“It had been a merry, scary season”….BSC Super Mystery # 4: Baby-sitters’ Christmas Chiller

Memory Reaction

This was after my time. The fact that I’ve already covered most of the books I actually read, is sort of messing up my format lately, but there’s not much I can do about that.

Revisited Reaction

This book really has three mysteries that only intertwine slightly. But they all take place in the days leading up to another Christmas in BSC-land.

First: Someone’s breaking into homes in Kristy’s neighborhood, trashing them, and leaving messages that say “naughty” painted on a wall somewhere. Someone also tries to break into Abby’s and Mrs. Porter’s houses, but just leaves a note saying “nice.” Of course, the BSC has to jump in and try to investigate. They even volunteer their baby-sitting services to the families who’ve been victimized as an excuse to poke around. They help figure out that it’s a gardener that several families in the area had recently dropped for a different company. And because it’s the BSC, they end up helping the police set the guy up, by having Watson fire the guy, then pretend to go out of town. So the police catch the guy and everyone (except the culprit) is happy.

Meanwhile: Mallory and Jessi are walking home from a rehearsal for their church Christmas pageant, and they find a woman on the street with no memory of how she got there, and no ID or belongings. She’s also pregnant, because regular amnesia isn’t dramatic enough for a Super Mystery. Anyway, this woman (who they’re calling Mary) ends up staying at the Pike’s for a few days. Then she goes into labor. During a snowstorm. The only surprise is that it happens the day before Christmas Eve and not midnight on Christmas. Anyway, Mallory helps track down the woman’s identity by tracing a label in her clothes and sending the picture of a ring to a jewelry store near it. Or something equally ridiculous. It turns out the woman was taking train to travel after visiting some friends in Boston, but before going home. Her husband was in Australia on business, so no one was really looking for her. She got off the train and was mugged or something. But giving birth started bringing her memory back, because otherwise it’d be too depressing for a Christmas story.

Lastly: Stacey and Claudia are visiting Mr. McGill in New York and are being harassed by someone. Weird things keep happening in the apartment building…the lights go out in the hallway outside their door, they get stuck in an elevator, someone dumps red paint in the elevator that looked like blood, etc. Also, someone leaves a creepy note on their door and a picture of Stacey that was taken by someone following her. The worst thing is that Stacey almost falls/maybe was pushed in front of a subway (but was fine, obviously). At first they think it may be Ethan, but they finally confront him. It turns out that his ex-girlfriend, Cybil, lives in Stacey’s building and has been stalking them. She leaves them a note to meet in the basement, and like idiots they go. There’s a whole dramatic confrontation, complete with a power failure, but at the end Ethan just brings her to her parents to get her help. It’s really anti-climactic.

High/Lowlights

• Claudia outfit: "She had braided her long jet-black into a single braid with narrow red, blue, green, yellow, orange, and purple ribbons woven in. Her short red turtleneck dress had a braided yellow belt, and she was wearing purple tights, yellow scrunch socks, and black Docs. Her earrings were in the shape of Christmas trees, but they were painted in rainbow colors, instead of just green. On some people this might have been too much, but on Claudia...it looked fabulous." - of course it did.

• The funniest part’s that when the police arrest the gardener, the BSC runs out of Abby’s house to watch, and Watson, Mrs. Brewer, and Mrs. Stevenson keep calling out telling to them to stop. As though they’ve finally decided to set limits with their children’s crime fighting.

• However, these same adults don’t have any issue with their kids helping to organize a neighborhood watch.

• Ethan tells Stacey her Dad’s apartment building was built over an old graveyard. Really? Why is everything always built over a graveyard?

• When Mal goes to the police station to give her statement about finding Mary, they tell her to bring her parents. And Mrs. Pike goes! Someone in the Stoneybrook police department actually treats the BSC members like the minors that they are. I’m shocked.

• Most of the BSC goes to Abby’s house for a Hanukkah party and after giving us all a lesson about the holiday, they hang out with Anna. But it seems weird that Anna wouldn’t also invite her own friends to it. I don’t think this is the first time this has happened with an Abby book.

• What’s worse is that when they hear that the Papadakises house was robbed, they all take off to “investigate” and just leave poor Anna behind.

• One weird thing’s that Kristy finds a note in her mailbox that says, “nice” and she writes it off as some girl who may have a crush on Sam or Charlie. But then later, the guy actually breaks into Abby’s house and Morbidda Destiny’s house to leave them “nice” notes. Why the switch?

• Stacey and Claudia go to a coffee bar in the city…they seem young for that, but maybe people do start drinking it at that age now.

