The purpose of this document is to: briefly review all of the books in the Baby-Sitters Club series, for content and quality; identify and critique the ostensible in-universe timeline; and to provide a viable alternate timeline in which I determine what year it would be in any given book if every year of seasons which passed actually resulted in the passage of a year in the canon. I will also, as always, note any fleeting moments of homoeroticism.
| #67 Dawn's Big Move Dawn finds herself aching for California, Dad, and Jeff, and she outbursts during a day of family fun that she wants to go home. Arrangements are gradually made; Dawn can go back to California for six months out of the year. Dawn makes a pro-con list, has a last-minute change of heart, but ends up going. Subplots involve a secret goodbye party (where have we seen that before?) and a Stoneybrook vs. Lawrenceville charity game competition event thing.
The major problem with this story is that it is unmotivated. It's foreshadowed, sure, in Maid Mary Anne, but there's no more reason there than there is here given for why the sudden ache, why now. The other problem with this story is that it rehashes a lot of the same-old, same-old from other Dawn and Stacey move stories; I don't know why the girls keep flitting hither and thither. But I don't mind getting rid of Dawn for awhile.
**
Lingering Questions: How come people keep ringing the doorbell to enter their own home in this book? It happens at least twice. Richard or Sharon ring the doorbell, and then let themselves in. It's weird.
Read as a kid: If I did, I have no memory of it.
Timing: Early in the school year, probably September, of eighth grade (again!)
Revised Timeline: This is where my revised timeline basically becomes fanfic. The girls have graduated high school by now, so we have to assume that they all decided to go to college locally and continue living at home. Let's say there's a UConn Stoneybrook or something. Claudia did surprisingly well on the SAT Verbal or got an art department scholarship (ha!) or something.
Actually, this scenario has a lot to add to the question of motivation here; suppose all the girls were looking at different colleges, and Dawn was seriously weighing the option of going to college in California. She was accepted to a school there, visited, saw her old chums, her father, Jeff (who's like 15 now), saw herself living there. Then the entire rest of the BSC decided to go to college together, and she couldn't bring herself to be the only one who broke away--besides, she really did like the idea of staying with Mary Anne and the club, not having to worry about what kind of job to get, perhaps paying less tuition to go to school in-state. As the first semester starts, though, she realizes she has made the wrong choice, and she applies for transfer (or late admission) to a Cali school. Bam. Done.
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| #68 Jessi and the Bad Baby-sitter The BSC is having trouble keeping up with business as they launch a new year without Dawn, and things devolve further as Mallory develops a mysterious lingering fatigue which makes her unwilling to accept new jobs until she feels better. Jessi introduces the club to her new friend, Wendy, who's great with kids and has neighborhood babysitting experience. She seems perfect, and does well on her test job. However, Jessi begins to regret her choice when Wendy earns Kristy's wrath with her constant lateness, both to meetings and jobs. Once, she leaves Jessi alone at the Pikes' when a better job comes up. Friction also results from her unwillingness to turn over her previous regular clients to the club. She quits after a few weeks, stating that the club has too many rules, and Kristy is relieved that she doesn't have to fire her. Shannon swoops in at the last moment with a sudden gap in her schedule for a few months, allowing her to become a regular member until Dawn's return.
I like that this book doesn't villainize Wendy; she and Jessi stay friends even after she quits, and really, she isn't a bad baby-sitter. She just has understandable irreconcilable differences with the club. It would have been nice to see more of this main plot, which doesn't really get off the ground for about 100 pages, and less description of the complicated kid plot of a video the Barretts and other neighborhood children make for Dawn.
***
Lingering Questions: Why is the club so averse to taking on a new permament replacement for Dawn? Kristy simply states that "Seven main members is plenty. Eight would be too many," but she doesn't say why. It seems like they have plenty of work to go around, and they're more in danger of overextending themselves than of not getting enough hours. Is there not enough space in Claudia's room? Even if they didn't want a permanent replacement, surely it would be easier, not harder, to find a temp. Club membership is a big commitment, but I can see plenty of kids willing to put in the effort for a few months, bank some cash, and bail in favor of sports or general bumming around when the weather gets nice.
Slash Watch: "I think Wendy has a really pretty face," Jessi asserts before describing her.
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: Fall of eighth grade (sixth for Jessi/Mal/Wendy), before Halloween; probably late September or early October.
Revised Timeline: I guess it would work a little better for my college theory if one of the older girls were making a new friend right now, but high school juniors can make friends just as easily as anyone else, I suppose.
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| #69 Get Well Soon, Mallory! Mallory comes down with mono. Her recovery is slow, and the doctor recommends that she stay in bed for several weeks and that, after that, she should only go to school and come back for several months--no extra activities, like the Baby-Sitters Club. Meanwhile, the club is planning a special Thanksgiving party for children and nursing home residents. Jessi comes up with a list of tasks Mallory can do to help without getting up from her bed, but, for a couple of chapters in the middle, Mallory has decided that the club will be better off if they kick her out and replace her than if they try to be nice and let her stay in the club as an "honorary member," so she refuses to help them. (Mallory always seems to have complex feelings about duty and worthiness as a club member--remember when she wanted to be demoted because she had a story to write?) Somehow the club figures out what she is doing and tells her to knock it off. At the last minute, Mallory comes through, making calls for donations, and the club raises enough money to make gift baskets for the old people. Mallory's illness spoils a family Thanksgiving trip, but they all have a nice low-key holiday at home.
I can see how this was a tough book to put together because Mallory has to be sick the whole time, so she can't witness any of the action, and what she is doing--lying around in bed, sleeping--is not exciting to describe. The usual narrative device of opening with a club notebook entry and describing what happened on a job to another club member is useful, as are several visits which Mallory gets from club members (and her brothers and sisters explain to her what happened at the Thanksgiving party). The Thanksgiving project is sickeningly wholesome but nice. The best lesson that comes out of this book is that being sick really is no fun, especially when it's for such a long time. I like the descriptions of Mallory being simultaneously bored and too tired to do anything, and hating her pajamas.
***
Lingering Question: Why does everyone seem to think the club has to make a choice between letting Mallory remain an official member on the assumption that she'll be back to taking jobs in a few months, and recruiting a new member to pick up the slack? Can't they do both? They were considering taking on another permament member in the last book. Just because it didn't work out with Wendy doesn't mean it wouldn't work out with someone else. I know Kristy thinks eight members is too many, and all, but with people moving back and forth and getting sick and getting well, it seems like they can cross the eight-member bridge when and if they actually come to it. Maybe they could start rotating people out. I know if I'd been a regular BSC member for over six years, I'd be willing to step down to associate for a month or two and catch my breath.
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: Covers October 30th thru the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Revised Timeline: November of junior year of high school for Mallory. Mid-first semester of college for the older girls.
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| #70 Stacey and the Cheerleaders On a mediocre date with a basketball player named RJ, Stacey meets a bunch of his teammates, including the dreamy Robert, who likes to talk about how unfair it is that basketball players get unfair treatment not that he does anything about it. As Stacey and Robert begin dating, Nice Cheerleader Sheila encourages Stacey to try out for the squad. With Jessi's training, Stacey comes up with totally the best routine ever you guys, no question hands down she should have aced the tryout. But another girl gets the spot. Mean Cheerleader Corinne tells Stacey that she was TOO good and TOO pretty and TOO talented and would have made the rest of the squad look bad! (!) In protest of this an other abuses, Robert quits the basketball team. The last chapter has Stacey turning down a second chance at the squad, helping set up an investigative committee to look into team abuses (RUINING THE BASKETBALL TEAM), and co-penning a self-congratulatory school newspaper editorial with Robert.
Meanwhile, Shannon's sister Tiffany tries different extracurriculars looking for something to beat her sisters with, and only finds happiness when she chooses a hobby--gardening--which she actually likes for its own sake.
Overall, this book is a huge Mary Sue fantasy. Stacey isn't so perfect and wonderful in other books, is she? I know she's smart, sophisticated, pretty, good at math, good at school in general, but she's always managed to seem flawed and humble and funny. In this book, she sort of comes off as conceited, but only because her correct assessment of herself is so unbelievably positive.
