#13: Mystery of the Ivory Charm; revised ed. and comparison

The revised edition isn't too different from the original. Fashions and cars have been updated, but that's per usual. I'll just illustrate a few main points:

• The revised edition doesn't begin with the girls waiting for the train. Mr. Drew has another case that he needs Nancy to investigate (of course). His client is, conveniently, the circus manager. His case involves illegal activity at the circus. The manager gives out four tickets to the circus as a favor. Carson, Nancy, Bess and George go to the circus, and now we meet Coya and Rai. Coya is now named  Rishi.
• The circus manager becomes Rishi\Coya's legal guardian when Rai disappears, and requests that the Drews house him. This gets the Drews out of the sticky "kidnapping Rishi\Coya for his [Rishi\Coya's] own protection without telling any officials" deal.
• Hannah has no issues with keeping a "brown-skinned boy" as in the original, TG. She also does not worry about Rishi\Coya getting the idea that he's a raja and thus becoming a snob.
• And that's...pretty much it. It's less descriptive, but doesn't wander as much as the original did. I actually even like the cover illustration better.More mysterious, IMO.

Up next: More 'Little House'!

#13: The Mystery of the Ivory Charm; original text

We find our trio (Nancy, Bess and George) at a train station, feeling rather disgruntled. They have just finished yet another camping vacation at a lake and are, naturally, not pleased to find their train very late. A circus train distracts them, however. They watch as as a little boy from India leads an elephant off of the train without using any physical restraint on the big animal. The Indian man standing nearby is apparently pissed off at that, revealing a frightening power complex.  The man (his name is 'Rai') beats 'Coya' right there at the station, whilst claiming that Coya is his son. Nancy steps in to boldly push Rai away from the child (you go, Nan!)and tells him not to hit Coya again. They argue for a while, and suddenly a snake in a tree drops on Nancy. It's a boa constrictor, and Nancy is nearly choked to death. A reptile keeper pries the snake from Nancy just in time, but Rai attributes Nancy's escape from near death to mystical powers and gives Nancy a "lucky" ivory elephant charm. After warning Rai again not to hurt Coya, the girls hurry to their train, only to find that Coya has sneaked onto the train. Nancy decides to pay his fare and take him home. Mr. Drew comes home, and agrees that Nancy did the right thing; also, Coya can stay with them! Just send a letter to Rai, it'll be ok! No need to contact any officials!

The Drews and Coya are suddenly brought into a complicated mystery involving Ms. Allison, a dippy young woman who puts on a charade of believing in mystic powers, and find out that she worked with Rai to kidnap Coya from India. Coya was supposed to be the new raja (ruler) of India, but in exchange for lots 'dough' and jewels, Rai and Ms. Allison took Coya to the US and got the wannabe raja a spot on the throne. But all is unveiled, and Coya goes to India, but not before inviting Nancy and co. to India.

• Ned invites Nancy to an Emerson U. baseball game and says proudly that this is a "crack" baseball team. Holy cats, they're on drugs? (kidding, kidding)
• A professor from Emerson talks about the various beliefs and rituals of the Indian people. Ned proclaims "I'm glad I live in America." I'm so glad, Ned! I was afraid you hated living in the USA!
• Ned invites Nancy to a dance, and Nancy frets because she doesn't have a new dress to wear. Ned tells her to "wear any old thing". Smooth, Ned.
• Nancy continually tells everyone around her that she doesn't believe in mysticism and magic charms. We know, Nancy. You've told us at least fifty times!
• Hanna has doubts about housing Coya; she's worried about having extra work, and also proclaims that she won't be raising a "brown-skinned boy". 'Caus brown-skinned boys are the worst, you see.
• Hannah eventually takes pity on the boy. It also helps that Coya volunteers to work around the house and in the garden (and he does) because he is very grateful for the Drews' kindness. 
• ...but when Coya learns that he might be a lost raja, Hannah gets an idea in her head that Coya will start acting like a snob and lets Nancy know it.

