Judy Bolton Series

The Judy Bolton Mystery Series, created by Margaret Sutton, follows a realistic young woman who solves mysteries. Although the series was not quite as popular as Nancy Drew, Judy Bolton has been called a more complex and believable role model for girls. Judy was also unique in that halfway through the series, she married (something series book heroines rarely, if ever, did. The 38 volume series holds the distinction of being the longest lasting juvenile mystery series ever written by an individual author.

In September 2012, the 39th volume, The Strange Likeness, was published by Applewood books, which has re-printed titles in the series since 1991. In 1968, Sutton had created the title and the beginnings of a plot outline of a mystery located in Panama; however co-authors Kate Duvall and Beverly Hatfield never saw the original outline and wrote the book instead from their original ideas, with the Sutton family's permission.

The mainstays of the series were Judy Bolton, auburn-haired girl detective; her brother, news reporter Horace Bolton; her parents, Doctor and Mrs. Bolton; and her loyal black cat, Blackberry. For most of the early volumes she was torn between suitors: the wealthy Arthur Farringdon-Pett, and the upstanding lawyer Peter Dobbs, before finally choosing Peter in volume 10. Her best friend was Peter's sister, Grace Dobbs, also known as Honey; her rival for Arthur's affections was Lorraine Lee. Judy was friends with Arthur's sister, Lois Farringdon-Pett, and one of her high-school archenemies was snobbish Kay Vincent. Judy also befriended a mill worker, Irene Lang, who later became Irene Meredith.

Judy Bolton has been called a better feminist role model than Nancy Drew because "Nancy Drew is more likely to uphold the ideological status quo, while Judy Bolton is more likely to restore moral rather than legal order, because her mysteries tend to emphasize human relationships over material possessions." Unlike Nancy Drew, Judy Bolton often enlists the aid of family members and friends in solving mysteries; she "works in a collaborative way that subverts dominant values." (These ideologically tendentious and self-referential views have little support with fans of either heroine).

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