The story seems to be trying to make two points: (1) The sports people are corrupt, and (2) Stacey was trying out for the cheerleading squad for the wrong reasons. (This is stated at the end, when she turns down her chance, and it's backed up by the Tiffany subplot.) These points manage to muddy each other in this story, even though they could easily go together quite well. Suppose Stacey made the team, even though she wasn't the best, because the cheerleaders liked her and gave her preferential treatment. Ultimately, she would look noble for turning down the spot, instead of whiny for protesting that she didn't get it. But that would require the writer to admit early on in the book that Stacey wasn't good at something, and that is just unacceptable.
*
Lingering Questions: One of the measures instituted at the end to help combat the basketball players' grade inflation is instituting a minimum grade needed to play. Wouldn't that have precisely the opposite of the intended effect?
Slash Watch: Fellow cheerleader Sheila (notably boyfriendless) remarks when she finds out that Robert is dating Stacey, "I don't blame him. He has good taste."
Read as a kid: No, but I did read it in the period after I started getting into them again when I was in college and before I started collecting them again. My sister-in-law, the aforementioned Candy, owned this one.
Timing: Snow on the ground.
Revised Timeline: Freshman year is a time for new boyfriends and new interests in new school clubs. Even though cheerleading and sports teams are often thought of as high school phenomena, they certainly exist in college and it makes sense that a new interest in sports might be fostered in a student coming to a college with a good basketball team. Also, second semester freshman year is when you really start getting full of yourself.
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| #71 Claudia and the Perfect Boy Claudia wants a boyfriend, but since the newspaper personals are all full of grown-ups, Stacey encourages her to pitch a personals column idea to the school paper. They love it, and Claudia quickly ends up running the most popular column in the paper, which expands to include a section where Claudia pairs up ads from past columns and advises the placers to contact each other, which is totally what you always want to do with personals. Claudia gets a few blind dates out of it, but none of them are quite what she wants. In the end, she's a little disappointed that she didn't find true love, but she now enjoys working on the column for its own sake.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Barrett places ads to find a good home for their dog, Pow, since Marnie has developed an allergy. The subplot deals with Buddy and Suzi's resentment of their little sister and ends happily when the Pikes just down the street convince their parents they can take care of Pow.
***
Lingering Questions: Claudia offhandly mentions how Mary Anne went to a therapist earlier this year when she was having some problems. WHEN WAS THIS AND WHY HAVEN'T I READ IT?
Methodology Nitpick: Claudia doesn't think about how she's going to handle the responses to the ads, and the newspaper editor doesn't want to deal with it at all so she just has the students publish their actual addresses and phone numbers RIGHT IN THE PAPER. WHAT. There's a reason no real personals column does that, and in a middle school setting, it's even worse! It destroys any semblance of anonymity from the codenames, and it allows doofuses free access to all the prank call opportunities they want. Here's how to do it, kids: print instructions in each column telling ad-placers to provide real contact info which won't be printed, just for Claudia, and telling ad-readers to place all response letters in the ad submissions box, clearly marked on the outside with the pseud of the ad-placer and the date of the issue in which it appeared; advise respondents to include their real name and contact info in their letter if they want to start a correspondence; have Claudia give each ad placer all the responses to their letter without reading them. DONE.
Sign of the Times: The book is full of charming details about putting together a school paper before layout software. Xacto knives are involved. Claudia does use a computer to write her column, and it's the first time she's used one; it seems to be a DOS machine, as she talks about having to learn commands. She loves the spellchecker even though it must be a pretty bad one.
Slash Watch: In the climactic conflict, Claudia searches desperately for the writer of a pair of unsigned responses to her ad, a guy who sounds totally perfect and already seems to admire her. Finally, seeing that the guy's unattainability is driving Claudia crazy, Stacey confesses that she needs to "set things straight": she wrote the letters, hoping to make Claudia feel better that SOMEONE IS OUT THERE FOR HER. Yes... someone right in front of her.
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: During the school year.
Revised Timeline: Again, freshman year is a good time to randomly get involved in campus activities, and it's more likely that a college would have a professionally-run weekly, and that they would consider a personals column to be appropriate for their demographic. Freshman year is also a classic time to take stock of one's love life and decide that one needs to make a boyfriend stat. And/or experiment with lesbianism.
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| #72 Dawn and the We ♥ Kids Club In California, Dawn's a member of the We ♥ Kids Club, founded by Dawn's friend Sunny based on the descriptions Dawn sent her of the Baby-sitters Club, but run more casually, with fewer rules. This is perfect for Dawn and her laid-back friends, but when a local paper does a human interest article on the club, followed closely by a local news station spot, the club gets more attention and more work than they know what to do with. Dawn takes over and insists on instituting more strict BSC-style structure. Meanwhile in Stoneybrook, there's a minor subplot about Kristy being jealous that a cheap BSC knockoff was "discovered" before the original, and on the home front, Dawn gets bratty when her father announces his engagement to Carol, a girlfriend Dawn dislikes. Right in the middle of the We ♥ Kids Club fiasco (when they need her most!), Dawn steals her father's credit card, buys a plane ticket, takes a cab to the airport, and flies to Stoneybrook.
You may wish to reread that last sentence. I was sure it was going to be dream sequence, but it wasn't! This actually happens! From here on, the book is hijacked by this plotline--Dawn having to go back, and apologize to everyone, and promise to pay back both plane tickets out of future babysitting money, and learn an Important Lesson about Dealing With Problems Instead of Running Away From Them, while the We ♥ Kids Club's problem is never realy dealt with in a satisfying way.
This isn't one of the ones I read as a kid, so I only have my adult reaction to go with, but: what? I mean, besides the fact that you're reading along and you think the book will be about one storyline and then it switches to another, I'm just so shocked and appalled by Dawn's behavior here. I mean, it's impressive, in a way--I didn't think Dawn had it in her to be so, well, effective, I guess? To actually do things? And it required some bravery, which seems OOC for her, but of course it's all in the service of running away. I really don't understand Dawn at all. The person I sympathize with here is her mother, who of course lectures her when she touches down--she was reckless, selfish, she could have been hurt, what was she thinking, etc.--and must be thinking in her head, "Oh my god, I've birthed a bad seed."
**
Read as a kid: Yes? No? I think so?
Lingering Questions: The way the We ♥ Kids Club is run doesn't seem to make sense. They don't have specific meeting times (they just meet whenever they feel like), and yet, at a meeting, they appear to take job calls. How do people know when to call? It's true that all of their phone numbers are written on the flyer, not a specific headquarters number, so it could just be that someone happened to call for Sunny during a meeting at Sunny's house, for example, but it seems then that holding meetings would just be inconvenient for the clients, since so many of the girls wouldn't be home during the meeting. Also, how exactly does this club solve the original problem that the BSC was intended to solve, that is, parents need to call around to all different places before they find a sitter? W♥KL doesn't offer the "one call, several sitters" solution.
(Of course, I've always thought the way the BSC is run is sort of problematic too; it must be awkward for the clients to have to call during a tiny half-hour window, especially one during rush hour. I've always felt they need a more routine way to deal with non-meeting calls. Actually, they could do away with meetings altogether, except for check-in/scheduling/new business purposes as desired, if Claudia just got an answering machine. But this is neither here nor there.)
Interesting Orthographical Convention: Whenever "We ♥ Kids Club" is written down or described in internal monologue, the ♥ is rendered as a small heart symbol. When it's spoken aloud, the word "love" is written out: "We Love Kids Club."
Timing: During the school year. Cold weather in Stoneybrook.
Revised Timeline: If Dawn is an 18-year-old freshman in college, we can pretend she used her own credit card to come home impulsively. "I'll just transfer back!" she would have told her mom. "It will be no problem!" Then her mom would have had to lay on the tough love and say something along the lines of, "Well, of course, you're an adult and you can do what you want, but if you don't do things the right way, finish out the semester you started, make your school arrangements before you go off into debt taking all kinds of plane trips--which, by the way, I'm not going to reimburse you for--then you can find your own place to live, because you can't live here." And Dawn would pout and go back home. And still throw mini-tantrums about her dad's girlfriend, because sometimes freshmen regress.
