly usage statistics yesterday and filling out that spreadsheet, so at least I had a task to work on in the background.
I came across the book above in the Lower School and sent it to my brother with the caption, "The world is going down the toilet!" The Hardy Boys, in my day, were relatively sophisticated mystery books, or at least that's how I remember them. They were not skinny paperbacks of cartoon characters worrying about zombies.
But...this prompted me to read about the history of the Hardy Boys books on Wikipedia, which brought the revelation that the books were actually shortened and rewritten even before I was a child, to compete with television and "dwindling attention spans." (And to remove offensive racial and ethnic stereotypes.) So I can hardly claim to be a Hardy Boys originalist, though I think I did read some of the originals when I found my uncle's old copies at my grandmother's house in Maryland.
I loved Hardy Boys books when I was young. I read dozens of them. They practically taught me to read. I specifically remember developing the skill of skipping over words I didn't know and then surmising the meaning based on the context. I taught myself a lot of words that way.
To be fair, the book above is actually a special Hardy Boys offshoot series targeted toward younger readers, featuring Frank and Joe Hardy in grade school. So it's not representative of the state of the franchise as a whole, though I'm not sure how well read the series is these days. We have some in our library and they rarely get used.
I did bring in that orange rose to save it from the freeze. I'm appreciating it a lot more on our kitchen windowsill than I would be outdoors!
And with that, I'm off to work -- at 7:52 a.m. Not a bad blog post for eighteen minutes of writing!
Hibernation feels very attractive!
ReplyDeleteIt's instinctive at this time of year!
DeleteThat frozen bird bath is a sure indication that an extra hour in bed is needed.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. It was hard as a rock.
DeleteI did that same thing! Skipping over words and learning by context. Love the orange rose.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great way to learn to read.
DeleteI never read any of the Hardy Boys but weren’t they a regular tv feature from Walt Disney? I do remember that the book covers did not look like cartoons.
ReplyDeleteThere were various TV versions over the years, most famously the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew mystery hour, which starred Parker Stevenson, Shaun Cassidy and Pamela Sue Martin back in the late '70s.
DeleteApplause for the speedy production of this blogpost! Well done old chap!
ReplyDeleteI cranked it out, but not without a few typos! (Which I subsequently fixed.)
DeleteI know of the Hardy Boys, but I don't know. I did the same with big words, understanding them from the context in which they were used.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good way to broaden vocabulary. I do it even now, sometimes!
DeleteDid you ever read The Three Investigators? I still have my original copies of them. Plus all my old Nancy Drews. I have no idea why other than they give me joy to look at.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't know The Three Investigators. I do remember The Bobbsey Twins, which was a similar series, though I don't think I actually read any of them. Yours may be worth something!
DeleteThanks for reminding, I will rush outside and bring in our last (yellow) rose.
ReplyDeleteMust ask the daughter about the Hardy Boys, dimly remember her reading this.
It's funny how the publishers felt that girls needed a series featuring a girl (Nancy Drew) while boys needed one featuring boys. I don't know that kids are as obsessed with gender in their characters as adults are! I know lots of girls who read the Hardy Boys.
DeleteYou seem to have made more sense in 18 minutes than I make in an hour!! ;-)
ReplyDeleteHa! Well, I was a reporter, so I learned to write fast and on a deadline!
DeleteI think you did a great job of writing with just 18 minutes! I loved the Hardy Boys as a kid. I would walk down to the library and check out a new one when I finished reading the previous book. I think reading those also helped me to improve my reading.
ReplyDeleteAs I remember, they used pretty challenging vocabulary for kids' books -- particularly the original versions, which were longer. I used to do the same thing, progress from one book in the series to another.
DeleteThe rose looks great. I think the Hardy Boys were boys' version of Nancy Drew. Really good mysteries for a kid. I think I got Carson some of those "younger" Hardy Boy books last year for his birthday but I'm not sure his reading was that good yet. I'll have to ask him if he ever read them and maybe try to get him to do it with me (and get his mind off the damn Minecraft game!)
ReplyDeleteWhat is it with kids and Minecraft? If they're not playing the game, they're reading about playing the game! (Some of the most popular books in our library are Minecraft books. There are even Minecraft novels!)
DeleteI rarely spend that long on blogpost. Years of writing at top speed will do that. It's usually in my head just waiting to be entered.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've ever read the Hardy Boys. Are they mysteries? I'll check.
I bet I usually spend about half an hour, though I haven't timed myself! Sometimes my posts are mentally developed beforehand, and sometimes not. Yes, the Hardy Boys are mysteries.
DeleteThat should be called Hardy-Boys-lite.
ReplyDeleteYeah, no kidding.
DeleteSeeing that ice gave me a shiver. All the rain we've had has brought the temps down in the low 50's. That's pretty cool for us. I had to turn the heat on.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I read any Hardy Boys books but I did read some Nancy Drew.
And see, I never read Nancy Drew -- at least not that I remember. I think girls were more likely to read Hardy Boys than boys were to read Nancy.
