VOA慢速英语2009年-THIS IS AMERICA - Nancy Drew: The Secret o

VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Shirley Griffith. Our subject this week is the teenage investigator¹ in one of the most successful children's book series of all time -- Nancy Drew.

SUSAN LARSON: "Put down that book and go outside and play!"

VOICE ONE:

Susan Larson still remembers her mother's reaction. Susan was about ten years old, growing up in the Midwest, when she discovered Nancy Drew. She enjoyed the mysteries. But there was something else that she especially enjoyed.

SUSAN LARSON: "I wanted to do so much more than girls could do back then. So it was exciting for me to read about this girl, Nancy Drew, who was eighteen and drove a sports car and helped her Dad solve crime. And I read more than I went outside and played and made my mom mad."

VOICE TWO:

Susan Larson grew up and became a librarian. She works in the Fairfax County Public Library, the largest system in Virginia. She still talks warmly about the Nancy Drew series which has been around for almost eighty years.

Publisher Simon and Schuster says it has sold two hundred million copies of Nancy Drew books in twenty-five languages around the world. Mothers have given copies to their daughters, who saved them for their own daughters.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton read Nancy Drew. So did all three of the women ever to serve on the United States Supreme² Court. They are the retired³ Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the current Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the newest justice, Sonia Sotomayor.

Another reader who was influenced by the original Nancy Drew series is Janet Evanovich. She writes best sellers about a female bounty⁴ hunter named Stephanie Plum. Bounty hunters act as unofficial law enforcement agents.

Recognize a pattern here?

Jennifer Fisher is a lawyer and Nancy Drew collector in Arizona who organizes Nancy Drew conventions.

JENNIFER FISHER: "There's a lot of fans I come across who have gone on to have careers in law enforcement or become attorneys like myself. And I think that Nancy's great sense of, you know, fighting for justice and helping⁵ others was a great inspiration."

VOICE ONE:

Who is Nancy Drew? She is a teenager whose mother died when she was very young. She lives with her father and their housekeeper⁶, Hannah Gruen, in the town of River Heights. Nancy is pretty and popular. She has a boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, and two best girlfriends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne.

Nancy is always investigating mysterious wrongdoing, and often faces danger. She is trapped in trunks, closets, and locked rooms. But in the end she always succeeds.
　
Nancy Drew as pictured on the cover of the first book in the series, "The Secret of the Old Clock."

Susan Larson reads a scene from Nancy Drew's first adventure, "The Secret of the Old Clock":

SUSAN LARSON: "Nancy struggled to get away. She twisted and squirmed, kicked and clawed. But she was helpless in the viselike grip of the powerful man.

"'Let me go!' Nancy cried, struggling harder. 'Let me go!'"

"Sid, ignoring her pleas, half dragged her across the room. Opening the closet door, he flung her inside."

"Nancy heard a key turn."

"'Now you can spy all you want!' Sid sneered⁷. 'But to make sure nobody'll let you out, I'll just take this key along.'"

"When Nancy could no longer hear the tramp of his heavy boots she was sure Sid had left the house. For a moment a feeling of great relief engulfed⁸ her."

"But the next instant Nancy's heart gave a leap. As she heard the muffled⁹ roar of the van starting up in the distance, a horrifying¹⁰ realization¹¹ gripped her."

"'They've left me here to -- to starve!'"

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

All of the Nancy Drew books were written by Carolyn Keene -- or so readers are supposed to believe. In reality there was no Carolyn Keene.
　
Edward Stratemeyer

Children's writer Edward Stratemeyer came up with the idea of Nancy Drew in nineteen twenty-nine. He wanted to create a series for girls who were about ten to twelve years old.

But Stratemeyer did not write the books either. He had a system. He would describe characters and plots, then have ghostwriters expand those ideas into a book.

These uncredited writers had to sign agreements never to admit their work. In return, they earned one hundred twenty-five dollars, later raised to two hundred fifty dollars, for each book.

The Stratemeyer Syndicate also invented authors for other popular children's series. These included Tom Swift, the Bobbsey Twins and the Hardy¹² Boys.

