Summary
Help investigate the case of a missing lemonade recipe with Nancy and her friends in the second book in an all-new, interactive Nancy Drew chapter book series. Includes space for readers to jot down their own ideas and solutions to the case!
Nancy, Bess, and George want tickets to see pop singer Katy Sloan play at the River Heights Amusement Park--but their parents say they've already filled their summer theme-park quota. So the girls decide to turn lemons into lemonade by earning their own tickets--with a lemonade stand!
Unfortunately Lily Ramos, a new girl in River Heights, has the same idea. She's the niece of the owner of the town's newest and hottest café, and her stand is equipped with café tables, gourmet treats, and a rolling library cart! Good thing Nancy has a secret weapon: Hannah's family lemonade recipe!
The girls are all set to whip up the lemonade--until the recipe is replaced by a blank sheet of paper! Nancy, Bess, and George set out to find the thief! Could it be Lily, whose stand may be fancy but whose lemonade is totally yucky? Or a sneaky contestant on Ready, Set, Cook! , the hot new kids' cooking contest show? It's up to the Clue Crew--and you--to find out!
Carolyn Keene was the pseudonym that Mildred Wirt Benson and Walter Karig used to write Nancy Drew books. The idea of Nancy Drew came from Edward Stratemeyer in 1929. He also had other series, that included the Hardy Boys, but he died in 1930 before the Nancy Drew series became famous. His daughters, Harriet and Edna, inherited his company and maintained Nancy Drew having Mildred Wirt Benson, the original Carolyn Keene, as the principal ghostwriter. During the Depression, they asked Benson to take a pay cut and she refused, which is when Karig wrote the books.
Karig's Nancy Drew books were Nancy's Mysterious Letter, The Sign of the Twisted Candles, and Password to Larkspur Lane. He was fired from writing more books because of his refusal to honor the request that he keep his work as Carolyn Keene a secret. He allowed the Library of Congress to learn of his authorship and his name appeared on their catalog cards. Afterwards, they rehired Benson and she wrote until her last Nancy Drew book (#30) was written in 1953, Clue of the Velvet Mask.
Harriet and Edna Stratemeyer also contributed to the Nancy Drew series. Edna wrote plot outlines for several of the early books and Harriet, who claimed to be the sole author, had actually outlined and edited nearly all the volumes written by Benson. The Stratemeyer Syndicate had begun to make its writers sign contracts that prohibited them from claiming any credit for their works, but Benson never denied her writing books for the series.
After Harriet's death in 1982, Simon and Schuster became the owners of the Stratemeyer Syndicate properties and in 1994, publicly recognized Benson for her work at a Nancy Drew conference at her alma mater, the University of Iowa. Now, Nancy Drew has several ghostwriters and artists that have contributed to her more recent incarnations.
(Bowker Author Biography)