• I don’t mean to judge, but what was Mary’s husband doing going to Australia when his wife was 9 months pregnant?

• Two of the homes that were broken into happened when the people were on vacation. Now, this is in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Do most people go out of town the week before Christmas, but come home before it? I usually hear about people leaving for the holiday itself.

• Who uses a gardener in December anyway?

• Apparently Mal and Jessi put random facts about horses in the club notebook, so Stacey and Claudia know that horses in harnesses only appear in Central Park. Or something like that. It makes Mallory and Jessi sound really lame, and maybe that’s the point. But seriously, they like horses so much they can’t do anything without mentioning them?

• A salesperson at Tiffany’s lets Stacey and Claud try on jewelry. That seems very kind of her. Oh, and of course Stacey’s dad has already promised her diamond earrings after she finishes high school. I wonder if he told her that before or after she asked for a diamond ring?

• Mallory mentions saying grace before eating dinner with her family. Now, I remember a lot of scenes with the Pikes eating meals, and I don’t think they’ve ever mentioned saying grace before them. I guess they did that to support this new backstory about the Pikes ALWAYS helping out with their church’s Christmas pageant. Because I don’t think we’ve ever heard them talk about church before.

• Dawn’s in this book, since she’s visiting for the holidays. She says she wants a "bi-coastal" sleepover with all her friends someday. Which has already happened.

• Also, does Dawn think the word “bi-coastal” sounds cooler than it is?

• The entire Prologue and Epilogue of this book is done as a notebook entry from Jessi. It’s really annoying, I hate her handwriting.

• Most of the girls are at a sleepover at Kristy’s when Mrs. Porter’s house is robbed. Watson and Kristy's mom don't let the girls run out and play detective when it happens (in the middle of the night). However, they do go the next day, and I think she’s amused by the girls’ detective act. She keeps smiling as they subtly try and ask questions. It makes me like her a little.

• It was really obvious that Ethan had an ex-girlfriend in the building, and that she was the one behind everything. I wish they had just made her bitchy, instead of out-and-out crazy.

• So apparently, Cybil tells the doorman in Stacey’s building that she’s friends with Stacey and they like to play jokes on each other. But I can’t believe that the doorman wouldn’t speak up when the “jokes” involve dumping paint all over the building’s elevator.

• If you’re wondering how the girls have so much time on their hands…SMS closed for winter break a few days sooner than expected because of issues with the heat. Only in BSC-land can they get extra days off and not have to make them up at some point down the line.

“Have you been reading Nancy Drew again?”…….Baby-sitters Club Mystery # 32: Claudia and the Mystery in the Painting

Memory Reaction

I didn’t read this as a kid.

Revisited Reaction

This somewhat convoluted, so bear with me….Claudia has a sitting job for the son of Rebecca Madden, a woman who’s grandmother was a slightly famous artist named Grandmother Madden. She signed all her work that way, so that’s how she’s known, even though it feels awkward to keep saying that. Anyway, Rebecca inherited her grandmother’s house and its contents after her death a few years ago. Her cousins had been fighting the will, but when they found out there were no remaining paintings as part of the inheritance, they (just recently) agreed to let her have it. Rebecca’s planning an estate sale of her grandmother’s possessions, and Claudia volunteers the BSC to help out. Rebecca’s hoping to make enough to go to art school.

Now, the backstory on Grandmother Madden’s that she was a known artist, but after a show in New York got terrible reviews, she gave up painting, and supposedly destroyed any work she hadn’t already sold/given to others. Then she became an art teacher. Claudia decides that since she can’t imagine destroying her own work as an artist, the same must be true about Grandmother Madden. Because all artists are exactly the same, right? She thinks/hopes she’ll find the paintings hidden in the house. The value of the paintings went up after Grandmother died, which was why the cousins had been fighting the will.

While the girls are working in the house, they run into a couple weird things. First, Mr. Ogura, a guy who works for the company helping plan the estate sale, keeps turning up. The girls think he’s suspicious because more than once he showed up at the house looking for Rebecca at the same time that she has gone to his office to see him. He’s also around when a catalogue of Grandmother Madden’s paintings disappears.

The BSC also thinks Rebecca’s husband, Mr. Cook, is suspicious. Basically because he doesn’t think the baby-sitters are the greatest people around, which I actually found refreshing. He gets annoyed when he sees Claudia going through paintings and dropping something that may have been valuable. Plus, Rebecca’s son Jimmy keeps saying how his Dad doesn’t want Rebecca to go to art school, and doesn’t like him to paint, which does make the guy sound like jerk.

