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    Dear Nancy: Answers to Letters from Girls Like You
    Dear Nancy: Answers to Letters from Girls Like You
    Dear Nancy: Answers to Letters from Girls Like You
    Ebook189 pages1 hour

    Dear Nancy: Answers to Letters from Girls Like You

    By Nancy N. Rue

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    You’ve got mail … lots of it! Author Nancy Rue loves getting letters from her readers, but finding the time to answer them has always been a challenge. Dear Nancy was born from a desire to connect with readers in-depth by really answering their questions, particularly the ones she gets asked over and over, like, “How did you become a writer?” and “What’s your favorite Scripture verse?” for example. Readers want more than just tips on writing, though—they want to know about Sophie and Lily, about boys and friends, about growing up, and even more about Nancy herself. So here’s a peek into Nancy’s mailbox with answers on topics that are closest to tween girls’ hearts.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherZondervan
    Release dateMay 26, 2009
    ISBN9780310567271
    Dear Nancy: Answers to Letters from Girls Like You
    Author

    Nancy N. Rue

    Nancy Rue has written over 100 books for girls, is the editor of the Faithgirlz Bible, and is a popular speaker and radio guest with her expertise in tween and teen issues. She and husband, Jim, have raised a daughter of their own and now live in Tennessee.

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    • 5/5
      This is the cutest book I think I have ever seen. It's not another fiction by Nancy Rue, and it's not a non-fiction devotional, but is sure is close. Dear Nancy is just that it is the compilation of many letters from her readers and put into one book to answer all of the pressing questions they they want to know!Nancy Rue, with the help of her daughter Marijean has put together a wealth of information for current readers of Nancy's book such as the Sophie and Lucy book as is definitely valuable for those who have not discovered her books yet as well.Touching on everything that you wanted to know about Nancy, more details about Sophily and Lily, info about being a writer, facts about a girls body, family and boys, to being yourself and faith. She covers it all in the hand held volume that is practically a letter written directly to the reader.It is the neatest little book and I just adore what all she shares. I think that every girl anywhere from 9-12 or so should read it and own it. It is such a worthy tool of devotion for all.

    Book preview

    Dear Nancy - Nancy N. Rue

    Introduction: You’ve Got Mail

    For a long time, there was this big laundry basket in the corner of my office. Sometimes, when I was feeling guilty, I would put it inside the closet or cover it with an afghan. Then, one day, I realized it had multiplied — like some kind of amoeba — and suddenly there were two laundry baskets to be shuffled around or hidden under afghans. And when those little storage baskets lined with fabric came on the market, some of them started appearing in my office as well. I was running out of afghans.

    Each of these baskets was filled to overflowing with fan mail. Some came in big batches from one of my publishers, and some showed up in my P.O. Box. Some made their way to my home address, usually from people who lived in Tennessee and had managed to look me up. There were letters on that grayish paper with the big lines written in shaky, blocky handwriting, and letters on lovely stationery written in I-just-learned-how cursive. There were pictures of readers, some actual photographs, and some self-portraits in crayon, pen, marker, and even sticker collages. There were long descriptions of the plights of nine-year-old girls, short missives to the tune of I like your books; they are good, and pleas for just one more installment in this or that series. There were also plenty of suggestions about my writing — what character should do what, how I should have ended such-and-such book, where I’d gone terribly, horribly wrong with this or that story, and, of course, what I should write next.

    I love them all. I love mail!

    I absolutely pore over the letters my readers send me. I love to read them. It’s as though you’re all right there with me, as though I can see your beautiful young faces and hear your high-pitched kid voices telling me everything I always wanted to hear about my writing. I love to write for kids, because you’re so generous, and you state things in the plainest terms: I like this. This is great. I LLL-LOOOOVVVVEEEE your books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!! If everyone had that kind of encouragement, we’d all be cranking out novels, let me tell you!

    And I really do mean to answer every letter. Otherwise, why would I keep them? If I didn’t intend to write back, I’d just read them and say, That’s nice. What’s for lunch? and toss them, right? But I did keep them. I kept them for years. I kept them until my daughter grew up and got a master’s degree and then came to work for me and said, Mother! These poor kids! What is the matter with you?

    My daughter and I have a very special relationship, as I’m sure you can tell.

    Anyway, Marijean (that’s my daughter) was a great assistant, and she made sure that no note went unanswered. She spent an entire summer going through the baskets, organizing the letters into piles according to subject, and then sending a general apology letter that many of you received. Then, when a new letter came in, Marijean read it out loud to me as I was writing the next Sophie or Faithgirlz book and said, Shall we tell him/her ______? and I would say, I love that! She typed it, and I signed it, and it ACTUALLY went into the mail (with a stamp and everything).

    After doing this for a while, Marijean noticed that a lot of kids ask the same questions. And when I travel and teach workshops, I notice that kids always ask one or all of the following questions:

    3 Is it fun to be a writer?

    3 Is it hard to be a writer?

    3 How did you become a writer?

    There also seems to be a general interest in my childhood, the type of food I like to eat, whether I have pets, kids, or a husband, and my favorite Scripture verse.

    When I really got into writing for tween girls about the hard stuff you have to face sometimes, I started getting mail that had a lot of questions of a different kind — hard questions, questions that you wish you had someone in your life you could ask, but it’s just too weird to try and get that information from your mom, your youth pastor, or your teacher. And it was one thing when I was letting the You’re super-duper great! letters slide without so much as a postcard, but girls needed to know the answers to the hard questions.

