A feminist reimagining of classic nursery rhymes depicts a Georgie Porgie who never dares to make the girls cry, a Little Bo-Peep who takes no-nonsense care of her sheep and a woman doctor who puts Humpty Dumpty together again.

In 1930 a plucky girl detective stepped out of her shiny blue roadster, dressed in a smart tweed suit. Eighty million books later, Nancy Drew has survived the Depression, World War II, and the sixties, and emerged as beloved by girls today as by their grandmothers. Rehak tells the behind-the-scenes history of Nancy and her groundbreaking creators. Both Nancy and her "author," Carolyn Keene, were invented by Edward Stratemeyer, who also created the...