Anyway, it turns out there are actually two Mr. Ogura, a father and a son. Rebecca had been working with the senior, while the junior (that the BSC has been dealing with) is actually working with Rebecca’s cousin to try to find/steal some of Grandmother’s paintings. We find out that Grandmother Madden didn’t completely destroy her work, she just had her students paint over them. Mr. Oruga Jr. and the cousin try to leave with some of the painted over paintings. When Claudia tries to stop them, they lock her in a closet. Mr. Cook shows up and lets Claud out, then they call the police and find Mr. Ogura and the cousin with the paintings. And since Rebecca did so well with her estate sale, she decides she’ll still share the money from the paintings with her cousins.

Meanwhile…Remember how Claudia became an honorary trustee of the Stoneybrook Museum? Well, that plot gets brought back up after about 20 books. The museum’s opening a kids’ art room called the Kaleidoscope Room. It sounds like it’s basically a room where kids can go and try painting/drawing/etc on their own. The woman running it asks Claudia to bring some kids to try it out. She can’t make it, so some of the other BSC members go with some charges. Hijinks occur. This woman thinks the projects should be structured, so she gives them all pictures with the outline of a bear and only gives them brown paint. But Claud and the others get her to see that she should let kids be creative and have more open projects. So, the room opening’s a success

High/Lowlights

• Claudia outfit: “Navy blue pants with wide legs, red suspenders decorated with big sunbursts, a white T-shirt, and over it all, a huge red-and-white-checked shirt. [Her] earrings were also bright yellow sunbursts.”

• Claud’s doing research on Grandmother Madden and uses an electronic card catalogue at the library. I guess that’s a sign it’s a later book.

• They never really explain the deal with Mr. Cook not liking art. The little kid keeps talking about how his dad doesn’t want his mom to go to art school, and doesn’t like him painting. But at the end, the guy says he was just jealous that he didn’t know anything about art, and seems fine with everything. I feel like we missed a scene or something.

• Stacey outfit: “Short plaid [red and black] skirt, clunky [black] shoes, ribbed (black) turtleneck, and [red] vest.”

• Claud outfit: “Overalls and a long-sleeved green-and-blue striped shirt [and] a green-and-blue checked cap.”

• Charlie drives Claudia and Kristy over to the Madden house one day after school. A couple days later he’s giving them a ride home when they decide they want to go to the Madden house…and they make a point of saying they give him directions. Wouldn’t he remember how to get there?

• Rebecca tells Claudia where her key’s hidden so that the BSC can help with the sale one day when she won’t be there. Then a few days later, Claudia just shows up at the house and goes for the key. It seems a bit inappropriate, since she’d only really been given permission to use it that once. But since she saves the day, I guess all’s forgiven.

• The whole reveal about the paintings being painted over’s a rip off of that Mallory book with the diary. I actually specifically thought they wouldn’t do the painting over thing, because it was already done in that book. I guess I was giving them too much credit.

• There’s this other subplot about the kid finding a cat that looks like a cat the grandmother used to own, and it makes me think of another Mallory book. But it turns out that the cousin who was involved had lost her cat, which I guess the grandmother owned. I didn’t really pay that much attention because it wasn’t remotely interesting.

• Grandmother Madden would buy a new cat whenever one died on her, and get one that looks the same and name it the same thing. I’m not a pet-person, so I may be missing something, but that seems a bit weird.

• Claudia outfit: “[She] was wearing a long, full, black skirt with red, orange, pink, yellow, and turquoise flowers embroidered along the hem; a loose pink top; and a necklace [she’d] made out of papier-mâché beads painted to match the flowers on the skirt.”

• The woman running the Kaleidoscope Room’s a bit extreme…it really never occurred to her that kids would want to choose their own colors for painting? Especially since she gave them an outline of a bear, and not all bears are brown.

• When Claudia’s talking to her mother about how she can’t believe Grandmother Madden had destroyed her art, Mrs. Kishi’s all, “well the article says she did, so she must have. Have you been reading Nancy Drew again?” I’m not sure why but it made me laugh.

• Corrie Addision shows up as one of the kids trying the art room, which makes sense since she’s been known to like art and was in the original book about the museum. But I feel like she only shows up every twenty books. And her parents don’t show at the opening, so I guess they’re still missing out on key moments in their kids’ lives.

“A princess is a princess, after all”……..BSC # 102: Mary Anne and the Little Princess

Memory Reaction

This was after my time.