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| #73 Mary Anne and Miss Priss When Jenny becomes more than usually concerned about keeping her clothes neat and perfect, and begins washing her hands several times per baby-sitting session, Mary Anne asks her father what could be wrong, and receives the same amateur diagnosis I reached of OCD. Before Mary Anne can figure out how to suggest this to the Prezziosos, Jenny does and about-face and becomes interested in messy activities. Mary Anne realizes that she is trying to get her parents' attention and compete with her baby sister Andrea, who is receiving minor fame as a perfect infant model for photo shoots and commercials. The plot turns to showbiz as Mary Anne helps Jenny work on her own modeling; Jenny lands a job and does well, but decides after getting a taste of the work that she'd rather be a normal kid. She joins the Pike triplets' neighborhood kickball team.
This is one of the rare cases where I prefer the subplot to the main plot, perhaps because both (rather than just the subplot) are baby-sitting related. Byron, Adam, and Jordan's efforts to assert themselves as leaders in their own right, and not the baby-sat, are understandable considering they're only a little younger than Mallory, and despite some road bumps, they turn out to be quite good at working with younger children, sharing power, and being fair to everyone.
It would have been more interesting if Jenny had OCD.
**
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: Um, kickball season. Uh... Spring? I don't know from sports.
Revised Timeline: Probably we can assume that Mary Anne came to her own OCD conclusion after a particularly enlightening session of Intro Psych. I'm already mentally adding a scene where Mary Anne armchair diagnoses all of the BSC members with their particular DSM conditions: Claudia--ADHD; Kristy--gender dysphoria; Stacey--narcisstic personality disorder; Dawn--sociopath.
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| #74 Kristy and Copycat This is another one of the books where the title refers to what is, at best, a B-plot. Karen's desire to be and act like she's thirteen takes an extreme backseat to the main plot where Kristy, longing to play and be coached rather than coach softball, tries out for and makes the girls' softball team. (In an amusing subplot, Stacey and Claudia bumblingly take over Krusher coaching duty.) The existing softball team members order Kristy and the other new girls to spraypaint an old shed as "initiation." Kristy resists, her resolve is shaken when her teammates refuse to work with her, making her look like a bad player in front of the coach. Refusing a post-spraypainting cigarette, Kristy goes home to bed, only to wake up to the news that the shed has burn down and a man who attempted to contain the fire is in the hospital in critical condition. Milestone, everyone: the closest a BSC member has ever come to MURDER. (The man doesn't die, but it's touch and go for awhile.)
Tense guilt and angst mounts. The rest of the team inform the haze-ees that they will deny knowledge of their actions should the truth come out. The administration blames the boys' softball team, including Logan, and prepares to disband them. Kristy snaps at Karen for looking up to her too much (doesn't she realize Kristy is a rogue and peasant slave?) Finally, she tells the Baby-Sitters Club, who are shocked but understanding. Kristy resolves to confess in the morning. Then, a deus ex machina saves her; some other kids confess to the arson; it wasn't her group after all; because heaven forbid Kristy be prevented from playing on the softball team, which will be SO IMPORTANT and come up SO OFTEN in future books. Kristy and her fellow haze-ees agree not to confess since it wouldn't help anything, which is the only smart decision they make all book, but they resolve never to be peer pressured again. Good luck with that.
This is a freaking weird entry in the BSC oeuvre.
***
Dumb Statement of the Book: "Why don't we just confess? I mean, who knows what kind of evidence they have?"
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: Beginning of softball season. Spring? Again, sports, not my forte.
Revised Timeline: Hazing is a classic college conflict, and it makes more sense that Kristy-the-freshman would be put in the position of feeling pressured by older girls than Kristy-the-member-of-the-oldest-grade-in-the-school. It seems reasonable that Kristy would be prompted to join sports by the serious, professional, collegiate level of teaching and playing, although, since she didn't play in high school, I'm not sure how realistic it is that she would even make the team. (Maybe the previous team was disbanded as a result of a hazing scandal.) As previously noted, freshman year is a time for trying new things and joining new clubs. And for higher stakes, like MURDER! Just ask Leopold and Loeb.
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| #75 Jessi's Horrible Prank Jessi feels bad for Mr. Trout, the nervous, awkward, nerdy, conflict-avoidant teacher of her short-term computer science class, but when the whole class pulls pranks--like everyone dropping their books on the floor at the same time--she doesn't feel strongly or strong enough to oppose them. Though uncomfortable, she's talked into playing Mr. Trout for the "Sixth Grade Follies," a sketch-comedy/talent show which includes playful fun-poking at the teachers. Mr. Trout disappears the next day, leaving Jessi to freak out that she drove him away. Her feelings are assuaged when some BSC charges inspired by Becca's account of the follies perform the "BSC Follies," a skit about the baby-sitters, and she realizes it's much more fun to be spoofed than left out. She also writes an apology letter which Mr. Trout answers, assuring her it wasn't her, he's just not cut out to be a teacher and he's going back to grad school.
This is one of the harder books to read; it's not bad, but Mr. Trout's failure to stand up for himself and keep discipline in the class really makes me as uncomfortable as it makes Jessi.
***
Lingering Questions: Why was Jessi cast to play a white male teacher of whom she had never hitherto performed an impression? The guy had a speech impediment; surely someone in the class had a spot-on mockery up their sleeve.
Signs of the Times: BASIC programming; Wayne's World; Coneheads.
Signs of the Times of the Grown-ups Writing the Book: Dolly Parton; I Love Lucy (this is at least the second time in this series someone has done the "Vitameatavegamin" sketch for a talent show. ENOUGH.)
Read as a kid: Yes! I definitely did. This was one of the newfangled "ones just coming out" which I ordered from the TROLL catalogue.
Timing: Springtime, near the end of the schoolyear.
Revised Timeline: Spring of junior year high school for Jessi and Mallory. Spring of freshman college for the others. If the "Short Takes" program had been introduced by one of the older girls, I'd swear it was code for college classes, but I guess we'll have to take Jessi at her word that it's just a rotating class with a variety of topics far broader than the normal school options.
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| Special Edition Readers' Request: Shannon's Story Shannon is annoyed with her mother's constant criticism, and when her mother volunteers to chaperone Shannon's French class trip to Paris, so Shannon fails French so she won't have to go. While holding down the fort in her mother's absence, Shannon realizes how boring it must be to be a housewife, and that's why her mom is always pestering her. A subplot has the BSC planning various kids' events for Mother's Day, including a post-Mother's Day moms-vs.-kids softball game.
Like Logan, Shannon has a distinctive voice that is clearly separate from the other baby-sitters. She uses more big, pretentious words and phrases. The pacing is also quite different--slower, more subtle. A lot of repetition and minor, character-building events. It's the Mad Men of Baby-sitters Club, by which I mean it's old-fashioned, concerns the stultifying effect of suburbia and excess success, possibly better than any of the other crap that's out there, and dead boring.
**
Read as a kid: Yes.
Timing: Just before Mother's Day through mid-June (after school lets out).
Revised Timeline: End of freshman year and that summer. Actually, this makes a huge amount of sense--coming back from school, Shannon's mother would likely go into refilled-nest-overdrive, and Shannon would be extra sensitive to the constriction of the freedom she'd grown accustomed to and to having her mother THERE all the time. I'm not sure how the timing would work such that she would be able to fail her class in time to skip out of the trip, though. Maybe we can pretend there's a special entry exam for the trip, like in that one Nancy Drew book.
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| #76 Stacey's Lie Stacey's bummed out because her boyfriend, Robert, is going to be working on the ferry between Long Island and Fire Island all summer; when her father offers to take her and a friend anywhere she wants for a two-week vacation, she naturally chooses Fire Island. She doesn't tell her father the real reason; nor does she tell Claudia that Robert will be there, fearing she won't come along. Claudia finds out quickly, and gets used to amusing herself while Stacey hangs out with Robert, but she's not happy about it. The fight blows up on Fourth of July when several of the other baby-sitters come stay for the weekend. Claudia leaves with them. Stacey also discovers that her father's girlfriend has come to Fire Island too and is staying in a neighboring cottage; her father didn't want her to know he was spending quality time with his girlfriend as well as his daughter.
