The Mystery of the Ivory Charm by Carolyn Keene

 I had just flown in to Rapid City Regional for another grandkid fix, and Sierra picked me up. After lunch with Mike, she had a couple of boxes of books to drop off at the used bookstore. I helped her carry them in, and happened to flip mine open to see what she was giving away. BIG MISTAKE! There, in all their dark blue glory, were my Nancy Drew mysteries! Oh, no! How could I part with them again. Sierra said, "Don't look!!!" But it was too late. The deed was done. I thought, "She's right. I don't need these. But then I saw my very first one, and it was this one. I flipped open the cover, and there, in Grandma Ellerson's distinctive handwriting was my name, and 1955, and Grandpa and Grandma. I was five years old; how could I have read this then? And the copyright was also 1955, so it was a brand new book when I got it! That was a huge purchase for them back then. I had to keep this one. And even though it's not the first book in the series, it's the first one I read.

So, I didn't even look at the others, nor open the other boxes. I just took this one. I took it over to Melissa's the next day, and she said, "I would have liked those!!" Who knew? So, I read it every night while I was there, and finished it, and left it in her guest room.

It was a huge step into another time and place. Talk about nostalgic!!! Nancy and her boyfriend Ned, who invited her to a fraternity weekend at Emerson College... Nancy, whose best friends, Bess and George are cousins. George, a "very boyish girl" -- and the ivory charm is the center of the story that includes a little "Hindu boy" and "Indian boy" and various other racial and ethnic names. It's just amazing to see how differentl;y cultural differences are depicted in this era! And it wss disappointing how little nuance or mystery was woven into the story. Nancy is the heroine and can do no wrong. Her father lets her lead the way in the investigation and it's an idyllic little world. I guess that was attractive to me when I was younger? No character developmebt at all...Just trite conversations and predictable conversations. It was disappointing. I wasn't particularly curious about how it would even turn out. It was 200 pages long, but I lost interest way before that. What kept me going was the cultural issues. I also kept hoping that maybe some of it would ring familiar to me. None of it did. 

One thing that probably attracted me back then was Nancy's relationship with her father. He had endless faith in her and her abilities; he financed everything; he had influential friends who could help her, and he treated her like an adult. One subtle thing that came through that I"m not sure I noticed back in the day was how limiting and jealous her boyfriend Ned was. And it was kind of fun to be back in a world devoid of computers and cell phones and any sort of technology...where letters were written and circuses came to town. It was a nice visit, but I don't want to live there!