Revisited Reaction

When I first saw the title of this book, I thought it was going to be another one about Jenny Prezzioso being a brat. But I guess that was done to death after 100 books, and so the ghostwriter goes with an actual princess. It’s ridiculous. The setup’s that this couple from England’s moving to Stoneybrook for a few months because they work with the UN. They’re part of the Royal Family, so their daughter’s a princess, 20-something in line of secession. Anyway, the girl has an (adult) nanny, but her parents think it would be a good idea to hire someone in the BSC as a “companion” to help her get used to Stoneybrook. Mary Anne gets the job since she’s the narrator of this book.

At first Victoria’s a bit hard to deal with, but Mary Anne tries to help her make friends. However, while Victoria ends up liking the BSC members, she isn’t that nice to the younger kids in town (who of course were all excited about meeting a princess).

Victoria invites Mary Anne, Kristy, and Stacey to go to New York with her to see her parents at the UN and have dinner with them. They explore the city a little, then go off to meet her parents, who don’t actually bother eating with them. It’s kind of weird that they invited her down and told her to bring friends just for a five-minute conversation, but whatever. But the girls end up meeting Stacey’s father for dinner. This trip’s how we learn that Victoria’s lonely, her parents are always traveling, and she’s avoided making friends because she knows she’s leaving in six months. By the end, Mary Anne convinces her to start being nicer to the other kids in town.

Meanwhile, Mary Anne’s missing her father because he’s off on some business trip. It was supposed to be for just a few days, but it kept getting pushed back so he doesn’t get home until the morning of Thanksgiving. At home, Sharon’s being especially nice, but Mary Anne feels like she’s being used as a placeholder for Dawn…Sharon signs a note “mom,” buys her a sweater that looks like Dawn’s style, and takes her to a vegetarian restaurant. I kept waiting Mary Anne to say something to her but it doesn’t happen. Sharon just confesses that she misses Dawn and Jeff, and says that she sometimes wonders if she drove them away. But, Dawn does come for a surprise visit on Thanksgiving and this cheers Sharon up. I guess it’s supposed to be closure for that subplot, but it’s not really that satisfying.

High/Lowlights

• I could live with the ridiculousness of the BSC getting to meet an actual princess, but the whole set up needs to make some sense. As it is, I’m not sure why the family moved to Connecticut. Her parents are working in NYC at the UN, but they spend more time out of the country than in New York. Why uproot their daughter if they aren’t gaining more time with her?

• Fortunately, they don’t go the route of having Mary Anne convince the parents to treat Victoria differently, since having a teenager teach members of the British Royal family a lesson is a bit over the top. Even for the BSC.

• Mary Anne gets the job because she happened to be the one who answered the phone, and Miss Rutherford (Victoria’s nanny, who made the call), just assumed she was talking to the person who would be hired. Surprisingly, no one makes a comment about this to her even though it was always a fight-starter in the early books.

• So, they make a point of saying how Dawn and her mother don’t eat turkey, but I find this a bit surprising, because we know they both eat fish and chicken.

• When Kristy says the name of the family that moved in is the Kents, Jessi’s all, “Clark and Lois?” No one says anything about it, but I think it’s a cute side joke.

• Of course, the princess lives in Kristy’s rich neighborhood. Kristy’s outside playing with a bunch of kids when the moving men are bringing in the Kent’s stuff. First, the kids cheer because they can tell a little kid lives there, the Karen and Hannie cheer because they can tell it’s a girl. (The boys present were obviously disappointed about this). But Kristy’s just all, “clients, yea,” right along with the kids.

• Their probationary period that started at the end of Kristy’s Worst Idea has officially ended in this one. I know you were all concerned.

• Kristy seems slightly surprised that the British don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but acknowledges that it makes sense.

• Sharon invites the royal family and their chauffer over for Thanksgiving dinner. Which seems like a nice gesture, but I’m surprised she wouldn’t be more nervous about it.

• When the limo picks Mary Anne up to go to the Kent’s house, Mrs. Prezziosso goes outside and takes pictures of it. That really sounds like something she’d do, but I didn’t think they live that close to the Spier/Schafers. When I was a kid and in the BSC fan club, I got a map of Stoneybrook that showed where everyone supposedly live. I kinda wish I still had it.

• They reference Victoria having to read the book Stone Fox at school, which is supposedly about a boy entering a dogsled race to save the farm he and his sick grandfather live on. I’m pretty sure I made a diorama out of it in fourth grade, unless there’s another book with a kid entering a dogsled race. I can’t remember much else about the book though….

• Sharron orders her turkey and Thanksgiving food from a gourmet store at the mall. Wouldn’t it be easier to get stuff from a local restaurant?

