31 Days of Nancy Drew Topic #11 Nancy Drew Chapter Books - Notebooks, Clue Crew, Clue Book

31 Days of Nancy Drew Topic #11

Nancy Drew Chapter Books - Notebooks, Clue Crew, Clue Book - A Brief Overview

How about 3rd grade Nancy Drew, solving mysteries at age 8 at school and around River Heights? Enter Nancy Drew Notebooks, a series of chapter books for the younger set around 6 to 9 years old. The Notebooks series has been discontinued and then relaunched twice with two other series - Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew and Nancy Drew Clue Book. All have the same premise and age ranges. And each has lessons to be learned. These series are a way to hook the kids earlier into reading Nancy Drew and compete in that chapter book market.

The Nancy Drew Notebooks series consisted of 69 books from 1994 to 2005 - some of the earlier covers were redone at one point and the books went through some different imprints and cover layout styles over time.

 

  

A special gift from collector Jim McNamara - is this neat internal illustration from Third Grade Reporter by artist Jan Naimo Jones who illustrated some of the Nancy Drew Notebooks.

 

In 2006, Simon & Schuster relaunched the series as Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew and there was a membership card you could get and the books had activities that could be done which were located in the back after the story ended. This series ran until 2014 and there were 40 titles. There are boxed sets and double editions that came in boxed sets.

 

Summer 2015, this younger series theme was relaunched as Nancy Drew Clue Book. Just like with the Nancy Drew Diaries series, the Nancy Drew Clue Book series can be purchased in paperback or a hardcover with dust jacket. So far there are 10 books in the series and more on the way this year - publishing 2 books per year and there is a boxed set and a 4-books-in-1 book of the first 4 coming out in March.

Some of these books have been issued as foreign editions and library bound editions. There are Scholastic Book printings. There are a few minor promotional items I'll share in this post since there are not that many - but I have upcoming 31 days blogs planned on collectible and promo items for the various books - classic to modern. These series have been popular in schools and libraries and also with home schoolers and churches. Often you can find large sets of them on sites like eBay if you want to jump start your collection. Or download them at sites like Amazon.

Pictured are shoelaces that promoted the Notebooks series and a promo card featuring the Crew Clue club membership.

In the comments, let me know if you have read any of these series and if you collect them. What is your overall opinion of them? Do you own artwork for any of these?