“What’s the point of having a Queen and King?”…………BSC # 106: Claudia, Queen of the Seventh Grade

Memory Reaction

Nothing to say here…

Revisited Reaction

When we last left Claudia, she had been demoted back to seventh grade, and was miserable.  But now it’s a few months later and she’s much happier…she’s made some friends and is actually doing well in school.  One of her new friends nominates her for prom Queen, and at first Claud thinks she has no chance.  However, her friends introduce her to a lot of people and she ends up winning.    The prom King and Queen are supposed to help plan the prom, but they find out that it’s really teachers who do that.  The King and Queen just get to dance in front of everyone and try and get kids excited about it.

Claudia has a really ambitious plan to have students plan the whole prom.   The teacher adviser agrees to give it a try.  A lot of kids help out, but it’s still a lot of work, especially for Claud.  The King, Mark, ends up being less than helpful.  He seems to be one of those people who says they’ll do things, but doesn’t follow through.  He and Claudia spend most of the book bickering, but end up kissing at the end.  I think I would have seen this coming, even if I didn’t know he would become her boyfriend in later books.

Meanwhile, Claudia’s annoyed that Jessi and Mal are the only BSC members who seem interested in her being Queen and planning the dance.  The other girls also keep making fun of seventh-graders, especially the guys, including Claud’s friend Josh (who will also become her boyfriend in later books).  She finally tells them off and they sort of apologize, but don’t actually use the words “I’m sorry.”   I guess that’s typical of them.

Subplot:  The BSC gets hired to work a bunch of jobs at the Addisons.  Sean, who we last saw burning books, is upset about having a baby-sitter.  He thinks ten’s old enough to stay by himself and claims he’s getting teased at school over it.  The Addisons actually let him call himself an “assistant sitter” when Abby’s there sitting for his sister.  Then Sean tricks his parents into not using a baby-sitter, accidently overflows the dishwasher, and calls the BSC for help.  They then solve the problem by telling Sean that the kid making fun of him has his own sitter.  So, Sean blackmails the kid into being nice.  What a nice, happy solution, huh?

High/Lowlights

• Um, why have we never heard about a prom king and queen?  And who has a prom in middle school? 

• Also, Claudia says all the grades have them and yet we don’t hear about the 6^th or 8^th grade elections.

• Also, we’ve never heard of them having a prom. They’ve talked about a dance at the end of the year, but I remember them calling it the “final fling.” 

• Plus, when Claudia first went back to seventh grade, she couldn’t go to the Halloween dance because sixth and seventh graders weren’t allowed.  But now seventh graders get to have a prom? 

• Claudia also says the prom’s the biggest dance of the year, but it seems that there are separate ones for each grade.  How can a dance with one grade be bigger than the rest of the dances?  

• We don’t get a Claudia outfit in this book, but she has a dream where she switched clothes with Queen Elizabeth.  She just wore a subdued dress, but as for the Queen:  “Her hair was tied to one side with a scrunchie and she was dressed in Spandex pants, a Hawaiian shirt with ‘Ed’s Diner’ stenciled across the breast pocket, and a pair of Doc Martens.” 

• Was Sean always ten?  Because I could have sworn he was only eight in the book with the library read-a-thon.  I remember that the books being burned were on the third grade reading list (which was why they temporarily suspected Nicky).  And I thought Sean was picking books based on his reading list, but it could have been a coincidence.  Unfortunately, I can’t find my copy of the book to check it.

• Do people have prom king and queen in real life?  If we had them in my high school I can’t remember it.
• The kid making fun of Sean is Mel Tucker, who’s the same guy we’ve seen making trouble for kids in the past.  It’s like they have don’t want to have one of their regular clients do anything too mean, but are too lazy to invent a new character.

• Sean says that the Pike Triplets told him they were assistant sitters now, and Claudia tells us it’s an exaggeration.  But isn’t that the resolution of a recent book?

• I can’t be bothered to learn the name of Claudia’s friends, except for Josh.  The girls don’t seem to have different personalities and most of the names start with J.

• One of the ideas Claudia has to include a charity food drive at the prom. She thinks of it because a seventh grade friend’s mother had been pressuring the friend to organize one.  Now, I think it’s great of Claud to do this.  But doing it at prom?  Who wants to bring food to a dance?  Also, they’d get better results if they opened it up to other grades.

• Kristy keeps telling Claud she’s not really a seventh grader.  Does she not understand the concept of being left back?  I thought Claudia was the dumb one.

• Claudia references the book, My Side of the Mountain, which I remember reading as a kid.  For some reason I like seeing real books get mentioned in these books.  I also read the sequel as a kid, but I didn’t know there was a third one.  I kind of want to read it now.

• The teacher advisor for prom was almost laughing at Claudia and Mark arguing about organizing the dance.  I think it’s supposed to be one of those, “we fight cause we love each other” things.

• Claud laughs because Josh leaves prank messages on her answering machine, but we’ve seen the BSC get annoyed at Sam for pulling the same one on them.  It’s the one where she gets a bunch of calls for X, then someone calls saying they’re X and want to know if any calls for them have come in.

• Claudia’s actually upset after the first time she and Mark kiss, because she’s still trying to hate him.  But they kiss again at the dance and she realizes she wants to date him.

• It’s totally obvious that Josh also into Claudia.  And I’m not just saying that because I read a later book when they’re together. Claudia’s in denial but I think she’s into him too, otherwise she wouldn’t have been too embarrassed to tell him she kissed Mark (she told all her other friends).  But I’m sure that’s a topic for a later book.

• Kristy, Mary Anne, Stacey, and Abby keep making fun of seventh graders and saying they’re immature.  They’re only one year older, how can there be such a big difference?  Maybe it’s because they’ve been in eighth grade for ten years and it seems like more?