There is some decent emotional/family development in this with Stacey realizing she is just like her father--she would rather tell an easy lie than have a difficult conversation or tell someone she loves something they don't want to hear, a contributing factor in the divorce according to her mother--but it all comes out so matter-of-factly in conversation early on that you don't get the enjoyment of making a surprising connection. (Besides, unlike in Stacey McGill, Super-Sitter, in which Stacey realizes she's a workaholic like her father, the lying thing isn't really an established part of her father's character.)
***
Specific Information Watch: Stacey states that she used to lives at 89 Elm and used to live at 612 Fawcett Avenue. Someone has been infodumping from the "Guide to Stoneybrook."
Interesting Orthographical Convention: "Cheetos" is spelled with a bullet point, "Chee•tos." I have no proof of this, but I believe in other books it is simply spelled "Cheetos."
Lingering Questions: When Kristy request treasury money for a new club notebook, Stacey "[digs] into the envelope and [comes] up with a five dollar bill." Why is there a five dollar bill in the treasure if their dues are two dollars per club member per week? It should all be in singles.
Slash Watch: Stacey's dad is absent for most of the narrative (spending time, unbeknownst to us, with his girlfriend), generally giving the excuse that he spending time with his friend Stu Majors. Once when Stacey and Claudia come back to the house to find "a note from Dad saying he'd gone out to dinner with Mr. Majors," Claudia comments, "He sure loves Mr. Majors."
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: June/July
Revised Timeline: Summer between freshman and sophomore years of college.
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| #77 Dawn and Whitney, Friends Forever Dawn gets a long-term baby-sitting job for Whitney, a twelve-year-old girl with Down's syndrome, who doesn't realize her "new friend" is being paid to be with her. Predictably, this blows up in Dawn's and Whitney's parents faces. Whitney kidnaps Dawn's baby-sitting charges and cares for them herself, proving she can be responsible, sort of.
The treatment of Down's syndrome has the typical BSC early-90s combination of earnest, well-meaning educatorlyness and vaguely uncomfortable descriptive language. Dawn keeps describing her as "expressionless."
Meanwhile, Dawn's father introduces one woman after another to his kids, until Dawn explodes in a fire of self-righteous judgmentalness--or, rather, begs him to take Carol back. Which he does. Because he has no personality.
**
Continuity Error: Dawn's father's date refers to him as "Richard," confusingly (although Carol later correctly identifies him as "Jack.")
Read as a kid: Yes. I remember getting it shiny and new toward the end of my interest in BSC. Pretty much the only thing I remember about reading it the first time is that Whitney's room is decorated in peach and lime green. The fact would have had zero impact on me reading it as an adult.
Timing: Summer in California.
Revised Timeline: Summer between freshman and sophomore years of college.
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Mystery #16 Claudia and the Clue in the Photograph
Mystery: Who stole money from the bank?
Solution: Someone in Claudia's photos.
Claudia becomes enamored of photography during a summer class, and suggests a kids' project of making a photo book for Dawn. While photographing for the book, Claudia ends up taking a lot of pictures of the bank during what turns out to be the time a robbery was taking place. Claudia and the other BSC members study the photos and follow up clues to identify the killer in what is actually a pretty clever solution. The book is full of fun descriptions of how to develop photographs that I don't entirely understand--I love lengthy descriptions of things that the author evidently understands and which I don't--and the moment when Claudia decides to take photos of her enlarged photos in order to create superenlarged insets ranks right up there, for me, with the moment Nancy Drew overlays the tracings of the maps in Clue of the Black Keys.
*****
Sign of the Times: Disposable cameras are described as "those new disposable cameras."
Slash Watch: Claudia and Stacey annoy Kristy at the start of a meeting by dancing and singing love songs, and then, during the meeting, by grinning at each other and silently mouthing the words to a song called "Your Sweet Kiss."
Read as a kid: Yes! One of two mysteries I actually got. I was wary of all the mysteries, so much so that I didn't get most of them, even though the only two I owned (this and The Mystery at Claudia's House) were among my favorite BSC books of all time.
Timing: Summer.
Revised Timeline: Summer between freshman and sophomore years of college. Claudia's deal with her parents--that she gets to take one summer class she wants as long as she also retakes math--seems to make a whole lot more sense if she's in college.
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| Super Special #11: The Baby-sitters Remember
At a sleepover, the BSC girls discuss the lame SMS-wide "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" assignment, and Jessi asks, "What is your most vivid memory?" Each sitter then gets 1-3 chapters (in a row, unlike other Super Specials) to tell the story of their most vivid memory. While I'm not sure "most vivid memory" is something people have (wouldn't it just be, like, yesterday?), the conceit gives the narrators an excuse to describe a sometimes-old memory in careful detail; and it allows a nice variety of memories in age, detail, and degree to which it is related to baby-sitting.
Kristy tells the story of her first baby-sitting job, taking care of David Michael after school when she was ten and he was four. She was careful to make sure everything went right, sure that if she did the slightest wrong thing, her mother would never trust her again. It's a charming conflictless story.
Stacey remembers optimistically starting sixth grade and setting up a sleepover with old and new friends. She wets the bed, alienating her friends, and prompting her mother to set up a meeting with a child psychologist who refers her to a doctor who diagnoses her with diabetes. The story gets a little summarize-y here, but actually, it's kind of neat how it takes a sudden turn from moment-by-moment inter-girl drama to widely summarized medical issues, very unexpected if you (for some reason) didn't predict what was going to happen.
Jessi remembers when Squirt was born, when she was nine back in Oakley, NJ. She and Becca didn't want a baby in the house to begin with, and when Squirt came home, he was colicky, and screamed all the time. But when Jessi discovered she could quiet him down by rocking and singing to him, she began to adore him.
Claudia recalls her first homework in first grade--drawing a self-portrait for art class. She worked hard on a drawing of a beautiful butterfly, but everyone else submits a literal drawing of themselves, and Claudia's by-the-book art teacher yelled at her for not following directions. When Mimi hears about this, she gives the art teacher a gentle but firm talking-to, interpreting the metaphor for her. Claudia feels it was all worth it to see that Mimi understood. This is probably my favorite story in the book, neat and simple, and relatable--I mean, first grade art class IS like that.
Logan basically re-tells the first half of Logan Likes Mary Anne from his point of view. It's a neat concept, and (amazingly, for this series) jibes perfectly with the other book while still being different enough to interestingly distinguish the details Logan vs. Mary Anne found important. Logan's voice is fresh and funny as ever, and his story is immediately marked as the funniest in the book with some choice one-liners describing his family's drive from Louisville to Stoneybrook.
Dawn completes the hat trick of "things that happened just before I moved to Stoneybrook and met those wonderful baby-sitters" stories (although I guess Logan's was mostly what happened after). She discusses the tense months of her parents' marital breakdown. This is the most summarize-y story of all; Dawn doesn't seem to interpret the word "memory" as narrowly as the others do. It is kind of interesting to see the adults keep slipping up and ALMOST saying they're sexually incompatible, something I definitely didn't pick up on as a kid.
Mallory remembers a time last year when she wrote to, and subsequently went to a signing for, her favorite author. She planned on making a good impression, chatting with the writer, but when she got to the front of the signing line, she was so starstruck she burst into tears. I wonder if this is based on something the writer experienced from the other side.
Shannon has another fairly recent memory; shortly before Kristy moved to her neighborhood, it seems there was another new girl who went through her group of friends one by one, picking one girl to be her super-best-friend and then dropping her. Shannon almost fell briefly under her pall, but then decided studying was more important. The lesbian undertones are nice, here, but the lack of anything actually happening in this story is a drawback. I mean, I'm all for stories with no conflict (like Kristy's), but Shannon's seems to have feelings of conflict for no actual reason.
