Author creates teen Jewish detectives in
new Nancy Drew" for young adult rea

SUZANNE CHESSLER

Special to the Jewish News

S

amantha and Sophia Shattenberg share a kin-
ship of sorts with fictional icon Nancy Drew.
The sisters follow her lead, as they become
upbeat teen crime-fighting characters in Missing
Persons, a new series of four books written by Margo
.
Rabb.
There's no ethnic kinship with Nancy, however,
because the Shattenbergs reference their Jewish her-
itage in the young adult series. Published by
Penguin/Speak, each of the four books costs $5.99.
The second volume, The Chocolate Lover, aims at
reuniting a Holocaust survivor with a valuable
painting stolen by the Nazis.
Sam and Sophie, throughout the series, bring an
underlying plot into play: A detective is pursuing
the whereabouts of the girls because they ran away
from home. The sisters, in disguise and with false
identities, are escaping a stepmother ready to take
full reign over them and their inheritance after the

author and her sister, Jackie, now an archaeologist in
death of their much-loved father.
Salt Lake City
The Shattenbergs make a niche for themselves in
"I made the characters Jewish because I'm Jewish,"
a small Indiana town very different from their native
Rabb says. "When I went to Indiana as a college
New York City. They set up a household and find
student, it was the first time I really appreciated my
work with a private detective, who escorts them into
religion. I'd always taken it for granted because it
the adventurous worlds of other missing persons.
was so common in New York. I knew Jews were a
Some romance enhances reader interest.
minority, but I never felt it.
"Orphans are common characters in
"When I was at college, I felt I was in a
young adult literature, but I wanted to
Margo Rabb:
Christian environment, and that was
write about that so people could under-
"My friends have
strange even though I had a wonderful
stand what the experience really feels
been calling
time there. I sought out the Jewish
like," says Rabb, 32, whose parents died
Community Center on campus. I tried to
[the series]
when she was only slightly older than her
`Nancy Jew,'"
get matzah meal once, but the person
two heroines.
says the author.
working at the local grocery said he never
"Sisters overcoming their parents' death
heard of it. He told me to check the eth-
is a running theme in my work. There's a
nic section, between the salsa and the soy
combination of tragedy and humor
sauce. I think I had a sheltered childhood."
because that was what it was like for my sister and
Rabb, who attended a science high school, grew
me during the period after we had just lost our par-
ents. We had to keep our spirits up during the worst up reading Little House on the Prairie books and
wanted to try living in the Midwest. After visiting a
time in our lives."
Rabb's sibling heroines bear some similarity to the
NANCY JEW on page 43