• The Chauffer tells Mary Anne that he grew up in Stoneybrook and always thought her house was haunted. You would think Mary Anne would then tell him about the secret passage and all of Dawn’s theories, but she doesn’t.

• Miss Rutherford thinks that Mary Anne’s last name’s “Mistu,” because when Mary Anne calls her “Mrs.” Miss Rutherford tells her it’s Miss. Then Mary Anne says she’s “Miss, too.” Which is kind of dumb because she had just said she was in middle school, and is obviously not married.

• There’s this whole misunderstanding where Victoria’s excited to go to an SMS football game because she thinks it’s soccer. I can’t believe no one thinks of this issue ahead of time, especially soccer freak Abby?

• On one of the night’s Richard’s away, Sharon leaves a note to Mary Anne that she’s thinking of renting a video of a Peter, Paul, and Mary concert, which doesn’t interest Mary Anne in the slightest. I’m wondering if this is supposed to be another sign that Sharon’s thinking of Dawn or a sign of a parent thinking her kids will share their taste in music.

• Dawn decides to come visit as a surprise to her mom, which I think is nice, but it’s sort of weird that her father bought her a plane ticket before even checking if Sharon was going to be home.

• Stacey outfit: “A black baseball cap, black sunglasses, and a sleek black, ankle-length coat with sharply padded shoulders."

• I wish we spent more time on Victoria blowing off Stoneybrook kids to talk to the BSC. It’s always fun to watch Karen be crushed about something.

• So, at the UN, they go through security and Kristy tells the security people that she was an ambassador from Stoneybrook, which didn’t get a laugh. Unfortunately, we don’t get to hear much else about their reaction.

• Kristy tries to talk the others out of going to NY with Victoria because it would mean missing a BSC meeting. She needs to learn to relax about those.

• It’s amusing how excited Victoria gets out of things like going to a mall and eating at Pizza Hut.

• Victoria asks people to call her “Vic” and attempts to use American slang and an America accent. I don’t know if she does this to piss of her parents or because she just thinks it’s fun, but they definitely hate it.

• Mary Anne tells Victoria that after she moves back to England she can “email” the friends that she made in CT. It feels weird to see a modern reference in a BSC book. Although, I guess email’s getting to be outdated too…..

• Mary Anne tells Sharon that all she has to do with the turkey is put it in the oven….so Sharon puts it in, but never turns the oven on. Now, really? How scatterbrained can you get?

• They are at the Central Park Zoo and Stacey mentions that a polar bear there has been seeing an animal psychologist. That’s so bizarre, I’m guessing it’s true.

“Heaven help the little kids of Stoneybrook”……BSC # 98: Dawn and Too Many Sitters

Memory Reaction

When I found a copy of this book, I realized this was the one where the girls spend a lot of time raising money for their trip to Hawaii….I was trying to remember where it happened when I read the actual Super Special. I have to say, I’m surprised I never read the Super Special itself…the last one I read as a kid was book #99, where Stacey and Robert break up. Aloha, Baby-sitters happened before that, so it’s weird that I missed it. But, whatever.

At the time, I thought it was a big deal that they had Jeff and the triplets be “baby-sitters in training” because it seemed like a forward step. Even though the boys quit in the end, I remember that the Pikes decided to stop requiring two sitters. I feel like every ten books we got some type of movement that impacted all future books, and this was one of them. They were always my favorites.

Revisited Reaction

Dawn’s visiting for the summer, and as soon as she gets there, two things happen. The first is that the BSC finds out about a school-sponsored trip to Hawaii and the second’s that Jeff and the Pike triplets decide they’d like to start baby-sitting.

With regards to Hawaii: After some begging, the parents agree to let all the BSC members go, except for Kristy (who’s going in August with her family), Mallory (who’s running some day camp with Mrs. Stone that week), and Shannon (who will be at summer camp). Dawn even gets to go when she’s no longer a student at SMS…this is because not enough SMS kids signed up. The wrinkle’s that the girls need to pay for half the trip, which means they each need to raise $250 dollars by the middle of July. If you’re counting, that means, yes, a supposed 10-day trip to Hawaii’s costing them $500. They had a bigger budget when they went to California and stayed at Dawn’s house. Anyway, they baby-sit like crazy, wash cars, mow lawns, and finally arrange a bunch of games/food stands at the local Fourth of July fireworks display and make the money they need.