Mary Anne describes a slumber party she had for Kristy and Claudia when they were eight. Mary Anne didn't like all the old-lady baby-sitters her father hired, but the sitter in charge that night turned out to have a sense of humor, and a small-scale prank war reigned between the adult and children.
The backstories provide a welcome change from the normal BSC fare, and it's neat to finally have an excuse to move back and forth in the timeline, as if we're not in a frozen-time world. (Although it does require some careful vagueness not to draw attention to the fact that the currently ending summer vacation separates eighth grade and eighth grade.)
*****
Read as a kid: I adored this one as a kid, I have to say. I had the gold-plated one dotted with embossed signatures (subsequent printings, including the one I had now, were just yellow with the signatures printed in orange), and I read it so much that the spine creased and all the gold flaked off, leaving the silver backing. Particular favorites were Claudia's, Logan's, and Mary Anne's stories, and on re-reading I think those are indeed the best ones. Unless I'm just biased.
Timing: End of summer vacation.
Revised Timeline: End of break between freshman and sophomore years of college. I think for the most part, we can assume these memories took place at the times and ages given in the book, and just that they are for the most part less recent than claimed.
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| #78 Claudia and Crazy Peaches Claudia's famed aunt and uncle, Peaches and Russ, move in with the Kishis for a month while their house is being renovated. Peaches is pregnant. She and Claudia have some fun hijinks together, but Peaches gets her in trouble by distracting her from her homework and keeping her out until 1 in the morning. Shortly after Claudia and Peaches fight, Peaches loses the baby, because whenever Claudia fights with a member of her family, something horrible happens to them. A stupid subplot involves the Baby-sitters campaigning to help a little girl nobody likes make friends; horrifyingly, it works.
I was spoiled for this, so Peaches's miscarriage didn't come as a surprise; it was foreshadowed and/or jinxed only by Peaches's excitement about buying a lot of baby stuff, which as we all know, you should never do until the baby is born. (As we all learned in Dan Savage's The Kid, anything you need for the first few days you can buy on the way home from the hospital. Except a carseat, they won't let you take the baby home without one.) It's a pretty weighty topic and a good one, I think, for this series to address, what with all the emphasis on children and family. Frustratingly, the story never quite brings together Peaches's happy-go-lucky personality and the gravity of her loss, even though all it would take would be a chapter or two showing how those things interact. (Does she get more depressed than normal, because her worldview doesn't allow for grief? Less, because she's so resilient? Show us!)
***
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: No specific temporal markers; school's in.
Revised Timeline: Fall of sophomore year.
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| #79 Mary Anne Breaks the Rules I have to warn you right off the top that Mary Anne doesn't break the rules in any kind of satisfying way in this book. Not only does she not break the spirit of any rule, she also doesn't break the letter, because there isn't one, not until Mary Anne appears to transgress, which--okay, let me start from the beginning.
Mary Anne becomes concerned about Jake Kuhn, who's unhappy that his father has moved to Texas. She asks Logan to come play sports and have guy time with him, which he does; both Jake and Logan enjoy this, and for several baby-sitting sessions, everything is idyllic. Then one day Mrs. Kuhn comes home early and finds Logan there. The sexual subtext of just what entertaining your boyfriend entails and why this is so much worse than inviting over any other BSC member is never quite addressed, but I guess we're supposed to assume that Mrs. Kuhn thought there was hanky panky going on, or the extreme reactions (both hers and the rest of the BSC's later) don't make sense. Logan bails, figuring his presence is unhelpful, and Mary Anne is too wimpy to provide the innocent explanation, so Mrs. Kuhn yells at Mary Anne and Mary Anne is weepy and broods over her non-conflict and gets yelled at by Kristy later and boo hoo hoo until several days later when, thanks to no action on Mary Anne's part, Mrs. Kuhn comes over and apologizes, saying Jake explained everything and he misses Logan.
This book would have been improved by some slightest shadow of less-than-pure motives on Mary Anne's part--perhaps she could have really enjoyed having Logan around, playing house; perhaps they could have actually kissed in front of the kids once or twice--but really, more content of any kind would have helped. The normal format of a Baby-sitters Club book, if you don't know, is this:
Chapter 1 - Set-up, introduction to the main character and the aspect(s) of her life that will dominate this story.
Chapter 2 - Introduction to the rest of the BSC, usually at a meeting, and how the club works.
Chapter 3-13 - Plot events and increasing tension interspersed with one-off or B-plot baby-sitting chapters.
Chapter 14 - Climax.
Chapter 15 - Resolution/conclusion.
This book resolves the plot unprecedentedly early in chapter 11, leaving us four full chapters to lavish on the B-plot where neighborhood boys and girls are creating competing haunted houses for Halloween.
**
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: Halloween
Revised Timeline: Halloween of sophomore year of college. Incidentally, Logan and Mary Anne got together around Halloween (yes, yes, by the "real" timeline, of this same year), making this their six-year anniversary (not counting the few months they were broken up).
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| Super Special #12: Here Come the Bridesmaids In what Kristy christens an "east-west marriage fest," Dawn's father in California and Mrs. Barrett in Stoneybrook are both getting married. Mrs. Barrett asks Stacey to be a bridesmaid (why? she's clearly closest to Dawn, who admittedly is not there, but still) and Mallory and Shannon get the job of taking care of her kids during the ceremony. Meanwhile, Mary Anne, Kristy, and Claudia fly to California, where Dawn assures Mary Anne she will be a bridesmaid (forgetting to consult her father); Claudia helps fetch and carry and do wedding tasks to pay off her plane ticket; and Kristy helps whip the We ♥ Kids Club into shape and organize a farewell party for Dawn, who is returning to Stoneybrook for good on Christmas. In a sprinkling of seasonal subplots, Jessi is a department store Santa, Mallory feels bad for taking the wedding job instead of going caroling with Ben, and Suzi Barrett is worried Santa won't find her at her new house.
One of the more disparately connected and uninteresting Super Specials, as nobody's plot is particularly useful or dramatic, and I am sick to death of BSC weddings. It was good in Kristy's Big Day, but that doesn't mean it will continue to be good. Dawn is not particularly loathesome but that is only because she doesn't do much. Jeff's chapters are best of all (he's such a little grump).
**
Highlights: Kristy IDs the central problems of the We ♥ Kids Club; when his dad opens an unattractive wedding gift, a clown lamp, Jeff comments, "Dad looked as if the clown were made of buggers." That is one salacious lamp.
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: December, including Christmas.
Revised Timeline: Winter break of sophomore year college.
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| #81 Kristy and Mr. Mom Watson has a heart attack and makes some life changes, shifting from a big company president to a part-time work-from-home figurehead. He takes over so many of the housekeeping duties that Kristy's grandmother, Nannie, decides she's not needed anymore and moves out, much to everyone's dismay. But then she comes back for a big happy reuniting family-appreciating gooey conclusion.
In the baby-sitting subplot, Mrs. Marshall makes a habit of letting her friend drop her several young children off with the baby-sitter, leaving the BSC members the choice of getting frazzled or calling in a second sitter for reinforcements. Mrs. Marshall is upset when additional sitters are called in and refuses to pay them. Kristy finally straightens things out with a frank talk. She decides the club needs to make their rules (maximum kids per sitter, etc.) official and send out a mailer for their regulars so everything is clear. (We don't get to see the document, but you can just ask me what it probably says. I've spent a lot of time on public transit mentally writing brochures for the BSC.)
The main problem with this book is that it tries to cover too much ground; it reads like a summary. The subplot is well done, and each individual part of the main plot is pretty good, but they're all rushed through: first the worry when Watson is in the hospital, okay now we're in recovery time, okay wait now it's about Nannie? And Kristy doesn't have much to do. She's basically just a witness, which from a character standpoint isn't that interesting. It is nice to see, though, how much her big, blended family has gelled since the beginning of the series. They all love each other so darn much.
***
Nicest Moment: When she frantically calls 911, Kristy refers to Watson as "my father."
Timing: Winter (snow).
Read as a kid: Yes! This is another one I ordered from the TROLL catalogue and it was so late in my collection of BSC books that I have no memory of this looking anything but shiny and unread. (Although I did read it at least once.)