DeleteI suppose I was a stereotypical girl, much preferring Nancy Drew to the Hardy Boys. But I read anything I could get my hands on so I did read the ones that came my way.
ReplyDeleteDo you still have any of the native Floridian's thrill at seeing a solid block of ice formed by weather alone?
Excellent blog for eighteen minutes of writing!
I do find a frozen birdbath pretty remarkable! I read pretty widely as a kid too, though my mom sometimes tried to get me to read things I didn't like. I remember she gave me "Huckleberry Finn" at some point and I found it pretty boring. I've always meant to re-read it as an adult but I haven't yet.
DeleteWe had similar childhoods though I'm sure when I read through them, there were well over a hundred of them by then, maybe closer to two hundred. I also read through the Nancy Drew series.
ReplyDeleteAs Wikipedia will tell you, there are 190 books in the original series, but only the first 58 are considered the "canon." Whatever that means. For some reason I never read Nancy Drew, at least not that I remember.
DeleteI read all of the Nancy Drew books and a few of the Hardy Boys books too as I loved mystery books. I still do!
ReplyDeleteI like that publishers try to update the books to find a new crop of readers. Why not?!
I don't mind the updating, or trying to reach audiences of a different age. But that one I pictured looks pretty stupid!
DeleteI read the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. I loved series because I knew what I was getting, a well written, interesting book.
ReplyDeleteKids nowadays expect almost every book to be part of a series. They're disappointed with one-offs. I think Harry Potter really fueled the market for books in a series with consistent characters.
DeleteI loved The Hardy Boys - and Nancy Drew, and really any mystery series I could get my hands on.
ReplyDeleteMe too!
DeleteI never read any of the Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys books ... I preferred the Black Stallion books! If it had a horse based theme ... I probably read it!
ReplyDeleteNow there's a book that doesn't get read much anymore, at least not in our library. Maybe in "horsey" areas it would get more traction. We do have it, though. I read "Black Beauty" and some of the Marguerite Henry horse books, but never "The Black Stallion."
DeleteI don't remember if my brother read the Hardy Boys series but my sister was into the Nancy Drew books. I read a few of hers but my reading tastes differed. My son and daughter did not read either. My son mostly read comic books until I convinced him to read Ender's Game and after that he was into science fiction. My daughter read one of the pre-teen series but I don't remember which.
ReplyDelete"Ender's Game" remains pretty popular. Good for you for getting your son to read it and thus opening doors!
DeleteIs Nancy Drew the female equivalent of the Hardy Boys?
ReplyDeleteThe rose is beautiful - aren't they always?
Yeah, Nancy Drew was created by the same publishing house that created The Hardy Boys. The books were all ghostwritten.
DeleteI don't think I read the Hardy Boys but I did love Nancy Drew. I still read mysteries to this day!
ReplyDeleteThey did create an appetite for mystery books, didn't they?
DeleteMy dog's water bowl sitting on the patio was frozen too. A hard freeze overnight seems nightly now.
ReplyDeleteYour rose is in full bloom and very pretty on the windowsill.
I read Nancy Drew but not the Hardy Boys.
My son liked science fiction and started fairly young with that. My husband was a fan and exposed Jeff early to the world of science fiction.
Parents often have a big influence on kids and their reading habits. I got into science fiction too, partly by reading "A Wrinkle in Time" and a lot of Star Trek novelizations.
DeleteI grew up on the Hardy Boys, too, and how well I remember that name on the covers: Franklin W. Dixon. Possibly because my first name is also Franklin, after my dad.
ReplyDeleteThat name would definitely have resonated with you! I remember being mildly disappointed when I learned later that Franklin W. Dixon was never a real person.
DeleteWe only had Nancy Drew books in our house (including my mother's from the 30s and my sister's from the 50s), so I never tried the Hardy Boys. I bet they were quite similar.
ReplyDeleteProbably very similar, being from the same publisher. I wonder if the original Nancy Drew books were rewritten to make them more palatable to a younger generation, the way the Hardy Boys books were?
DeleteA very good blog post for eighteen minutes of writing ... and that rose is a lovely colour.
ReplyDeleteAll the best Jan
It's one of my favorite roses in our garden!
DeleteI grew up on the Hardy boys too; my experiences were similar: I'm sure I gained so much reading fluency as I worked my way through them. I remember wanting to be a Dad one day and name my son, Joe.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Frank? He wasn't as much fun as Joe, as I recall.
DeleteI read my brother's Hardy Boys. He had a large collection. I didn't like Nancy Drew much, she was too wimpy and stereotypically girly!
ReplyDeleteMy co-worker was just telling me that Nancy Drew books were re-edited in the '50s to make her LESS "feminist." I have no idea whether that's true or not but it's possible.
DeleteThat was a great post even though you were totally rushing out the door. It is crazy how fast the morning goes sometimes and that solid block of ice photo says it all about the weather right now. I just shared a new post, a quick one, and I would love for you to check it out when you have a minute. No worries if you are too busy. See you later.
ReplyDeleteI am overdue a visit to your blog so I will take a look!
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