Meanwhile: Jeff and the triplets have been asking about baby-sitting, but admit they aren’t ready to start their own club. The BSC decides to make them BITs (baby-sitters-in-training). One boy tags along on each sitting job to get in practice (for 25% of the pay, despite the girls needing to make money). This is not as successful as they hoped….Jeff gets grossed out at changing a diaper, Byron bails on a job for little league (but does come back), Adam gets into a fight with Haley Braddock, Jordon turns Jamie Newton’s art work into paper airplanes, etc. They also eat all of Claudia’s junk food up, then stop showing up for meetings. The girls finally decide that they need to “fire” them, but the boys quit first….saying they aren’t ready. But, later Mal reports that her brothers were helpful when she was sitting for the rest of her family, and it sounds like the 2-sitter rule will no longer be needed at the Pikes.

High/Lowlights

• Dawn tells us how she’s gotten used to going away parties, which I think is her way of saying she likes the attention. But really, why do people feel the need to give her going away parties every time she goes between CT and CA?

• They also give her welcome back parties….all the BSC members give Dawn gifts when she returns (lotions, a jumpsuit, snacks, etc). The two worst gifts are Logan’s (he gave a pack of gum that he happened to have in his pocket) and Jessi’s (who gave a biography of some famous ballet dancer that she wants Dawn to lend her after reading).

• The trip to Hawaii's supposed to be the start of many trips where SMS students get to travel for reduced prices. It would have been better if they introduced this deal earlier in the series to explain all the other BSC vacations.

• I would think a high school would be the one to arrange a travel program, not middle school.

• I have to say this again….$500? For a ten-day trip to Hawaii that includes airfare, hotels, and three meals a day? Even for 1996 that seems low.

• When the girls are trying to earn money, Kristy has to point out that they’ll actually need to make more than $250, since they’ll probably want to buy souvenirs and stuff. It’s a bit of a duh moment.

• It’s a bit contrived that the one other BSC member who had agreed to help out Mallory with the day camp was Kristy, who was already going to Hawaii herself.

• Stacey “jokingly” asks whether Kristy can bring her on her family vacation, but I actually think it should be taken as a serious question. When was the last time Kristy took a family vacation where she didn’t get to bring friends?

• The girls also complain about how the boys eat/drink a lot of the client’s food. But they are ten-year-old boys, so that shouldn’t really be a surprise.

• Jeff comments that “nine’s little, ten’s not.” I think this is supposed to sound silly, like only a little kid would say it….but the BSC does the same thing, when they talk about Mallory and Jessi vs. Jeff and “JAB” (Jeff’s nickname for the triplets).

• Haley’s mad that Adam might sit for her since he’s only a year older than her, and that’s “like the same age.” Again, I’m sure if this is intentionally ironic, or what.

• The BSC parents all call each other, and then Sharon calls other parents, th school vice principal, the tour group, etc. to find out more about the trip. It makes me laugh because I feel like these kids have been allowed to go on so many other trips…..I’m surprised Sharon would need to put so much thought into another.

• One way Dawn and Mary Anne try to make money is by selling healthy food that Dawn made. I’d think even a thirteen-year-old would know that’s a limited market. Dawn used to recognize that.

• Speaking of selling food, did they buy the ingredients themselves? Because if they were just selling food their parents bought, they are probably costing them as much money as they are making.

• On one of his sitting jobs, Byron drinks up a bunch of baby formula. That seems disturbing….who would think to try some?

• So, the parents all give the girls $250 for the deposit when they first sign up. And supposedly, if the girls don’t each make the additional $250 by the date the final amount’s due, they can’t go on the trip and the deposit’s lost. Would their parents would really just let them lose the deposit? It seems wasteful. I get trying to teach the kids responsibility, but just make them pay back the cash at a later date.

• When sitting for her siblings, Mallory walks into the living room and sees Claire playing with carrots, peppers, and lettuce like they’re dolls, and Mal’s reaction is not to tell her to stop playing with food, but that she should be doing it in the kitchen.

• One of the reason’s the girls are nervous about letting the boys join the club, is that they think they’re too young to be responsible with money. I guess when people turn 11, they somehow have financial responsibility zapped into their heads or something.

• They make the bulk of their money running “games” for kids at the Fourth of July fireworks in town. But wouldn’t they need a permit for something like that? It’s a bit different than having a show in Mary Anne’s backyard.

"With a newborn in the house and absolutely no one to guide them? Puh-leeze"......BSC # 97: Claudia and the World's Cutest Baby

Memory Reaction

I honestly have almost no recollection about what I thought of this book. Just that Claudia devotes every spare minute to visiting her new niece or getting her presents. I hope I realized how annoying she was being. I think I probably did like the book when I was younger, just because it had a lot of references to an earlier book with Peaches, and I loved when past storylines were referred to. It felt like some kind of reward for reading the whole series.

