Cherry Ames

1. Cherry Ames, Student Nurse
2. Cherry Ames, Senior Nurse
3. Cherry Ames, Army Nurse
4. Cherry Ames, Chief Nurse
5. Cherry Ames, Flight Nurse
6. Cherry Ames, Veterans' Nurse
7. Cherry Ames, Private Duty Nurse
8. Cherry Ames, Visiting Nurse
9. Cherry Ames, Cruise Nurse
10. Cherry Ames at Spencer
11. Cherry Ames, Night Supervisor
12. Cherry Ames, Mountaineer Nurse
13. Cherry Ames, Clinic Nurse
14. Cherry Ames, Dude Ranch Nurse
15. Cherry Ames, Rest Home Nurse
16. Cherry Ames, Country Doctor's Nurse
17. Cherry Ames, Boarding School Nurse
18. Cherry Ames, Department Store Nurse
19. Cherry Ames, Camp Nurse
20. Cherry Ames at Hilton Hospital
21. Cherry Ames, Island Nurse
22. Cherry Ames, Rural Nurse
23. Cherry Ames, Staff Nurse
24. Cherry Ames, Companion Nurse
25. Cherry Ames, Jungle Nurse
26. The Mystery in the Doctor's Office
27. Ski Nurse Mystery

Cherry Ames, My Daughter Will See You Now

By MICHELLE SLATALLA

HOW many times does someone have to give birth to get a child who loves Cherry Ames?

In my case the answer was three.

This came as a surprise. I had loved reading about the escapades of the plucky World War II nursing heroine created by the author Helen Wells. (Were there many girls of my generation who didn't admire Cherry's crisp white uniforms, brave loyalty and rosy complexion?) And I expected my children to follow suit. I started my two older daughters on "Cherry Ames, Student Nurse" as soon as they could sound out phrases like "glowing cheeks" and "morphine as needed."

But Zoe and Ella said they would rather be doctors. So they never made it to "Cherry Ames, Senior Nurse" (No. 2 in the 27-book series) or to her harrowing stint as a wartime flight nurse. ("What's the matter?" she cried. "Radio advises enemy planes spotted. Go back and keep those men calm.") Nor were they interested in her postwar nursing assignments in private duty (No. 7), at a dude ranch (No. 14) and at a department store (No. 18).

A department store nurse? O.K., maybe Cherry was a little dated. Perhaps this explained how the remnants of my childhood obsession ended up on a low bookshelf in the basement.

There the books might even now be moldering if I had not had given childbirth another go in 1997.

"Mommy, what's a Cherry Ames?" Clementine asked me the other day while she was scouring the shelves for something to read.

An hour later I found her cross-legged on the floor, engrossed in Page 34 of No. 1, where (as many faithful readers of a certain age will remember) the bombastic Dr. Wylie mistakes for makeup the natural coloring that gave the nursing probationer her nickname: "Wipe that rouge off your face!" he ordered. All eyes turned fearfully to Cherry. ...She said faintly, "I can't wash it off, sir, it's -- "

Clementine looked up. "Cherry's so brave," she said.

Ahead of Clementine lay many, many thrilling hours of bombing raids, dashing but difficult doctors and arcane details about 1940's nursing school procedures and medical miracles. (It was from Cherry that I first learned about a breakthrough called penicillin.)

I would need to reassemble the collection of the 27 books. Since most have long been out of print (Springer Publishing last fall released a boxed set of the first four in the series and plans to republish Nos. 5 through 8 this year), the obvious solution was to hunt for used copies online.




I started the quest at BookFinder.com, a comprehensive search site with a database of more than 100 million new and used books for sale from inventories around the world. BookFinder informed me, for instance, that 213 used copies of "Cherry Ames, Army Nurse" were available at prices ranging from $4.50 ("rubbing on edges, text is unmarked") to $90 (for a first edition hardcover).

But I wanted to purchase specific memories: the editions of my childhood, with pictures of Cherry on the covers and the green spines that looked so jaunty lined up on a bookshelf. My idiosyncratic requirements guided me toward eBay, where many sellers' listings included snapshots that showed the covers of the books for sale. I bought "Army Nurse" there for $7.99 (plus $3 for shipping).

"Chief Nurse" (No. 4, a particularly thrilling volume involving the Pacific theater of operations during World War II) proved more elusive however. I pored over listings, dozens that offered the "wartime edition, red cover" (buy it now for $39.99) and a 1960 edition with "splits on dust jacket" (current bid, $2.62). But I couldn't find my green-spined prey.

After about the second hour of fruitless searching, it struck me that I was frittering away what might be considered an inordinate amount of time. Why was it so important to me to replicate for my youngest daughter, a child of the 21st century, my own memories of a decidedly 20th-century heroine?

Only one person could answer this question. Harriet Forman, the editor of Springer Publishing's new Cherry Ames editions, loved Cherry since she was a child in postwar Brooklyn, where she climbed backyard trees and spent the afternoons curled on a limb with a book. I phoned her.

"Why would I even want my daughter to read books about Cherry, a product of an era when the words 'female' and 'exciting career' were mutually exclusive for the majority of American women?" I asked.

Ms. Forman explained: "She was modern. She taught you that you could do anything. She was smart, and she was courageous, and she had a dedication to her calling. She would never, ever leave the side of her patients, even in a bombing raid."

Cherry Ames inspired Ms. Forman to become a nurse. In the early 1990's, while working in Florida for the nursing communications company Nursing Spectrum, she met Robert Wells, the brother of Cherry Ames's creator. (Ms. Wells, who wrote 21 of the 27 books in the series, had died in 1986.)

"She left the copyright for her books to him, and he said, 'What should I do with them?' " Ms. Forman said. "I said: 'Give them to me. I'll bring her back.' He did, and at that point I had a mission."

I said, "That name, Helen Wells, looked so glamorous on the book covers."

Ms. Forman said, "No. 1, she was not a nurse, but she was always very simpatico with nurses. She spent a lot of time with them when she was writing the books. She was born in the Midwest in 1910, educated at N.Y.U. and a full-time professional writer. An unusual woman, like Cherry."

Clementine finished the first book. She immediately started the second because, she said, she wanted to see if Cherry would earn her cap.

Then she looked up. "Mom?"

"Yes?"

"What's 'earn her cap' mean?"

Lucky girl. She has so much to read.

E-mail: slatalla@nytimes.com