I love the comment about how amazing it would be to trade books with your former private librarian! My aunt is the room full of romance & mystery paperback lover in the family but unlike your mom she was always pushing them onto all of us -- the tamer stuff but looking back we were probably all to young to be reading them!
I think I love series regulars back to my Babysitting Club series days - it makes subcharacters far more interesting to learn bits and pieces about them until they step out into the light