"When two adopted parents are unsuitable for caring of baby twins, Nancy sets out to search for the rightful birth mother with the help of a broken locket."
- Upon meeting the Blair's Nancy mentions that it's a shame the adopted twins biological mother never claimed them. Kitty Blair responds by saying "when a mother abandons her children, she should lose all right to them!". Nancy immediately starts coming up with excuses for how the mother could have been tricked into being separated from her children. Just cause Nancy doesn't like the Blair's she's willing to defend an unknown woman. You don't have to like the Blair's to agree that abandoning children is wrong.
- This is one of the Nancy Drew books that contains bigotry. As much as I love Mildred Wirt's writing she seems to have been quite bigoted. Any money hungry villain's in the original books were Jewish. In this it's mentioned that the Blair's real surname is Sellenstein, which in itself would not raise any red flags. It was a normal practice for performers to change a long last name to a short, easy to remember one that would fit better on a theater marquee. However couple it with the fact that the Blair's have a get-rich-quick scheme to adopt children and pimp them out to the public mixed with Wirt's history of "hooked nose" characters scheming for money and yep, all signs point to antisemitism.
- Strangely enough an effort is made multiple times to let the reader know that not all theater people are like the Blair's. Its almost as if someone associated with the book was terribly worried about offending theater people. #notalltheaterpeople
- I love that the Blair's home is called Jolly Folly. I adore these type of quirky old-fashioned names for estates.
- Although I don't think the Blair's would be well suited parents I think Nancy quite exaggerates how bad some of their actions are. For example Mr. Blair tosses one of the twins, Jay, up into the air, catching him. Not an uncommon thing for parents to do with their children and most kids seem to enjoy it but for some reason Nancy is absolutely horrified at the sight of it. The child is not screaming or crying because of it (like in the rewritten version) and when Nancy tells Mr. Blair to be careful he mentions that he has experience catching grown men in tumbling and acrobatic acts.
- Nancy is also horrified to see that the Blair's allow Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar to hold Janet. When Nancy tries to protest they do not pay her any mind and I can understand why. Imagine you just brought home your adopted children and are introducing them to your best friend and some strange girl whom you've only just met earlier that day is freaking out about letting someone hold the child. I'm surprised they didn't kick Nancy out.
- There's so much in this story which make it feel very dated which I personally love; Nancy and Bess hang around the Blair's while everyone is drinking alcohol and smoking, Nancy's car has a rumble seat, Rodney was "gassed during the World War", the use of the word "perambulator", etc.
- No one in this book is likable and Nancy is a straight up brat and funnily enough the illustrations reflect that. In the one for page 35 Nancy's sour face make her look like she'd be the villain of the story.
- Once Nancy finally tracks down Ruth Brown she never comes straight out and asks is she is the twins mother even though she is desperate to know. By this point Nancy has already confronted Ruth with the information she learned at the orphanage (that Ruth brought the babies there, worked there, and quit) so why not just ask, you've already creeped her out by knowing so much, what's one more question.
- Nancy doesn't tell Rodney that she's found his long lost twin sister Ruth until she hears back from the reverend who baptized Rodney and Ruth so she can "be sure" they're each others brother and sister....but all that would prove is that the reverend baptized them. Rodney already admits to having a twin sister named Ruth Brown. Seriously, what's wrong with Nancy in this book.
- Ruth remarks that it will be hard to work for Mrs. Blair because she "has a harsh tongue" but this is after Ruth witnesses Mrs. Blair scold Colleen for allowing the babies to become seriously injured. As long as Ruth doesn't throw the babies down the stairs or something she really doesn't have anything to complain about.
- Hannah whines soooo much in this book! I was ready for Nancy to fire her.
- I find it hard to feel sympathy for Nancy when she gets publicly accused of stealing Mrs. Blair's locket. If she hadn't tried being so buddy-buddy with Colleen and covered for her by mending the dress, putting Mrs. Blair's clothes away, and anything else Colleen probably wouldn't have felt such a need to get revenge on Nancy. Instead of seeing Nancy as a false friend who betrayed her she would have just thought of her as another upper-class b*tch who looked down on a servant girl. I'm not saying Colleen is in the right in anyway but Nancy had something coming to her.
- I find it strange that Nancy never once thinks that the twins mother may have passed away especially when it turns out she almost did pass away after being struck by lightning and that's how she lost the babies.
- I thought it was very refreshing that Ruth was not the twins mother and that the mother was not brought into the book until later and related to, what seems like, an unimportant side character.
Overall it's a good book. I enjoyed almost every scene and the locations, such as the Blair home, are great. I do have trouble believing Nancy would be able to waltz on into the Blair's home so freely so many times but that's easy to overlook.
As for which book is better, the original or revised, well its not really possible to compare them since they are completely different books written decades apart. The only similarities are a broken locket and twin babies. Which reminds me, we never find out the real names of Jay and Janet.
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