Nate the Great

Nate the Great is a series of more than two dozen children's detective stories written by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat. Alternatively, Nate the Great is the main character and title character of the series, a boy detective. Sharmat and illustrator Marc Simont inaugurated the series in 1972 with Nate the Great, a 60-page book published by Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, and Simont illustrated the first twenty books, to 1998. Some numbers were jointly written with Marjorie's sister Rosalind Weinman, husband Mitchell Sharmat or son Craig Sharmat, and the last six were illustrated by Martha Weston or Jody Wheeler "in the style of Marc Simont". Several of the books have been adapted as television programs, one of which won the Los Angeles International Children's Film Festival Award (Nate the Great Goes Undercover). The New York Public Library named Nate the Great Saves the King of Sweden (1997, number 19) one of its "100 Titles for Reading and Sharing".

Contents

• Nate the great and the lost list
• Series
• Olivia Sharp
• Popular culture
• References

Nate is a detective, a child version of Sherlock Holmes. He solves crimes with his dog, Sludge, introduced in the second case, Nate the Great goes Undercover (1974). Nate finds him in a field eating a stale pancake. (Both Nate and Sludge love pancakes.)

The character Nate was "inspired" by Nathan Weinman, father of Marjorie Sharmat, who had previously "featured" her mother and sister in a novel. She "named the other characters in the [first] book after" other relatives: Annie, Rosamond, and Harry after mother Anne, sister Rosalind, and uncle Harry. It was the writer's third book published, five years after her first.

Regarding the series Marjorie Sharmat calls husband Mitchell "always my first editor, and it's been a very happy collaboration". Regarding all of their writing, Mitchell Sharmat once told Something About the Author (quoted by Greenville Public Library):

In any project that either of us does, there is always some consultation and advice tossed back and forth between us ... In the case of our official collaborations, the input is equally divided. The physical work is not, however. Because I'm a poor typist and Marjorie is a good one, the burden of putting the words onto the page falls to her. We take turns suggesting ideas and lines.

There are several continuing characters beside Nate and his dog Sludge.

Rosamond is featured in the third episode, Nate the Great and the Lost List (1978). She has long black hair and a short black dress, white mary jane shoes, five black cats of different sizes, and she is frequently described as "strange". In particular, she is introduced thus in the first book: "Rosamond did not look hungry or sleepy. She looked like she always looks. Strange." That text and Simont's illustration allegedly inspired the creation of Emily the Strange.

The 2002 volume (number 22) Nate the Great, San Francisco Detective establishes that Nate the Great and the girl detective Olivia Sharp are cousins. She is the heroine of a 1989–1991 series of four books sometimes called Olivia Sharp, Agent for Secrets, written by Marjorie and Mitchell Sharmat and illustrated by Denise Brunkus.