    Finally, it hit me like my black lab when he hadn’t seen me for a week. If I’m not good at writing letters, but I’m good at writing books, then I should answer the letters with a book.

    Duh.

    We found all the really good questions and whipped up what you now hold in your hot little hands. In this book you should find:

    3 all the information about me you could possibly desire;

    3 the must-knows about those astonishing, amazing girls, Sophie and Lily;

    3 all kinds of tips and tricks for being a writer;

    3 stuff you did NOT want to ask your school nurse about your body;

    3 tricky, sticky friend situations (And what about those creatures called boys?);

    3 things you really don’t think you can talk to your family about;

    3 ways to be your absolutely true self;

    3 AND those really, really hard-core questions girls write to me about.

    I still want to get your letters, and I want to answer them. But think of this book as your own personal note straight from the desk of Nancy Rue — whatever you think that desk looks like — and know that even if you never get an actual, stamped, addressed envelope from me, you — because you’re my wonderful, excited, thoughtful, smart, loyal reader — are always in my heart.

    Or my laundry basket.

    chapter one: Here’s Nancy’s World ! Everything You’ve Ever Asked about Nancy Rue

    Where were you born?

    I was born in Riverside, New Jersey, which is across the river from Philadelphia — home of Philly cheesesteaks and Benjamin Franklin (he was long gone by the time I came along). I only lived there until I was four, and then my mom, dad, brother and sister, and I moved to Jacksonville, Florida. Back then, Florida was still pretty much an unsettled swamp, full of freaky bugs and really poisonous snakes. One day, some men asked if they could go into our backyard and catch the ALLIGATOR that was living there — I am so not kidding!

    Every summer we drove up the Eastern Seaboard to visit family in New Jersey for several weeks. I couldn’t wait to get there and eat big, soft pretzels (there were none in Florida) and go to the Jersey seashore, where I loved the boardwalks and the sun didn’t instantly turn me into an intensive-care burn victim. So I still feel like I have roots in the tri-state area, as it’s known.

    How old are you?

    I was born in 1951, so this year, in July, I turned 57. Doesn’t that sound old? I used to think so, but I don’t feel old at all. Inside, sometimes I’m eight — when I get excited about the next film from Pixar — and sometimes I’m twelve — when friends are coming for an overnight visit. Hello! Sleepover! I think we can be any age that we are in our hearts. Have you ever met those kids who are just not kids, but little CEOs in pre-teen bodies? Most of the time I like being the me I am today, with the happy wrinkles around my eyes and the funky brown spots on my hands that remind me of my mom.

    What made you want to start writing?

    What made me want to start writing was reading. I was a big-time reader from the time I was about four. I positively devoured books, and from about the age of seven, that was especially true of mysteries. I read all the Trixie Belden, Bobbsey Twins, and Cherry Ames books I could find. But my favorite was Nancy Drew. I wanted to BE ( her — she was so awesome. She didn’t go to school or work. She had a housekeeper and the two coolest friends ever. She wore amazing clothes, had thick, gorgeous blonde hair, and tooled around in a little blue roadster solving all the crimes her lawyer father was too lame to figure out. I didn’t even know what a roadster was, but I wanted one badly. There were only so many Nancy Drew books, so I read them over and over until I practically had them memorized. And then, one day, it just occurred to me that I could write stories too.

    4

    When did you start writing?

    When I was ten, I had just finished reading a Nancy Drew book for, like, the fourth time (or maybe 44th), and I suddenly thought, I could write something like this! I think I had gotten to the point where I was so saturated — like, in it up to my eyebrows — with the reading that I needed to start getting some words out of my head, or it was going to explode. So I dragged out my sister’s typewriter and began my first novel. It was called, The Mystery of Eleanor Village. (Catchy, huh?) Eleanor Village was a little resort where my family had spent a long weekend. The whole time, all I could think of was what a cool place it would be for solving a crime, and I came up with this whole story in my head. It was going to blow Nancy Drew right out of her roadster.

    I cranked out a couple of pages and then took them, full of pride, to my dad, who was just my absolute favorite person in the world and who obviously knew everything. He read it and smiled, and then he started helpfully pointing out where I could make some changes.

    Um, excuse me . . . CHANGES!??!?! This was my masterpiece!!!!!!! He meant well, but I was a really, REALLY sensitive child, and I was completely crushed. I put everything away and didn’t write anything more than spelling words until, well, after college.

    Of course I wrote things like papers and essays — the stuff that got me through college with my degree in English and my teacher’s certificate. I got married, moved from Florida to Virginia with my new husband, and started teaching English at Booker T. Washington High School. It was 1973, and this school in downtown Norfolk, Virginia, was filled with African American students who’d lived in that neighborhood all their lives and a small group of white students who were being bused in to satisfy the requirements of desegregation — that is, so there would be an even number of black kids and white kids. It was pretty tense because kids from different races weren’t used to going to school together. When people are faced with a new situation, they get scared and some of them act out. I saw a lot of fights in the cafeteria. I was given English classes to teach where some of the kids were still having a hard time with reading. On the first day of class, I looked out at a sea of afro hairdos framing I-dare-you faces and then opened the textbook. The first writing assignment was Write an essay about the exports of Peru.

    That was so not happening.

    Take out a pen or pencil, I said, and write at least one paragraph about the many uses of the afro comb.

    There was a stunned

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