There you have it! Time to compare the original to the revised edition.
FYI: Some posts have not been linked to their respective titles the book list pages. I'll be doing that soon.

#53: The Sky Phantom

When I saw the cover of the book (which is also boring, IMO), I thought "oh jeez, Nancy is FLYING now? Is there anything she can't do?" Well, no, apparently. She's taking flying lessons, and at the beginning of the book she's already doing advanced flying, such as doing fast circles. Her instructor tells her that he won't tell her the most loops a student had done, because she would probably try to break that record. While they're flying, Nancy sees Bess and George, who are on a horseback ride (the Golden Trio is visiting a ranch. Again), waving frantically. It turns out that they saw a plane in trouble, but don't know where it is. They soon find it, pilot-less and without any identification. The instructor radios to the tower, and it turns out that the pilot, Robert, is missing. Everyone who knows Robert loves him, and our mystery begins.

Bring in the stolen ponies, angry threats, attempt to kill the girls by sending a big log down a trail, and all kinds of cooky stuff. You see, Nancy inadvertently led to the firing of this guy Ben Rall's dismissal from Hamilton Ranch. He purposely put a burr under her horse's saddle when saddling it and the pain made it flip out. Ben has some major issues about city girls who fly planes and try to solve mysteries.

The girls find a medal where the plane had landed. It is monogrammed 'RP', for Roger Paine of course. Bess eventually finds that the figures on it are actually stylized letters and read 'bomb site'. Anyway, after this it gets dull. Nancy and her instructor visit the site of the abandoned plane BILLIONS of times. Nancy explores a cave (alone, without telling anyone) and discovers out. In fact, she ends up trying to flee from a wave of oil and mice. There's a weird, misty-looking shape of a man in one big cloud. Nancy and Ned escape getting suffocated (of course). A cache of (defused) bombs and rifles is found, the bad guys are caught; we learn that the man-shaped cloud was made of "magnetic dust" (???). Unless I missed something, we never really learn what the bad guys' real goal is.

• Bess has a real meltdown in this one. She's falling for this cowboy, Chuck, and he asks her to marry him. But Dave (her BF) is coming to visit the ranch and doesn't know what the hell the wants to do.
• Bess is so distraught about picking Dave or Chuck that she has a dream in which the two kill each other. Yikes! I don't think I need to tell you who she picks at the end, though
• Oooh! Oooh! Nancy makes a mistake!A MISTAKE! >:p
  

  Feeling a bit overconfident Nancy decided to show Bruce (her instructor) her mastery of steep turns. [to control the spiraling plane] Nancy pulled back violently on the stick. Suddenly the plane snapped over in the opposite direction and began a vicious spin...

#10: Password to Larkspur Lane: Revised ed. and comparison

The revised edition is "pretty much" the same core plot and characters from the original edition. Dr. Spires' mysterious disappearance (and reappearance) as well as his and Nancy's conclusion about the illegitimate nursing home, are introduced and finished earlier, with less description (par for the course in the revised books and on). Effie is introduced earlier, and her ditzy personality is somewhat toned down. Bess and George (instead of Helen) help her sneak around the mysterious house.

However, there is a subplot that ties into the mystery; there are strange doin's at Helen's grandparents' house, including rings of mysterious blue fire starting up outside--sometimes coming toward people! It turns out that the Corning's housekeeper, Morgan, is in Adam Thorne's (the debarred lawyer) debt. Due to his criminal past, Morgan needed forged job recommendations. But because Adam Thorne starts to go too far commiting crimes, Morgan tries to go back to "the good side" (I keep thinking of Severus Snape abandoning Voldemort :-p) and his life is in danger. But of course, everything does tie up in the end.

