I’ve enjoyed getting to know our new Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. The fact that she credits a childhood love of Nancy Drew as the origin for her law career is especially intriguing to us children’s literature fans (and young Nancy Drew readers.)
It’s also especially intriguing to journalists. Her love of Nancy Drew is analyzed, and deemed to be common, yet feminist.
In fact, it doesn’t make her unique, but rather just like two other female justices, Sandra Day O’ Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Unsurprisingly to me, it’s Jezebel who weighs in with the most insightful piece, interviewing Nancy parodist Chelsea Cain on what this might mean.
What if your reading habits were put up to that kind of scrutiny? Or those of the kids and teens in your life? Could you spin it? Does reading Captain Underpants or Batman or Harry Potter lead to a need to save the world? And how about the kid who reads horror novels (of which I was one?) Would I be able to defend my teen love of Stephen King as anything more than escapism? Or would I even confess to it?
Time and again, kids reading is put up to this kind of test. What does it MEAN? I think it just means that you like a good story, in the genre or style of your choosing.