Welcome to a new Nancy Drew Challenge! This time we're looking into The Mystery of the Ivory Charm, which is the thirteenth book in the series and definitely unlucky.
You can tell from the OT cover on the left that this time, we're going to the circus and I will be honest, this is my least favorite Nancy Drew book up to this point and by a wide margin.
Case file: Nancy, Bess, and George see a circus unpacking while waiting for their train to River Heights and a circus worker named Rai, an Indian man, gives Nancy an ivory elephant charm for good luck. The man's supposed son, Coya (who works with the elephants), stows away on the girls' train so Nancy just decides to keep him and let him do chores around the house (the HECK). A weird lady comes to see Carson about selling some land she owns, and in the course of investigating where Coya came from and how he ended up with not-his-real-dad Rai, she discovers that the weird lady and Rai had colluded to rob Coya of his inheritance as a maharajah in India and installed someone else on the throne. This one is just bizarre as well as being rife with racial stereotypes. One star.
So here's my card for the OT version of The Mystery of the Ivory Charm:
And it's proof that I can make a card I really like that was inspired by a book I really dislike! I decided on three simple blocks of color to mimic the colors on the book cover and of course I had to have an elephant. At first I tried to do this as a vertical card, but the color blocks looked like a stoplight no matter what order I put them in. I really like what I ended up with though.
Rai gives Nancy the ivory charm because she's brave and doesn't panic when an escaped circus snake (that's a thing, I guess?) drops out of a tree on her and tries to squeeze her to death. I was tempted to make a snaky card but my stamp collection is pretty light on snake images, so I pulled out one of my elephants instead. I chose that "hello" because the font makes me think of the circus, is that weird?
Supplies, all SU!
Stamps: A Little Wild, Happy Greetings
Ink: Versamark, Pebbled Path, Poppy Parade, Garden Green, Crushed Curry
Paper: Soft Sky, Poppy Parade, Garden Green, Crushed Curry, Thick Basic White
Accessories: clear EP, Little Loves Framelits, Squares Collection Framelits, Dimensionals
On to the RT version!
Revised case file: This one follows the plot of the OT fairly closely, except that the Indian boy is renamed Rishi and Nancy discovers that his biological father is living in River Heights; the dad had been told that Rishi was eaten by a tiger years earlier. Usually they tried to tone down the racism when they revised the texts, but this time they took out a scene where Nancy is invited to the White House to have lunch with the First Lady and pretty much left in all the racist stereotypes. One of my best friends growing up was Indian and I can only imagine what she would have thought of this book--I wish I could ask her, but she passed away of cancer over ten years ago. I'm sure she would have hated this though. Or laughed herself silly. Perhaps both at the same time.
Here's my card:
I bought Balmy Breezes on eBay a while back and this is the first time I've used it and I love it. Of course I picked it for the elephant image, and I tried to stick close to the colors of the book cover. There weren't any palm trees in the book but they go with the elephant image, right?
I used the Deckled Rectangles dies and a generous amount of sponging to mimic the book cover, and this time I decided to ignore Nancy's bright hair and just went with the greens. She gets to keep the ivory charm as a souvenir; she gets a lot of jewelry from solving mysteries.
Supplies, all SU!
Stamps: Balmy Breezes
Ink: Mossy Meadow, Pear Pizzazz
Paper: Basic Beige, Mossy Meadow, Pear Pizzazz
Accessories: Deckled Rectangles dies, linen thread, Faux Glass Dots, Dimensionals
I'd love to see what you come up with for this book, drop me a comment below (no time limit). Next up, we'll be investigating The Whispering Statue! And if you want to deep dive into the books, check out my other blog at Hey, Nancy Drew. Cheers!