• There are no more frilly frocks, "colored starters" or bumbling Irish police chiefs.
• Nancy gets a new convertible--no more roadsters
• Nancy, Bess and George stop at a restaurant before "Mission save the old ladies" (my phrase :D ), but there is no old fogy ranting about the Tookers' noisy airplane and the fact that they dare to not go to church or subscribe to the town newspaper.
• In the revised edition, Nancy is at the flower show when a big dog suddenly attacks her--Adam Thorne's doings, Carson Drew surmises. Poor Nancy can't even go to a flower show without risking life and limb.
  

Though I usually like the revised editions because they're a quick, "take-a-break" read, the original was better. The Morgan subplot was really useless in the revised edition, and the yacht club ball was described more colorfully in the original.

Above: Nancy as she appeared in the originals: a stylish dresser with a golden bob.

#10: The Password to Larkspur Lane; and the first old vs new edition compare and contrast!

Mousecliffe had the amazing idea to read the first editions and revised editions and compare them! So I'll get my hands on as many as I can. Not all in the series are originals that have revised text. Later in the series, they were written for more modern settings, and stayed that way through all 56 yellow-spine volumes.
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I'll post about the originals first, then the revised compared with the originals. The revised editions won't get their own posts, and I'll put both posts under the same title on the list. Moving on...
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Our happy blonde (not titian in these originals) detective is swooning over her larkspur plants, which she is going to take to a flower show, when a plane almost crashes. Also, a pigeon comes down, and the pigeon has a weird note in the container under its wing: "Trouble here. Blue bells are now singing horses". Trouble! Oh, no, no trouble shall exist when Nancy is involved! Also, Nancy seems to be an expert on pigeons. Of course.

On the way home from putting her flowers among with all the other flowers in the competition, Nancy notices Dr. Spires, the family doctor, driving along. He suddenly stops behind a "touring car" on the side of the road. The touring car has curtains instead of windows and the curtains are rolled down. Dr. Spires gets out, and gets yanked into the car. Instead of going to the police, Nancy sees that the Dr's car is locked, the keys gone. Well, that means he'll come back, she reasons. I'd err on the side of caution, Nancy...but I am questioning your super sleuth powers! Elementary, my dear Drew.

Hannah falls down a flight of stairs, and they go to Dr. Spires, who wasn't kidnapped after all. Instead, he was blindfolded until he was taken into a house to treat some elderly ladies. Now he's checking Hannah. She'll be okay, she just needs rest. Meanwhile, Dr. Spires asks for Nancy's help regarding his bizarre not-kidnapping. Dr. Spires thinks that someone is running an illegal, unregistered nursing home/retirement home. At this alarming conclusion, Nancy and her father go to the police station. Mr. Drew goes in first, and Nancy gets accosted by a man demanding her name. Unfortunately, a friend of Nancy walks by and says, "Hi, Nancy". The man is all, "oh, you're nosy Mr. Drew's daughter!"

Officer Mulligan, a stout, brash, mumbling Irishman, greets Nancy. "Sure, and we know all about ye, Miss Drew. I'd be honored if ye'd...join the force, so I would. 'Tis a strange story...but with your brains and my muscle, we'll get at the bottom of it" Nancy is not amused. She gives Mr. Bumbling Irishman two clues; the license plate of the suspicious car and a necklace Dr. Spires slipped from an old lady, in hopes that it'd be a clue related to their case. On the way home, Nancy and Carson are followed by Adam Thorne, a disbarred lawyer, who is also the man who accosted Nancy. Nancy manages to shake off the lawyer.

Not much happens until Nancy takes the bracelet to be inspected by a jeweler; perhaps he can trace the family crest. The jeweler makes a copy of the bracelet, and Nancy plans to bring it home for safekeeping (wouldn't it be safer secured at the jeweler's shop?). Not two steps out of the door, and the woman snatches the bracelet and Nancy's purse. Nancy chases her through a department store and almost catches her in the "silverware department", which I guess would now be part of the home products department. She checks the dressing rooms. No regard for privacy, Nancy whips open every curtain, only to find an overweight woman trying to squeeze into some clothing, which highly amuses Nancy. She jogs to the elevator, who asks the "colored starter" (way back when, elevators were attended) if the woman went into the elevator. She didn't. Eventually, the purse is recovered by an employee, but the woman and the bracelet get away.

