Secret in the trash bin: on the perennial popularity of juvenile series books

Abstract

Series books have a perennial fascination for the young. Generation after generation of young Americans, deaf to parental pleading that they use their time more wisely, have spent hours of their lives with the likes of Ragged Dick, Tattered Tom, the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, and Nancy Drew. It is no accident, either, that these are the titles which come most readily to mind. Whatever others have been before and after them, to most Americans, Horatio Alger's stories and one or two of the innumerable products of Edward Stratemeyer's literary mill represent the very prototypes of juvenile series books. These are the books which were and in some cases still are so popular with so many children for so long that any examination of the appeal of such literature must surely begin with them. For all their literary shortcomings, these are the stories whose deepest messages spoke, and sometimes still speak, successfully to the need of young readers to believe in themselves and in the future, and whose themes echo and amplify the American promise for a new audience. They should be called fairy tales, not because they are patently unrealistic {though they are}, but because they function as fairy tales dol offering reassurance to the young as they face the challenges of growing up.