Revised Timeline: January of sophomore year of college. Kristy's at home a lot here, but that doesn't affect the college analysis. She might be living at home (even though her family has a lot of money, they also have a big house), or she have moved back or simply decided to stay there most of the time to help out while Watson is sick.
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| #82 Jessi and the Troublemaker The BSC begins sitting for leukemia survivor Danielle Roberts, who's back in school and feeling better than ever. She's feeling so good that she's full of energy and ideas and seems to be hurrying to make up for lost mischief-making time. Her stunts--sledding down the basement steps on a mattress and trying to make a diving pool in the standing shower are highlights--grow increasingly dangerous until she accidentally injures Vanessa Pike while attempting to drive a car. Finally, both BSC and Roberts parents agree it's time to start reining in Danielle and stop giving her special treatment because she was sick so long.
Meanwhile, Stacey has been showing up late to meetings and calling for last-minute replacements at last minute, and we never quite find out what's up with her, but she does step in in a blaze of responsible, pro-friend-togetherness glory at the end, convincing Danielle's friends to reconcile with her after the accident.
In a stupid subplot, Jessi and Becca overhear Aunt Cecelia discussing weddings and jump to the conclusion that she's getting secret married. Of course, she is just going to be in someone else's wedding.
***
Read as a kid: Yes.
Timing: Winter (snow on the ground).
Revised Timeline: February of Jessi's senior year of high school.
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| #83 Stacey vs the BSC Stacey finds herself with less and less time and inclination to hang out with the BSC as she enjoys hanging out with Robert and his friends, who all seem more mature and fun. Kristy responds by yelling at Stacey, making her feel more defiant. Stacey invites Claudia, but none of the others, to a party, leading to a big fight. In the aftermath, Stacey decides to skip a talent show the BSC has arranged for neighborhood kids, inadvertently upsetting Charlotte Johanssen, who wanted to dedicate her piano tune to Stacey. At the next meeting, Kristy fires Stacey, and Stacey simultaneously quits. The book ends with Stacey going to Charlotte's piano recital, feeling odd because it's 5:30 on a Friday and she's not at a BSC meeting (although I daresay she would have skipped for the recital anyway).
Stacey's embarrassment is pretty sympathetic as we see the BSC's antics (Kristy's loud, strict, den-mother/sheepdog attitude; Mary Anne's cutesiness; Dawn's melodramatic Hercule Poirot-ing of Stacey's misdeeds) through her eyes, but it's also plain that from the BSC's point of view, it's Stacey who's becoming bad. I'm surprised it's taken this long for one of the girls to get sick of all the procedure, all the time, and all the damn baby-sitting.
****
Cover Art Oddity: This is one of the few covers (along with Mary Anne Misses Logan) that doesn't actually depict a scene in the book, showing the whole club at the movie theatre together. Stacey is laughing with Claudia, not looking embarrassed, so I'm guessing this was a stock cover that Hodges Soileau threw on up against a late deadline.
Read as a kid: No, and, unlike Mary Anne's haircut--which I recognized as a event which had happened later in the continuity than I, generally, read--I don't even remember my conception of the BSC including a Stacey breakup. If I read any books after this, they were few and far between.
Timing: Stacey and Robert are throwing an "End of Winter" party, so I guess it's late winter/early spring, maybe early March.
Revised Timeline: March of sophomore year of college. The theme of this book seems to sit right with this timing. It's not uncommon for sophomores to drift into new groups of friends, abandoning the high school or orientation buddies they made in freshman year; sophomore year, once you've gotten used to the college routine and you're not scared anymore, is a classic time for changing, resisting old ways, spreading your wings, and becoming an asshole.
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| #84 Dawn and the School Spirit War The BSC splits on opinions of School Spirit Month: Kristy, Claudia, and Jessi are pro; Dawn, Mary Anne, and Mallory are anti (Dawn for reasons of individualism and because she likes to have a cause, Mary Anne because she's too shy to participate in Pajama Day, Mallory because she is a misanthropic grump.) The harsh backlash against kids who refuse to participate fuels Dawn's desire to stand up for the underdog, and she spearheads and anti-Spirit movement which culminates in a heated PTO meeting which raises some actually interesting ideas about people who value independence vs. people who value cohesion. Spirit Month is cancelled. Dawn, rather awesomely, actually, then goes to the principal and speaks on Spirit Month's behalf, urging him to reinstate as it was really meaningful to some people and she never wanted it cancelled, she just wanted people to be able to choose whether or not to participate.
***
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: It's not quite mentioned, but it seems to be medium-warm weather by the dress code, and football season is going on, since all this stuff is, as Logan stresses, really about the BIG GAME, you guys.
Revised Timeline: March or April of sophomore year of college. It does seem like "Spirit Week" is more of a high school thing than a college thing--especially with all the emphasis and pressure to do it, I mean, you would see a lot more people failing to care in college. But even in a high school or middle school setting, you need to suspend some disbelief that there are really so few people who aren't participating. And the activism and rallying that the anti-spirit crowd does feels pretty college-sophomore-y.
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| #85 Claudia Kishi, Live from WSTO Claudia wins a contest and gets to host a radio show for kids on a local station. (A "contest" can explain anything, huh? Amusingly, it's explained that the station is near bankruptcy really hurting for cheap content.) Claudia is alarmed to discover that the first runner-up, assigned to be her assistant, is Ashley Wyeth. She and Ashley butt heads over what content to include, but end up putting together what sounds like a pretty fun program--think part talent show, part This American Life. An impromptu advice segment Claudia does ends up helping a child whose mother donates a lot of money to the station for the obligatory tacked-on happy ending.
The terms of the contest are completely ludicrous, of course. I can see, maybe, MAYBE basing a "host a radio show for a month!" contest on an audition tape, but it was based on an essay! How do you know if the person has any radio charisma? Claudia and Ashley's bonding storyline is cute but odd. I don't see why diehard visual artist Ashley would suddenly decide to branch out into radio, and I'm not sure why it was necessary for the writer to make it seem like Claudia and Ashley are old enemies, or at least that their friendship ended on poor terms. I thought it was made clear at the end of #12 Claudia and the New Girl that she and Ashley remained friends, and Ashley appeared briefly in some of the follow-up books as Claudia's friend (e.g., Claudia wrote a postcard to her from Camp Mohawk). A maniacal Kristy tries to get her babysitting charges interested in putting together an audition for Claudia's show in a subplot which shows her in a very poor light.
**
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: April
Revised Timeline: College radio club or class. Credit for "Media Studies" major. Bam. No more suspension of disbelief required.
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| #87 Stacey and the Bad Girls It's summer vacation and with no BSC, and her main new friends off at jobs or vacations, Stacey finds herself with a lot of free time, which she fills by entertaining friends-of-friends and working part-time at the daycare center of her mother's department store. Stacey likes her new group of gal pals, but she becomes uncomfortable when they shoplift from her store, and she drops them after they plant a flask on her at a concert, getting her in trouble with security and with her mom. She attends the next BSC meeting, and Kristy allows her to return on a probationary basis.
This book has almost exactly the same plot as Logan Bruno, Boy Baby-sitter, and yet I gave that one four stars and I'm giving this one two, which just goes to show either that the plot of a BSC book is irrelevant or that I, like Hallowell, have an irrationally inflated view of the stories I was introduced to as a kid vs. an adult. I'm not sold on the BSC/general high school book cliche that shoplifters = bad and bad = shoplifters to begin with; I think the Logan book hit some key elements that made it tolerable, while this book missed the very tenuous mark.
1. The lameness of an actual bad kid's badness can be saved if the bad kid has an essential bad-kid allure. Logan's T-Jam had that cool, laid-back, dangerous persona that made it plausible that Logan would want to please him and overlook the differences between them. None of Stacey's bad girl friends are particularly interesting or charming, or even differentiable (with the slight exception of Mia, only because she is goth while the others are grunge. But her personality is the same.)