Nancy is invited by Helen to go to Sylivan Lake to take a short vacation. Ned is working there, and Nancy somehow surmises that the illegal retirement home might be in that area, so she accepts. She also concludes that "singing horses" is a code for "larkspurs". Because larks sing, silly, and spurs are used on horses! Okay then.

The pigeon escapes through the fault of Effie, Hannah's feather-brained niece, who was brought in to help Hannah. The girls follow the pigeon, Effie blabbing about boyfriends and movie stars, driving Nancy crazy. The pigeon goes home to a large mansion. A nasty-looking man comes down the driveway, a whip in hand, demanding to know why Nancy is there. She pretends to want to buy some pigeons, but he tries to force her to go see the coops. He's getting pretty nasty when Effie, who's hiding in the car, starts laughing like a lunatic. This weirds Evil Man out and Nancy jumps into the car and speeds off. Effie explains that she saw "a [moving] picture" where a fictional actress does the same thing when faced by an evil guy. Nancy drives to a small town nearby and they have dinner at an inn. Nancy quizzes the waiter about the mansion. The family that lives there is the Tooker family. Apparently they are not well liked, not only because they aren't the social type, but also don't go to church or subscribe to the town newspaper. THOSE BASTARDS! However, the waiter tells Nancy that those things COULD be looked over, if not for the Tookers' plane "a'roarin' and a'hoppin' every day".

Another visit with Dr. Spires, and Nancy Holmes determines approximately where the place with larkspurs could be. Dr. Spires remembers that he was driven far, went over a dirt road and then a gravelled place. Sounds vague to me, but I'm not Nancy.

As they leave Dr. Spires' place, his phone rings, and its a frantic phone call from Effie. Someone tried to force his way into the house! Effie is so worked up that, when after the villian leaves, she does not recognize Mr. Drew when he comes. She barricades the front door with the couch. Eventually, all is settled. Effie describes the man. He's not Adam T.

Nancy wants to go to Sylivan Lake, but Carson is worried. Eventually he grudgingly agrees, on the condition that they trick the stalker. He buys he a new car, but has the car shop owner drive it to the back of the house in the dead of night so it doesn't arouse suspicion. Nancy drags herself over the back wall, is handed her luggage, and she heads off to Sylivan Lake, where she apologizes to Mr. and Mrs. Corning, her hosts, for coming in so late.

The next day promises to be awesome. Nancy competes in an informal diving competition, and, of course, she wins, defeating a former professional girl diver, who is about her age. Applause and prays! Nancy basks in the sun, but when she gets up, a little girl stumbles off of a dock and into the water, into the path of an oncoming motorboat! Nancy immediately saves the day, and also finds out that the girl and her mother have the last name Eldridge--which happens to be the family name traced via the bracelet's family crest. Nancy shows Mrs. Eldridge the bracelet, and the woman surmises that it belongs to her husband's Aunt Mary.

Nancy and Helen spy on the Tooker place again, but don't have much time to do anything. A dance hosted by Sylivan Lake's yacht club is taking place that night. The girls dress in their "frocks", "admiring each others' dainty lingerie". Nancy is the star of the show, and poor Ned barely gets a dance in.

Well, I think I'll complete my tome in a short paragraph; Nancy and Helen dress as a nurse (Helen) and an old lady (Nancy), and get passed through the gate of the Tooker estate, Helen claiming to be bringing the new patient they overheard. Nancy is found out, though (Helen goes for help). Nancy is thrown into an old, dank cistern, but she uses shards from a broken ladder to clamber up. Maybe I should make a tag called "MacGyver style getaway". She ends up in the pigeon coop. She slips away, and disables the Tookers' cars and plane. She is almost captured again when Carson, Ned and the police save the day. Turns out that the Tookers swindled old ladies (via tricky contracts and drugging them so they don't think twice about it) into giving large sums of their fortunes in exchange for nursing care. Old Mrs. Eldridge and all the other old ladies are reunited with their families, and Nancy has saved the day.