Revisited Reaction

Claudia’s Aunt Peaches is pregnant again, and she gives her birth to a baby girl. She and her husband name the baby Lynn (after Claudia’s middle name) and ask Claud to be the godmother. Of course, Claudia’s thrilled and thinks Lynn’s the cutest baby ever (as indicated by the title). She keeps going over to her Aunt and Uncle’s house to “help” with the baby. And be help, I mean she breaks the coffee maker, wakes the sleeping baby, invites herself to dinner, etc. Her mother keeps trying to get Claud to leave them alone, but Claud ignores her. Plus, she gives Peaches all sorts of tips about taking care of a baby…..after all, she’s an experienced baby-sitter and knows more than an adult, new mother would.

After a while, Peaches finally snaps and tells Claud to back off a little, which makes Claudia mad. Then Claudia goes to Philadelphia on a weekend class trip, where this girl Melissa (from her class) keeps following her around and asking questions every two seconds. She convinces Claud to sneak off to see an art museum, but they get lost and the rest of the class has to sit around waiting for them. Their teacher yells at them a bit, but lets them off fairly easy in the end. Later, Claudia snaps at Melissa, but then realizes that she has been acting just like Melissa with Peaches. It’s lucky that she was having such a parallel experience to teach herself a lesson. Amazing coincidence. Anyway, she apologizes to Peaches and makes up with her.

The subplot’s about how the Arnold Twins are getting a preview of some premium channel and have gotten into the habit of watching scary movies. This makes them terrified monsters are out to get them. The BSC doesn’t really stop them from watching the movies, but end up accidently letting them see a “making of….” special about one of the movies. This gets them over their fears, and they end up making their own horror movie with Kristy.

High/Lowlights

• Claudia’s social studies teacher asks what the city of brotherly love is, and Claudia guesses “Hermosa Beach.” The teacher cracks up, which I find slightly inappropriate, but hysterical.

• The teacher describes this weekend trip to Philadelphia as an “all-expense paid” class trip. Really? When I was in school, we had to pay for class trips even if it was just to a local museum. How does SMS get away with stuff like this?

• Stacey talks about eating pretzels with mustard when they are in Philly, so Claudia runs and grabs some mustard from the kitchen, puts it on a regular pretzel, and doesn’t think it’s so great. Only then does Stacey tell her she meant hot pretzels.

• Russ calls and tells Claudia he’s taking Peaches to the hospital, and Claudia gets super excited. She waits outside for her parents and Janine to get home and as soon as they do, she insists they leave for the hospital. Only later does Janine tell her they probably didn’t need to rush over. This is just the first sign that Claudia has no boundaries.

• Did you ever notice that every baby born during the series was a girl? You have Lucy Newton, Laura Perkins, Andrea Pezziosso, and now Lynn. Did I miss anyone?

• Isn’t Claudia a little young to be a godmother?

• When Logan sits for the Arnolds, Mrs. Arnold specifically tells him not to let the twins watch horror movies. Then he starts doing his homework and eating in the kitchen, not paying attention to what the girls are watching upstairs. Despite them watching in their parent’s bedroom with the door closed. I don’t think he has to keep his eyes on them every second, but he could have done a little bit more.

• When she sits for the Arnold’s, Mary Anne puts the girls to bed, then lets them get up a half hour later to watch TV. It seems weird that she would let them get away with that if their parents wanted them in bed at a certain time. I guess this is the month for the BSC to be lax sitters or something.

• People have to stop letting Claudia make signs because even when she checks her spelling she makes mistakes. The banner she makes to welcome Peaches and Lynn home says, “Welcome, Home Lynn.”

• The BSC all comes by Peaches’s house to see Lynn, and Russ ends up serving lunch. This is the day she gets home from the hospital. How can girls supposedly so good at baby-sitting not understand that this might not be appreciated by new parents?

• Claudia’s really dumb sometimes. When Peaches is telling Russ she feels like she’s running a hotel, Claudia overhears and can’t understand why her aunt would think this. Despite coming to their house every chance she gets, and the fact that her mother has been telling her to stop spending so much time there.

• Also, when Claudia hears her class is going to the U.S. Mint, she thinks, “Oh, I love mints.”
• To try and protect themselves from monsters, the twins set up traps around their room. The traps are remarkably similar to what the BSC has used in various other books. I wonder if that’s on purpose.

• Claudia’s really, really, annoying with the baby “tips” she keeps giving Peaches. I would have kicked her out after about a day.