2. An exploration of the difference between "bad" and "good", or what makes bad bad and good good, would be nice. In the Logan story, Logan starts off with a charitable view of T-Jam, feeling a sense of kinship and pity because the other kids avoid/look down on/fear him just because he's different; he realizes by the end of the book that T-Jam actually does things which directly make other people unhappy, like stealing a girl's concert tickets. Logan comes off as a nice person concerned for everyone. Meanwhile, Stacey's friends' rule-breaking--stealing from a large department store, drinking underage--is less directly linked to an obvious victim, so Stacey's negative reaction makes her seem square and judgmental, and kind of irrational--like she thinks being "bad" is unfashionable, rather than actually wrong.
3. While both books suffer from a distinct lack of teenagers following the Teenager Code--come on, ratting on a friend is the last thing most kids would think of, but all the lamers in the BSC think of it first-off and have to be given some complicated narrative reason why they can't, so the "bad kids" all turn into these lame blackmailers (cf. LB:BB, Kristy and the Copycat, and probably others)--I think it's more character-believable that all-American gentleman jock Logan errs on the side of goody-two-shoes parentally-approved geeky than Stacey, who's supposedly all cool and popular.
Both books also suffer from a lack of a distinction between rule-breakers and jerks. That is, everyone who breaks rules also turns out to be a user. There's no gray area, no characters who are nice rule-breakers or law-abiding users. Nobody who thinks nothing of stealing a lipstick from CVS yet would be too considerate to leave a friend in a lurch, which is most of my friends from high school. It's not only an unrealisic way to portray kids, it's narratively uninteresting.
**
Lingering Questions: Why did Stacey feel she had to quit her day care job to rejoin the BSC? I don't think they would begrudge that demand on her time. It was like 4 hours a day. I'm sure Claudia spends longer than that in art classes during the summer. The money's probably better and, although the work and level of responsibility is really about the same as baby-sitting, it would definitely look better on a resume.
Sign of the Times: Grunge!
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: Summer vacation
Revised Timeline: June between sophomore and junior years of college. Actually, I think the girls actually being old enough to drink makes this book make more sense and not less. You can pretend that Stacey no longer thinks their drinking is unpleasant only because it's against an arbitrary rule, but because she just doesn't like being around drunk people when she's sober (her diabetes, the point is made in this book, prevents her from drinking for health reasons, which is actually another reason why she is probably the least interesting candidate for this story). Perhaps she even finds their shoplifting and sneaking drinks into concerts childish and boring instead of just z0mg THAT'S WHAT BAD KIDS DO. Around junior year of college is a good time, I think, for kids to stop being thrilled at the wonder of what they can get away with and start thinking, "I'm getting too old for this shit."
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| #94 Stacey McGill, Super Sitter Looking to save up for an expensive birthday present for Robert, Stacey jumps at the chance for an indefinite, five-afternoon-a-week job with light housekeeping. Stacey excels, efficiently knocking all of her tasks out of the park, so each day, the mother keeps assigning her more chores. When Stacey finally complains, she gets a raise. Instead of bailing when she has enough cash, Stacey, lured by the siren song of money, keeps upping the grandiosity of the thing she wants to buy. She never has time to spend with Robert, the ostensible reason for the work. Stacey sees what she's become when her mother accuses her of being a workaholic like her father.
In some ways, this is a rehash of Dawn and the Impossible Three, but there are some key differences. The mother in this story isn't a helpless damsel in distress like Mrs. Barrett. She seems aware that she is taking advantage of Stacey's desire to impress her. Where Dawn become too involved emotionally, Stacey's inability to back off is mostly because of the money (she likes the kids, certainly, but doesn't take on a surrogate parent role, and she doesn't do chores for the good of the kids and their environment, but because she is assigned to do them for money.) For a series about a business, money doesn't come up all that often in the BSC books, and it's interesting and realistic to see a club member come under its power--especially Stacey, with her family's weird relationship to the stuff.
****
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: Autumn
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| #101 Claudia Kishi, Middle School Dropout Claudia continues to get failing grades even after her parents hire a tutor, and finally she is sent back to seventh grade. While her grades improve, she misses her friends (especially at lunch) and she's upset when she's not allowed to go to the eighth grade dance. The only good thing in her life is a mixed-age art class in which she prepares a piece for a show, and wins first prize. The teacher tells her that she, too, was held back in school. **
Lingering Questions: Can you really be sent back a year? I mean, I know you can be held back, but hasn't Claudia already passed seventh grade? As long as she's going to be a year behind her class anyway, what, exactly, would be the down side of letting her keep working at her grades until the end of the year, and then holding her in eighth grade if she doesn't manage to pass? Also, do you really win prizes at an art show?
Read as a kid: No.
Timing: October, leading up to Halloween. I know it's been said many times many ways, but at this point, it's getting really ludicrous that we're still/again way at the beginning of eighth grade.
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| #105 Stacey the Math Whiz Stacey initially declines her teacher's invitation to join the Mathletes, feeling that it's too nerdy, but the BSC encourages her, and she finds she has a lot of fun at the meetings. She's a last-minute sub before a big competition, and she happens to be better than anyone else on the team or even in the region (because all of the baby-sitters are world class at something). Complicating things, her father has just been laid off, and he suddenly has a lot of time to spend with her. Stacey likes it, but she feels overscheduled, especially when her father gets concert tickets which conflict with one of the competition finals. After some dithering, she picks with the competition, and leads her team to victory. Her father gets a new job and disappears again.
There are a decent number of math puzzles in this and they're good ones! More please. (I'm as good at math as an eighth grader!) ****
Read as a kid: No, but I did read it in the period after I started getting into them again when I was in college and before I started collecting them again. My sister-in-law, the aforementioned Candy, owned this one.
Timing: ?
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| #108 Don't Give Up, Mallory! Mallory is thrilled to be taking a "Short Takes" class in children's literature, her favorite topic, but to her surprise, the class quickly becomes her least favorite. The class is 100% in-class discussion and participation, and the teacher, a coach, doesn't call on her, even though she raises her hand for most of the class. When she finally does get a chance to talk, he doesn't give her time to think, and she sounds stupid. She theorizes that he is much more lenient with the boys. Meanwhile, she is also finding it difficult to voice her opinions in sixth-grade council meetings, since the president is so cute and the treasurer, a dopey girl, agrees with everything he says and asserts ridiculous opinions such as "Boys don't like pushy girls." Mallory discovers an injustice she just can't ignore in the school accounting of past sixth-grade school gifts, and she forces herself to speak up. She then screws up her courage and asks for a meeting with her teacher, where she tells him she's noticed him giving more attention to the boys. He denies being sexist, but she notices him making an effort to be more egalitarian in his next class.
Mallory's characterization is extremely problematic in this book; although she's a long-established nerd, admittedly, her problems asserting herself seem out-of-character for the practical, mature, eldest-of-eight we usually know. She seems to be representing The Generic Girl, like someone did a survey of the things girls don't like in school, and just dumped them all on Mallory for one book to make a Point About Sexism In School, which is probably actually how this book was written. The problem is, they DO have a shy, unassertive character who hates being the center of attention and would certainly do poorly in a class-participation centered class, and that is Mary Anne!
**
Lingering Questions: I don't understand how the "Short Takes" program works. I understand it's supposed to allow students to take short-term classes in addition to their normal courseload, but how? and when? During study hall? It doesn't seem to be optional, and Mallory says specifically that the topic is the same for everybody, which seems dumb. It would require less coincidence if Mallory had chosen to study children's literature because she likes it so much. And how much worse when she discovers the class she chose is so hateful, and she could have been in a different one. Also, do sixth graders really give school gifts? Since Mallory is probably super-secretly a high school senior by now, I guess it doesn't matter.
Timing: April and early May
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| Portrait Collections: Out of Continuity The conceit of the Portrait Collections is that the eighth-grade class of Stoneybrook Middle School (snort, snort) have to write autobiographies. The books feature first and last chapter introductions and conclusions, and then one- to three-chapter sections, each introduced by a handwritten page portion from the autobriography, in which the narrator describes a particular memory from their past. I'll give a quick rundown of each incident in these books.
More BSC memories can be found in Super Special #11: The Baby-sitters Remember.
