In Sweden we recognize the girl detectives from the youth books as Kitty Drew, in English Nancy Drew. The previous books tell of a 16-year-old who does not attend school and lives with his father, who is an influential lawyer. Kitty is a brave mystery solver who lives both a well-ordered and exciting life.

Kitty has left her mark on popular culture and she is seen in new games, films and TV series. Birgitta Bellman runs a Kitty site and is a real Kitty fan.

- She is wise, she is stubborn, she is a superhero, says Birgitta Bellman.

Has become more handcuffed

She now reads all 500 Kitty stories and thinks she has noticed a modernization of Kitty. A change she is not entirely happy with.

- It can be a bit strange with the latest series going on in the US right now where Kitty is very independent. In the first book I read, she is surprised that there is so much information on the internet. And then you think - but you are a private detective, what happened here? From being a cool girl in the 30s, she is a bit handcuffed, says Birgitta Bellman.

The Kitty series was founded in the United States in the 1930s by the Stratemeyer syndicate who wanted to try to give a girl the lead role as a detective. The publisher hired journalist Mildred Wirt Benson, who wrote the first 23 books behind the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. In this way, she became the one who shaped Kitty's character.

Prohibited in Norway

During the 1940s, the Kitty books in Norway were banned by the Nazi occupation. Literary scholar Maria Forselius believes that the independent and tough girl detectives did not fit into the authoritarian ideology.

"At the same time, there was a debate about how to raise children in a way that did not make them so authoritative, and it was the events of the Second World War, Nazism, which was the background to that debate," she says.

Post-war thoughts about child rearing, where independence became more important, worked well with the child poets. Decker aimed at children became a book trend and Kitty was first published in Sweden in 1952 as part of that trend.