• The Cornings' cook, who is, thankfully, described as black, not "colored" (the latter term is sort of insulting--aren't we all "colored"?), serves Nancy and Helen breakfast in the morning after the ball. She says "Miss Helen, de missus done tole me to let you gals sleep. She an' de master, dey done gone fo' de day. Dey say dey be back before supper, but on no 'count to break you' slumbers, c'ase you' wore out yo' shoes last night". Now I know that back in the 30's, when this book was written, there were many black Americans who were uneducated, and probably spoke in a similar way, but this just seems overdone.
  
• Effie hides in the "rumble seat" when Nancy first found the Tooker estate.

I hope it wasn't too long, there was so much to review!

Put down that book and LOL: Best Book-Related Blogs

Hi, friends. I'm just returning because I totally had to post about these blogs I've been insanely following. A couple are on my sidebar but they need the limelight! I love blogs that poke, satiric, innocent fun at books (mostly YA books), such as Sweet Valley High or Twilight.
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• Dan Bergstein is the awesomest awesome Twilight blogger that was ever awesome. Check it out. I hope you aren't planning anything 'cause you won't stop at the first post (or the fifth...or the tenth...or the fifteenth...or...)
• Remember the Little House books? Whether you read one or all of them, this insane blog will get you laughing. Didn't think one could satirize these books, cherished by generations of children? Don't make me laugh. ;)
  
• Here is a blog about old/outdated/useless books that have to be pulled from library shelves. Sound boring? Na, these librarians will make you laugh, taking on every "weeded" book from a book about the wonders of TV, circa 1965, or a kid's book about a drinking, drug-taking horse.

#38 The Mystery of the Fire Dragon

Nancy Drew is on a case--which will find her in both the USA and in Hong Kong! This is the first book I've read where she solves the case first in one country and then the other. Anyway, for fun I put the Norwegian cover up. (Image is from Series Books.com website)
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The plot of this basically involves a group of strong-arms and a couple of women. Nan's aunt Eloise, who lives in NY, tells her that her neighbor's granddaughter, Chi Che Soong, is missing. Nancy to the rescue! Also, the granddaughter's possible abductors are also involved in a smuggling ring. How original.

So I'll just list some of the crazy things that happened to Nancy and friends. The plot skips around too much to really "snark" without being too long.

• When Nancy first gets into the hallway where Eloise's apartment is located, a gigantic firework goes off. It's probably meant to scare Chi Che's grandfather, but of course, something crazy has to happen to Nancy soon.
• Chi Che goes to Columbia U. Nancy helps George disguises George as Chi Che, to see if George, as Chi Che, can get any inside info from students. Later, George is almost kidnapped b/c she looks like Chi Che. The real Chi Che was captured. The captors think George is the (not) escaped Chi Che. Brilliant, Nancy.
  
• Now Bess is missing. Yawn.
• Mr. Drew just happens to have a case in Hong Kong; this time it is a debate over a will (so he's working international now?) and Ned is taking a college course in Hong Kong! How convenient.
• Near Hong Kong, Nancy is waiting for a flight that will take her to inland Hong Kong. A girl who looks like Chi Che is standing outside a small plane. This girl says she really is Chi Che and that Nancy must come into the plane to talk about a message Nancy has to give to her grandfather. They can ONLY talk in the privacy of the plane! Stupid Nancy falls for this and is kidnapped.
• Nancy uses lipstick to write 'SOS' on the airplane window. The pilot of Navy plane that sent after Nancy sees it and forces the kidnappers to land. It must be pretty bright lipstick! Incidentally, the real Chi Che was on the plane, too! Happy ending!