by Barb, still at Crime Bake
Yes, that’s right, I’m still at the Crime Bake hotel, even though almost everyone else has packed up and gone home. It feels vaguely like that time in college when you had the very last final on the very last day before the Christmas holidays, and the dorm was empty and a little creepy.
But I’m actually still here for a happy reason. Long before my new granddaughter was born, we had determined that Veteran’s Day weekend was the best possible time for my son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter, Viola, to come up to meet the new niece/cousin. So we’re staying here for a couple of extra days and traveling to our daughter’s place in Boston to take turns holding the baby. (Infants are like campfires. You can stare at them endlessly.)
Many of you may have heard me bemoan that fact that children don’t read mysteries anymore. Vastly oversimplified, my fear is that while I cut my teeth on Nancy Drew, the twenty and thirty-year-olds in my life grew up reading Redwall and Harry Potter. Therefore as adults, when they read genre fiction, they tend to read fantasy. Meanwhile, the audience for mysteries grows older and older.
My son and daughter-in-law assure me this is not true, and they cite as evidence Viola’s love for Scooby-Doo. Scoopy-Doo and the gang spend their time solving mysteries, after all.
Viola is a great believer in themes, and a planner of themed birthday parties and Halloween extravaganzas. She involves everyone she can seduce into these enterprises, which explains why, two years ago, I, a hater of Halloween and a hater of costumes, found myself happily wandering around Franklin Park Zoo dressed as the Flora, the red fairy from Sleeping Beauty. (Also, Bill was dressed as Merryweather, the blue fairy, so I really had nothing to complain about.)
Anyway, this year Viola’s theme was Scooby-Doo and as usual, everyone she had access to had to be part of the act.
My son Rob points out that Viola can’t even read, but already she is a fan of mysteries. Perhaps there’s hope for the future.
Readers: How did you get started with mysteries? Nancy Drew? Hardy Boys? Encyclopedia Brown? Scooby-Doo? Leave a comment or just say “hi” to be entered in the giveaway for my latest release, Yule Log Murder, a collection of three novellas by Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis and me. The giveaway is open to readers from anywhere.
Enid Blyton for me, followed by The 3 Investigators and Nancy Drew. In the UK there has been a resurgence in crime fiction for pre-teens (middle grade?).
Agatha Christie at about age 4 (my Mam and Dad were somewhat startled!)
I loved reading Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, The Three Investigators, and Sherlock Holmes. The first mystery I remember reading was The Mystery of the Green Ghost with The Three Investigators. My children have all grown up watching the original Scooby-Doo series. I think there is hope as my children enjoy reading mysteries and my young daughter is currently interested in becoming a detective. I would love to find a new enduring mystery series for kids!