VOICE ONE:

The first Nancy Drew books were published in April of nineteen thirty. That was ten years after American women gained a constitutional right to vote. And it was six months after the stock market crash that led to the Great Depression.
　
Mildred Wirt Benson

The first ghostwriter was Mildred Wirt Benson. Her identity became widely known years later as a result of a legal fight between Stratemeyer Syndicate and its former publisher. She was a journalism¹³ graduate of the University of Iowa. She was twenty-four when she wrote "The Secret of the Old Clock" and other early Nancy Drew books.

VOICE TWO:

Mildred Benson disagreed with Edward Stratemeyer's traditional ideas about women. She thought girls could, and should, do the same things as boys. So she made Nancy Drew independent -- or "spunky" as she is often described.

There was not much that Stratemeyer could do about it. He died in May of nineteen thirty, just two weeks after the first three books were published.

His two daughters took over the company. But that did not mean all the women involved with Nancy Drew agreed on how she should act. Reports from the time say the Stratemeyer daughters felt she should be more ladylike.

VOICE ONE:

Mildred Benson wrote twenty-three of the first thirty "Nancy Drew Mystery Stories," the name given the original series. The series expanded over the years to one hundred seventy-five books.

But collector Jennifer Fisher says more than five hundred Nancy Drew books have been published. These include more recent ones such as "Nancy Drew on Campus" in which Nancy is a college student. Another series aimed for younger readers with an eight-year-old Nancy in "The Nancy Drew Notebooks."

The modern world of Nancy Drew also includes a series of graphic¹⁴ novels. And there is the continuing series "Nancy Drew: Girl Detective."

Simon and Schuster publicist Anna McKean says the girl detective stays true to her roots but is "ultra-modern." She drives an environmentally friendly hybrid¹⁵ and checks her e-mail on a BlackBerry. Storylines have explored things such as bullying¹⁶, cyberspace¹⁷ and reality TV.

VOICE TWO:

In nineteen fifty-nine, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams began rewriting the original series of books that her father created. She got her chance to change Nancy's personality. She made her quieter and more polite.

She also changed the name of Nancy's friend from George Fayne to Georgia and made "George" her nickname. In the original series the girl was named after her grandfather.

But the rewrites also removed some parts from the early books that might have seemed racially offensive to later generations.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:
　
Deanna Raybourn

Deanna Raybourn is an American mystery writer. Her Lady Julia Grey series is set in England in the late eighteen hundreds. Still, she says her books reflect the Nancy Drew stories that she read as a child:

DEANNA RAYBOURN: "Things that I read as a kid keep cropping up in my own work whether I realize it or not. Nancy has a lot of similarities to my Lady Julia. They're affluent¹⁸, they are motherless, they have doting¹⁹ fathers. Their besetting²⁰ sin is curiosity and they get themselves into trouble because they snoop in places where they shouldn't."

VOICE TWO:

Another successful mystery writer who read Nancy Drew is Nevada Barr. She writes the best selling series about park ranger²¹ Anna Pigeon. Nevada Barr remembers reading Nancy Drew books the summer she was eleven years old.

NEVADA BARR: "My vision is of an incredibly beautiful girl who seemed quite old to me when I was eleven. But you always remember that she had this incredible freedom that most children don't have and she was so smart."

"They didn't do a lot with really smart girls in literature when I was young. And I think that was one of the things that made Nancy Drew special -- this was in the fifties or early sixties -- was that this girl survived by her wits and that was a new thing."

VOICE ONE:

Over the years, Nancy Drew has appeared in movies and television shows, but without very much success. Nancy Drew expert Jennifer Fisher says the reason is no mystery. The stories on the screen had little in common with the books.

Yet Nancy Drew does not capture everyone's imagination. Susan Larson was a children's librarian in the late nineteen nineties and early two thousands. She remembers that young girls often considered the original books too old fashioned. There was not enough action.

In fact, she says one of her great disappointments was that her own daughters did not like the books nearly as much as she did as a girl.

VOICE TWO:

Elizabeth Rhodes also works at the Fairfax County Public Library. In graduate school she wrote a paper on Nancy Drew. She says the original books -- written during the Depression -- served as an escape from difficult economic times.

