I took one or two Cherry Ames books out of the library when I was a kid and remembered enjoying them, so when I saw several of the original hardbacks in a used bookshop recently, I decided I ought take one home and give it a whirl. What a fun read! I was afraid the writing might be too awful to stand or the cheery, good-girl attitude of a 50's novel for young ladies just too ghastly to sit through. But no! The writing is not great, but it's not at all bad either. If one can stand a lot of "exclaiming" and "crying" in dialogue tags, on the whole, the writing is fairly good. And while it is clear that the book was designed at least partly to give girls a good professional, personal, and moral role model (work always comes first! never go to bed without washing your face! stay away from fresh boys!), the attitude comes off as pleasantly innocent rather than sickeningly gooey. The story also involves an interesting (though not terribly surprising) mystery, and, in the process of resolving that mystery, provides some interesting details about nursing and another activity that I shall not name to save spoiling things. A satisfying, pleasant surprise. ( )