On my first day, the teacher announced that new monitors would be chosen for all the jobs. I had my hand in the air the minute she asked for library monitors and from then until the end of high school working in the library was one of the great pleasures of school days.

    Although we had moved only four miles north up Yonge Street, I had lost easy access to a public library, the nearest of which was a long bus ride away. My mother, who now had a toddler (my brother Dwight) and a baby (my sister Ingrid) to look after, didn’t have time to take me and I wasn’t yet considered old enough to ride the transit system on my own, so for the next few years I had to make do with what books were to hand. That meant a very small library in the school and—Nancy Drew. Series books were not considered good enough literature to appear on library shelves, but looking back I realize that Nancy