The books told young girls that they can be more than just someone's wife or daughter. As Elizabeth Rhodes says, that was a revolutionary message for its time. Nancy Drew may not represent classic literature. But after all these years, the message is still worth reading.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Our program was written by Nancy Steinbach and produced by Caty Weaver²². I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Shirley Griffith. Transcripts²³ and podcasts of our programs can be found at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

 

1 investigator   

n.研究者，调查者，审查者

参考例句：

• He was a special investigator for the FBI.他是联邦调查局的特别调查员。
• The investigator was able to deduce the crime and find the criminal.调查者能够推出犯罪过程并锁定罪犯。

2 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

3 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

4 bounty   

n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与

参考例句：

• He is famous for his bounty to the poor.他因对穷人慷慨相助而出名。
• We received a bounty from the government.我们收到政府给予的一笔补助金。

5 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

6 housekeeper   

n.管理家务的主妇，女管家

参考例句：

• A spotless stove told us that his mother is a diligent housekeeper.炉子清洁无瑕就表明他母亲是个勤劳的主妇。
• She is an economical housekeeper and feeds her family cheaply.她节约持家，一家人吃得很省。

7 sneered   

讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He sneered at people who liked pop music. 他嘲笑喜欢流行音乐的人。
• It's very discouraging to be sneered at all the time. 成天受嘲讽是很令人泄气的。

8 engulfed   

v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was engulfed by a crowd of reporters. 他被一群记者团团围住。
• The little boat was engulfed by the waves. 小船被波浪吞没了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 muffled   

adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己）

参考例句：

• muffled voices from the next room 从隔壁房间里传来的沉闷声音
• There was a muffled explosion somewhere on their right. 在他们的右面什么地方有一声沉闷的爆炸声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 horrifying   

a.令人震惊的，使人毛骨悚然的

参考例句：

• He went to great pains to show how horrifying the war was. 他极力指出战争是多么的恐怖。
• The possibility of war is too horrifying to contemplate. 战争的可能性太可怕了，真不堪细想。

11 realization   

n.实现；认识到，深刻了解

参考例句：

• We shall gladly lend every effort in our power toward its realization.我们将乐意为它的实现而竭尽全力。
• He came to the realization that he would never make a good teacher.他逐渐认识到自己永远不会成为好老师。

12 hardy   

adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的

参考例句：

• The kind of plant is a hardy annual.这种植物是耐寒的一年生植物。
• He is a hardy person.他是一个能吃苦耐劳的人。

13 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

14 graphic   

adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的

参考例句：

• The book gave a graphic description of the war.这本书生动地描述了战争的情况。
• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons.用图标来区分重要的文本项。

15 hybrid   

n.(动，植）杂种，混合物

参考例句：

• That is a hybrid perpetual rose.那是一株杂交的四季开花的蔷薇。
• The hybrid was tall,handsome,and intelligent.那混血儿高大、英俊、又聪明。

16 bullying   

v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈

参考例句：

• Many cases of bullying go unreported . 很多恐吓案件都没有人告发。
• All cases of bullying will be severely dealt with. 所有以大欺小的情况都将受到严肃处理。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 cyberspace   

n.虚拟信息空间，网络空间，计算机化世界

参考例句：

• She travels in cyberspace by sending messages to friends around the world.她利用电子空间给世界各地的朋友们发送信件。
• The teens spend more time in cyberspace than in the real world of friends and family.青少年花费在电脑上的时间比他们和真正的朋友及家人在一起的时间要多。

18 affluent   

adj.富裕的，富有的，丰富的，富饶的

参考例句：

• He hails from an affluent background.他出身于一个富有的家庭。
• His parents were very affluent.他的父母很富裕。

19 doting   

adj.溺爱的，宠爱的

参考例句：

• His doting parents bought him his first racing bike at 13.宠爱他的父母在他13岁时就给他买了第一辆竞速自行车。
• The doting husband catered to his wife's every wish.这位宠爱妻子的丈夫总是高度满足太太的各项要求。

20 besetting   

adj.不断攻击的v.困扰( beset的现在分词 )；不断围攻；镶；嵌

参考例句：

• Laziness is my besetting sin. 懒惰是我积重难返的恶习。 来自辞典例句
• His besetting sin is laziness. 他所易犯的毛病就是懒惰。 来自辞典例句

21 ranger   

n.国家公园管理员，护林员；骑兵巡逻队员

参考例句：

• He was the head ranger of the national park.他曾是国家公园的首席看守员。
• He loved working as a ranger.他喜欢做护林人。

22 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

23 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句