Cherry Ames

The series stars a job-hopping, mystery-solving nurse in the Nancy Drew mold, named Cherry Ames. Cherry (short for Charity) hails from Hilton, Illinois (based on Wells' hometown of Danville, Illinois), and was steered into nursing by Dr. Joseph Fortune, an old family friend. Cherry's training at the Spencer Hospital School of Nursing is chronicled in the first two books. There, she meets the classmates who become lifelong friends.

With the third book in the series Army Nurse, Cherry joins the Army Nurse Corps, and, after the war, she moves to Greenwich Village. Whenever Cherry isn't working with the Visiting Nurse Service, Dr. Joe sends her on assignments in various parts of the country. Unlike other nurses of girls' fiction, such as Sue Barton, Cherry remains unpartnered throughout her career, although an occasional beau will crop up, such as Dr. "Lex" Upham.

The books were written by Helen Wells and Julie Tatham and published in the United States by Grosset & Dunlap between 1943 and 1968. They were extensively printed in the United Kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s.[3] The books are an example of the "girls' series" genre. Girls' series books follow a girl in her late teens or early twenties, usually with an interesting job, who goes on adventures either on her own or with a small group of friends. The genre was occasionally criticized for its formulaic plots and the poor construction of the books themselves.[4] Beginning in 2005, the Cherry Ames series was licensed to the Springer Publishing Company and are currently being re-printed. In addition, a new edition of Cherry Ames, Student Nurse was released by the Palm Healthcare Foundation, Inc., through its Palm Publishing LLC subsidiary. Proceeds from the sale of the books were used to support nursing scholarships.

• Abate, Michelle Ann (2008). Tomboys: A Literary and Cultural History. Temple University Press. ISBN 978-1-59213-723-7.
• Hallam, Julia (2000). Nursing the image: media, culture, and professional identity. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-18455-X.
• Parry, Sally (1997). Sherrie, Inness (ed.). "'You are needed, desperately needed!': Cherry Ames in World War II" in Nancy Drew and Company: Culture, Gender, and Girls' Series. Popular Press 1. ISBN 0-87972-736-5.
• Pendergast, Tom and Sara (2000). "Cherry Ames" in The St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, volume 1. St. James Press. p. 491. ISBN 1558624007.

• Grosset and Dunlap
• Springer Publishing Company
• Cherry Ames public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• "Cherry Ames, My Daughter Will See You Now" The New York Times April 6, 2006
• "Cherry Ames, a Rebel With a Cause, Who Would Surely Shake Up the VA" The Huffington Post May 27, 2014