Murder, She Blogged: Young Detectives

There's a series of books by Canadian author Eric Wilson who wrote about Liz and Tom Austen, a brother and sister detective team. Sometimes they worked together, and sometimes they each had stories of their own. Most (if not all) of the books were set in different Canadian locales, so the young reader often learned a bit about geography and history of that area. My sisters and I used to read these voraciously when we were younger. http://www.librarything.com/series/Tom+%252F+Liz+Austen+Mystery

I also have a semi-secret love of collecting old Trixie Belden books, (Preferably these editions! http://www.trixie-belden.com/books/editions/rare.htm#Ugly%20Paperback%20...)
They are pretty cliché -- and that's putting it mildly-- but I can't help myself. The refreshing thing abour Trizie however, is that she is far from perfect, especially when she's contrasted with Nancy Drew, who never appealed to me in the same way as Trixie. In any case, I blame my Trixie Belden habit on my aunt who gave me a copy of "Trixie Belden and the Sasquatch Mystery" when I was a kid.

Finally, I'm not sure if this will count as "young adult," but one of my favourite mystery novels is Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann, which features a flock of sheep as the detectives, and in particular Miss Maple, the cleverest sheep of them all.

I had never heard of Springer's Enola Holmes mysteries. I'm a big feminist and a big fan of the SH novels, and I have myself indulged in composing some fiction about Holmes's kick ass younger sister, whom I called Annabelle. So I was really excited to hear that these were published out there. But now I wonder how Springer could have written a whole series of Holmes spin offs when she obviously doesn't understand the first thing about A Conan Doyle, whose stories are FAR from misogynistic. "Occasionally and with difficulty he represents women positively." I'm sorry, but what stories is she reading!? How about often and easily? There is a lot of scholarship on the complex and constant feminist themes found in the SH stories. Yes, Sherlock is an ignorant misogynist, especially in the earlier stories, mostly because he has trouble reading women (Aspergers syndrome, pretty much a consensus). But he gets his ass handed to him by Irene Adler in "A Scandal in Bohemia," proving that C. Doyle does not agree with his character's incorrect attitudes. And the narrator, Watson, is also not a fan, calling one of Holmes sexist remarks "an atrocious sentiment" in "The Sign of Four." Meanwhile, Doyle has more frequently complex female characters move through his narratives then male, with themes that subtly support the burgeoning New Woman movement of the 19th century, even legislation that was appearing in the late 19th century that emancipated women form the financial control of their husbands and fathers. I'm sorry, but while these stories are occasionally dated, on this subject, they are certainly not.

I really enjoyed Encyclopedia Brown growing up, particularly because his best friend, her name was Sally if I recall correctly, was his body guard. He was the brains and she was the brawn, defending Encyclopedia from the wrath of the town bullies, and the stories were a lot of fun.

I enjoyed the early Nancy Drew books when I was younger, but as the series grew more modern I lost interest. Luckily I found a few other series in the Nancy vein. Donna Parker, Ginny Gordon and Beverly Gray were all high school girls from small town America at the beginning of their respective series. They came from intact families with younger siblings and had a great deal of freedom and autonomy. Donna Parker ended up going off to live with an aunt and uncle in Hollywood, Beverly Gray moved to New York City and lived in an apartment with a bunch of other young women. I don't know what became of Ginny Gordon, I have never found any books of hers that go past high school.
There was also another fascinating example- Cherry Ames. She started out as a student nurse in a large hospital just before America got into World War II. Subsequent books had her being an Army nurse, a flight nurse, and other types of nurse. I haven't read them all (they're hard to find), but I love the idea!