Top Ten Tuesday (TTT) brought to you by The Broke and the Bookish.

Once again, the lovely ladies over at The Broke and the Bookish are on a well-deserved TTT holiday, and we will resume our regularly scheduled programming next week.

I asked my boys what I should do this week for my TTT freebie, and my youngest replied with, “Top Ten Nancy Drew Books!” Like, duh, mom.

Taking a little twist on his suggestion, I thought it would be fun to pick my favorite Nancy Drew covers.

Interestingly enough, the first 34 Nancy Drew books have two or three different covers. The first from the original publication, somewhere between the 1930’s to the mid-1950’s. Then the books were reissued with new artwork for one and even two publications. In researching covers for this post, I discovered The Nancy Drew Sleuth, who has pictures and a synopsis of the different books for the original 56 stories. It’s fun to look at the different covers for the same mystery.

Top Ten Nancy Drew Covers

Just a note – I will tell you that you won’t find any of the late 1960’s or beyond covers here in this Top Ten Tuesday. (You know the ones – the hardback books with the yellow spines and no dust jacket.) I just have never liked them. My first Nancy Drew books were originally owned by my grandmother or my mom, and I loved those covers from the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s. (You can tell – my collection is well worn. A few of them don’t even have the dust jackets, but they were long gone before I got them.) When I would get newly published Nancy Drew books (with the 1970’s covers) I never thought they were as lovely as the older versions.

It was tough to pick just ten, but I stuck with it this week. Some of these stand out for me because I remember how much I loved the story, like The Clue in the Old Stagecoach. That was one of my favorites. In third grade I did a book report on The Ringmaster’s Secret which involved using an overhead projector to trace and create a poster-size cover. (This was before the age of computer graphics, kids.) I honestly don’t remember reading The Mystery of the Fire Dragon (I’m sure I did), but I was drawn to the atmosphere and colors on that one.

My favorite part of all the Nancy Drew covers is how the images show a moment from each story. I think The Password to Larkspur Lane might be my favorite of them all.

What about you? What kind of cover draws you into a book? Nancy Drew may depict a piece of the action, but sometimes the simplest covers are just so lovely. Did you do a TTT this week, or are you taking a hiatus as well? If you did, link up to it in the comments below!