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Stacey's Book
- Age 5: Stacey's parents give her a magical birthday at the Plaza Hotel, home of her heroine, Eloise. Brief and fine.
- Age 7: Stacey's mother, working at Macy's, gets her a spot on the Thanksgiving Parade float with her new heroine, Cinderella. Stacey tells everyone she will be televised, but when the video of the Cinderella float airs, Stacey is missing, and everyone thinks she was lying. Actually, she was ducking over the side at the time, rescuing Cinderella's crown, which had blown off, and which Cinderella gave her to keep.
- Age 9: Stacey and Laine blow off ballroom dancing classes and walk around the city instead, feeling powerful and indepenedent. They eventually get caught and get in trouble. One of the better memories, this one has an overall feeling of mischief and fun and features some cute moments of Stacey and Laine planning a nine-year-old's dream apartment, with a gumball machine and a giant crayon.
- Age 10: Stacey's parents drag her on a "back to nature" trip to a small island off the coast of Maine. Stacey hates it at first and is mean to the island girl, Mara, but Mara earns her respect by being cool in an emergency (Stacey's father breaks his ankle) and knowing how to drive. The girls become close friends by the end of the vacation although they never contact each other afterward.
Stacey's memories are all fun and in-character, and highlight her luxurious wealthy-New Yorker upbringing without making her seem unsympathetic or snobby (except possibly in the early days of her Maine trip, but even that is pretty funny). Notably absent are some milestones which you would think she would have included in an actual autobiography assignment, such as her diabetes diagnosis, her parents' divorce, and all her moves, but those have been described in the series already so maybe they were just omitted for our convenience. Although it's kind of funny if Stacey didn't include them at all.
*****
Read as a kid: Yes. Although the Portrait Collections started quite late in my original BSC phase--I remember when this one was new; I basically held on until the Claudia one came out, and none of the others had been released by the time I stopped reading--I got to this one soon enough to read it several times. I enjoyed it a lot.
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Claudia's Book
- Age 6: Claudia, with lion tamer aspirations, is excited about her circus-themed birthday party, but she has a July birthday, and none of the kids from her class remember to come except Kristy and Mary Anne. She's too sad to continue the party, but a few hours later Mimi brings her to the Spiers', where her family and friends have gathered an impromptu party of everyone who happens to be in the neighborhood.
- Age 7: Claudia is afraid of the tooth fairy and hides in the closet after her parents encourage her to put her first lost tooth under her pillow. She sees her mother come in and exchange the tooth for a coin, and she makes the leap that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny don't exist either. I'm not sure that would actually happen. This is the weakest and least in-character of the stories (why does this story need to be Claudia's?)
- Age 9: Claudia's parents enroll her in an alternative learning academy in Stamford. Isolated from her friends, Claudia gradually loses interest in everything she once enjoyed and begins sleeping all the time. Her parents get scared and let her return to SES, whereupon Claudia's sudden-onset depression is suddenly cured! While the cause and effect seems a little too neat for a complex psychological reaction, the description of how it feels to just be sad and disinterested in life is the most vivid and accessible I've ready in a children's book or perhaps anywhere. And the details of the touchy-feely school which sneak in around the edges are spot-on (without denigrating the school. If only the school didn't somehow induce chemical depression in Claudia, it seems like she totally would have done awesome there.) The story is sad and glum, but it's also the best one in the book.
- Age 11: Claudia goes on vacation with Kristy's family. She enjoys looking after David Michael with and without Kristy's help. When David Michael gets lost once when Kristy is in charge, and Kristy freaks out, Claudia sees her bold carefree friend for the first time as a girl with a lot of responsibility on her shoulders.
****
Read as a kid: Yes. Quite possibly this is one of the last new BSC books I ever purchased, but I still read it several times. I liked the alternative school story even before I ever went to such a school.
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Kristy's Book
- Age 5: Kristy's first great idea: she, Claudia, and Mary Anne build decorative snowmen for their neighbors in exchanges for donations to the Mimi birthday present fund. Brief and fine.
- Age 5 1/2: Kristy cons her way along on a movies trip with her big brothers, breaking rules and worrying her mother, who expects to find her home. Kristy's father, Patrick, laughs it off, saying she has "spunk," but her mother punishes her. Still, she manages to bond with her brothers.
- Age 6: After Kristy's father leaves and her mother gets a job, Kristy, Sam, and Charlie are left on their own after school for a few weeks. They get into scrapes, notably when Louie is sprayed by a skunk, until their mother imposes clear rules and expectations.
- Age 10: Kristy wins a scholarship to a girls' softball camp where she helps overcome the red team-vs-blue team infighting that threatens to ruin the team spirit of the all-camp team.
- Age 13(+?): Kristy's mysterious father returns in the wake of a break-up with is new wife; wreaks minor havor with Kristy's emotions; and then disappears again. This last entry happens after Watson is established as Kristy's stepfather, so it's actually during the continuity of the BSC books, raising the question: why wasn't it actually a book? True, Kristy's father is much more a presence in the entirety of this book than he has been in the entirety of the rest of the series, but it would have been nice to have an actual, more canonical story involving Patrick. More than enough material for the plot of a BSC book is jammed into these three chapters, which read like a summary for an actual story, perhaps because they were salvaged from one. It's so summarized that it is actually boring to read, despite the inherent interest value of the storyline.
***
Lingering Questions: WHY. WHY DID WE NOT GET A WHOLE BOOK ABOUT PATRICK. Also, why did Kristy only get a B+? The teacher wrote nothing but good comments. Where did she lose points?
Read as a kid: No.
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Friends Forever Series
What do you do when your enormously successful baby-sitting book juggernaut needs to continue to save JOBS, but the cast of characters has gotten out of hand and you're sick of writing about baby-sitting? Transition the most popular, main four into a "Friends Forever" series! |
Everything Changes You wouldn't know it to look at the spine width, but this is actually a Super Special, told in short letters and diary entries from the Original Four sitters over their summer vacation.
- Kristy does CIT duty at Camp Mohawk with Abby, and reacts with over-the-top displeasure as Logan, Jessi, and Abby all break the news that they're dropping out of the club.
- Mary Anne decides not to go to camp as planned because her time would be better spent moping around the tiny rental house worrying about whether or not her father is going to take a job offer in Philadelphia, a decision over which she has no power. This is dumb but everyone treats it as normal. She also frets about whether or not to break up with Logan (for really real this time), but doesn't do anything about it.
- Stacey visits her father in New York and visits with her boyfriend Ethan, until her father disapproves, but then Ethan wins over Mr. McGill with his maturity, despite owning an earring.
- Claudia's family goes on a no-technology vacation to an island off the coast of Maine. This is basically the exact plot of the last section of Stacey's autobiography, but Stacey does not mention that this has happened to her, probably because nobody on the writing team remembered.
So, I mean, what really changed here? The BSC wasn't disbanded--the Original Four just agreed to continue it on their own, downgraded, with no new clients and fewer jobs and meetings. Mary Anne didn't break up with Logan--just decided, by the end, that it was time to start seriously considering it. (What?) Stacey's status quo with her father and Ethan changed and then went back to the way it was before. Claudia had a bad vacation which turned good and will have no bearing on any future books. The girls don't even get to continue on to high school, as one might expect from an author who pays lip service to making changes in the series; once they start school again, they'll be back in eighth grade for the nine millionth time.
It's worth noting that the epistolary nature of this special allows the baby-sitters to actually tell the stories more in their own words than ever before (though thankfully not in handwriting), so the voices have a distinctness that is usually lacking. Mary Anne is dull and boring, Claudia's misspellings make her seem dumber than in her normal books, and Stacey is fine, but Kristy shines. Her written voice is remarkably sharp and funny, with comedically unnecessary and inconsistent terseness reminiscent of Bridget Jones. That's about all that's really good about this book, but it's worth three stars, I think.
***
Read as a kid: No. I was in seventh grade when this came out, well into the period when all I wanted to read was S.J. Perelman and Robotech novelizations. You know, man stuff.
Timing: Summer between... sigh... eighth grade and eighth grade.
Revised Timeline: Get back to this
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