Cherry Ames- Great Happy News!

Found this while knocking around the sillier corners of the web with my friend Mike.  Cherry Ames books were reissued, by Springer publications, in 2005 and nobody told me!!!!

Springer Publishing Company is proud to present the re-release of the Cherry Ames nursing series! The books are just as you remember them, retaining the same look, feel, and sense of adventure and patriotism as when they were first published. With fully illustrated color covers and a soft-finished hardcover format just like the originals, these books will transport you back to the days when you were reading about this spunky young nurse.

Just about died of bug-eyed, ecstatic shock!   What great news, made even greater by the fact that I’ve been oblivious for years.  Mike got to watch me be goggle-eyed and stare into middle-space,  marveling at having not known this!  I can’t believe nobody told me!!!

Admittedly, the fact that I collect Cherry Ames novels rarely comes up in conversation.  Unless I’m in a used bookstore, where I beeline for the kids’ section to check.  So, that’s not often, and very few of my friends know just how utterly thrilled I am when I find one for a good price.    See, that’s the rule- on the Internet, and at sales- I keep myself down to under $20 per book, and prefer to let them find me.  I’ve been on eBay for them, but I kind of feel like that’s… not cheating exactly, but pushing my luck.

And I don’t keep my collection on display- I’ve got ‘em in storage at my parents’ place, and honestly couldn’t tell you whether I own “Cherry Ames Clinic Nurse.”   Eek.

So imagine Mike’s surprise when I stared at his computer, as though I’d just walked in on Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny playing Scrabble with Batman.  I think the only reason I’m not bouncing up and down as I type is that I got most of that out of my system on the walk back from Mike’s.

I feel a little let down too, though.  Because— Cherry Ames novels are my personal ongoing (sometimes sporadic) treasure hunt.  And they’re… available.  Reissued.  Bright, slick covers, not the faded reddish brown I know, with fragmented dust jackets.  No lovely old-book dusty smell…  I can have a shiny new copy of Jungle Nurse for the price of lunch.

I could snap up the lot with a click of my mouse, and have a really big box arrive in a few days.  Without even paying for shipping.

But I’m not altogether sure I want to.  Part of it is the stern inner grownup laying down the law- blah blah frivolous spending, blah blah, bookshelf space, stern rational save money blah blah.

And… my joyful kid self, the one  bouncing up and down with glee, making me grin and marvel at finding the Cherry Ames books… would really, really miss the surprise, and the fun, of finding a Cherry Ames book, dusty with its history, well loved, and buried on a secondhand shelf.

What to do, what to do?