“We thought you went hoody on us”….. BSC Readers Request: Logan Bruno, Boy Baby-sitter

Memory Reaction

This was the second Logan edition. I remember most of the plot, but my most specific memory’s that at the end, Logan and Mary Anne are supposed to be going to some concert. At dinner beforehand, Logan confesses that the concert tickets were given to him by some “bad” guys at school who probably stole them. And when Mary Anne calls the person they were stolen from the girl comes to get them right away and is super-excited about it. I know they also reference it in Stacey and the Bad Girls, which has pretty much the same plot.

However, the important thing is that I also remember that it’s hilariously ridiculous, which is always fun.

Revisited Reaction

Logan’s friends are still giving him a hard time for being in the BSC, and because he tripped at a recent track meet (making the team lose). Frustration with being made fun of makes Logan easily fall under the spell of some other kids at school, a group of guys calling themselves the “Badd Boyz.” They’re the “junior version of some high school gang,” with a reputation for smoking, wearing leather jackets, and potentially being criminals. Their leader, T-Jam, notices that Logan knew what he was talking about in English class, and sweet talks Logan into giving him his paper. He also seems to have noticed that Logan was friendly with the owner of a local CD store.

Anyway, T-Jam and the rest of the Badd Boyz defend Logan to his jock friends, and Logan starts to hang out with them. He meets them at the shopping center where the CD store’s located. Logan’s going there because he wants to buy Mary Anne a Nicky Cash CD – Nicky Cash being the latest teen idol/pop-star in BSC-land. T-Jam uses Logan to strike up a conversation with the owner of the store (a friend of Logan’s father) about when the next shipment of Nicky Cash CDs come in. Apparently, they keep selling out immediately.

Anyway, Logan’s enjoying hanging out with the Badd Boyz, particularly because they defended him against his jock friends and don’t laugh at him for being in the BSC. He also gets a bit of a rush from it. He doesn’t believe that they’re actually criminals and kind of tunes out the fact that there have been a lot of thefts at school. After a while, Logan realizes he’s wrong. T-Jam and his pals have actually been stealing from kids’ lockers.

More importantly, Logan finds out that the Badd Boyz stole a shipment of Nicky Cash CDs from the store and are planning to do it again. He’s upset about it, and T-Jam tries to bribe him by giving him his own Badd Boyz leather jacket, threatening him, and then bribing him again with tickets to the sold-out Nicky Cash concert. He knows they’re probably stolen, but is tempted to use them anyway to make Mary Anne happy. Before he can decide, Mary Anne sees the tickets and gets all excited, and Logan tries to convince himself they weren’t stolen.

They go out to dinner before the concert, and Mary Anne mentions the name of a classmate who’s tickets were stolen. At that point, Logan can’t handle it anymore and tells Mary Anne the whole story. She calls the girl who’s tickets they were and gives them back. Then Logan tells his parents, and then the cops, about the Badd Boyz plans to rob the CD place again. The police watch the store and arrest the guys involved in the theft. Logan goes back to hanging out with his regular friends, and buys some legit tickets to another upcoming Nicky Cash concert for Mary Anne.

Even though Logan doesn’t baby-sit in this one, there’s still a sitting subplot. There’s a new bully named EJ who’s tormenting all the kids in town. They’re all embarrassed to talk about it, but eventually decide they want to unite and stand up to EJ. They do, only to have EJ break down in tears….so then Kerry (Logan’s sister) invites EJ to her house. The “twist” is that EJ’s a girl. Isn’t that the most original plot twist ever? Who would have thought there could be a female bully?

High/Lowlights

• I can absolutely picture 13-year-old boys making fun of a guy who baby-sits. But making fun of a guy for kissing his girlfriend? Logan’s friends are a bit immature.

• So, of course, Mary Anne’s worried about Logan being “bad.” And Kristy’s worried that it will be bad for the kids or hurt the reputation of the BSC. She’s so sensitive isn’t she?

• One of Mary Anne’s complaints to Logan about hanging out with the Badd Boyz is that they smoke, and that could end up hurting Logan’s allergy-ridden brother. It seems so ridiculous that that’s what she would pick as a criticism.

• Logan describes Charlotte as being friendly and outgoing because Stacey came into her life. Now, I never really thought of Charlotte as being outgoing. Stacey helped her make friends and come out of her shell, but I didn’t think every became “outgoing.”

• Just like in Stacey and the Cheerleaders, one of the signs of how these kids are “bad” is that they go outside at lunch. Aren’t they rebels?

• I think my favorite part of this book’s that the BSC doesn’t suggest to the kids to unite and stand up to EJ. The kids just decide to do it on their own, and resolve their issue without any help from a baby-sitter.

• In this book people keep using the term “squank” when they’re making a joke/making fun of someone. I remember seeing “rank” used in other books, but I don’t think I’ve heard “squank” in another book, or in real life. Urban Dictionary does not have any definitions that seem to fit with this use.

• The names of these Badd Boyz are really hysterical. We have T-Jam, Skin, Ice Box, Butcher Boy, Jackhammer, and G-Man.

• When describing Stacey’s diabetes, Logan tells us that we shouldn’t feel bad for her because she can still “wolf down” pretzels and chips. But really, that’s not true. Someone with diabetes needs to be careful how much she eats, even if it has no sugar. They do a really bad job of portraying diabetes in these books.

• If Claudia was trying to write about the “Badd Boyz,” do you think she would spell it “Bad Boys” or “Badd Boyz”? Which is the incorrect spelling?

• Logan overhears the Badd Boyz talking about how they were really only hanging out with him because of his access to the CD store, because it wasn’t obvious enough with the plot itself. They also refer to him as “Ken Doll.”

• Mary Anne’s concert outfit: “She was wearing this incredibly sexy outfit with sequins on it…not a dress but a shirt and pants that are attached, whatever that’s called.” Logan, I believe the term you’re looking for is fashion crime.

• It’s slightly annoying that even though they have no problem painting Logan with flaws in the regular books, in his two books he basically worships Mary Anne, and only tells us how wonderful she is.

• The Badd Boyz have to go to juvenile court after they get caught stealing and they also get suspended from school. But can a school suspend someone for something that happened off school grounds? I was a total goody-goody as a kid, so I really have no idea.

• The threatening note Logan gets is so hilarious, I had to scan it.