• The reason they get lost in Philly, is because this other girl says that the other museum they want to go to is four blocks away, and if the blocks are anything like NYC, it should take four minutes to walk there. That seems to be pretty weak logic, but she’s talking to Claudia so it’s enough.

• After she gets in trouble for wandering away, Claudia convinces Stacey and Abby to sneak out of their hotel to go to a diner. They don’t get lost/caught this time, but it’s nice to see these girls do normal teenager-y things, instead of acting like perfect adults who happen to be 13.

• The rest of the BSC meets the bus when it brings Claudia, Stacey, and Abby back from Philadelphia to welcome them home. It seems a bit excessive…..they were away for two days!

“I cried. I think everyone did”…….. BSC # 93: Mary Anne and the Memory Garden

Memory Reaction

I remember having two reactions to this book, aside from the plot itself. The first is about Mary Anne going back to the therapist that was first mentioned back when Claudia did her radio show. I had been confused about why it was suddenly introduced as backstory in that book, so I liked getting a bit more background on the issue.

The second’s that I thought it was slightly out-of-character that Mary Anne was so friendly with Amelia, and other kids she was studying with. Not that Mary Anne’s unfriendly, but we’d never heard of Amelia before and Mary Anne’s famously shy.

Revisited Reaction

Mary Anne gets assigned to a group project in English, and actually likes her group this time. It includes a girl named Amelia, her BFF Barbara, and a guy named Gordon. After a planning session at Mary Anne’s house, Amelia leaves to have dinner out with her family. The next morning at school, everyone finds out that there was a car accident the previous night, and Amelia was killed (a drunk driver slammed into her family’s car). Mary Anne, along with pretty much everyone else, is devastated.

After the funeral, Mary Anne’s worried about Kristy, who’s still pretty torn up, despite not knowing Amelia that well. But she organizes a chapter of Students Against Drunk Driving (S.A.D.D.), which channels Kristy’s anger/sadness. However, Mary Anne’s still feeling depressed, even as other people seem to get back to normal. She makes an appointment with this therapist she’d previously seen. Dr. Reese tells Mary Anne it’s okay to grieve and encourages her to do something to memorialize Amelia. Mary Anne gets the idea to have a garden set up at school that will be dedicated to Amelia. People in school help out and they have a dedication ceremony. Mary Anne still misses Amelia, but this helps her have closure.

The subplot’s about Dawn in California, which kind of takes you out of things. But I guess they thought the lighthearted stuff was needed to balance things out, and the other girls were supposed to be grieving, so they had to go to California for it. Anyway, Dawn and her friends decide this vacant lot in town’s a danger zone for kids because it’s full of garbage. They think they should clean it up, and with the help of the neighborhood kids, turn it into a garden. Dawn writes to the owner of the lot, but never hears back, so she and Sunny decide get started anyway. This is when the owner shows up, finally shows up. He’s a bit annoyed with the little annoyed with them, but he’s okay with the garden by the end.

High/lowlights

• Claudia outfit: “A black derby hat with a red-and-white polka dot ribbon, which matched her “ruby slippers” (high-top sneakers with red sequins). Black-and-white striped trousers with red suspenders, and a black long-sleeved T-shirt completed the outfit.”

• Dawn’s sitting for those brats we met in the California super special, and one of them falls and cuts his hand. She cleans it, but thinks he needs to go to a doctor to get a tetanus shot, and asks a neighbor to drive them. Now, maybe I’m clueless because I don’t have kids, but I would think something like that could wait an hour or so until the parents got home. But I guess these girls have to be super-good sitters.

• Here’s a question: If a kid’s parent gives him a toy gun, is it really up to Dawn to tell them to play with them? Because while I don’t disagree with her in theory, isn’t she supposed to be following the parents instructions?

• Mary Anne refers to how the We Love Kids club doesn’t have rules or regular meetings like the BSC, but didn’t they start having regular meetings after they got news coverage? It was kind of a big deal at the time.

• Everyone in this series loves the Secret Garden. That isn’t a bad thing, I liked that book as a kid too, but it would be nice to mention other books sometimes. In this one Stephie’s the one who brings it up, with regards to the lot.

• Mary Anne says when she was little her father used to put their Christmas tree away before New Year’s, but now that Sharon’s loosened him up they keep it up longer. Now…do other people put away their X-mas decorations that early? We always left ours up until after, so that they were there for any New Year’s parties we had. But I don’t know if that’s normal.

• Dawn’s baby-sitting for Stephie, while Sunny’s sitting for Clover and Daffodil Austin, and based on this book they’re next-door to each other. But we were previously told that the Austin’s live next to Dawn, and Stephie lived further away. Maybe Stephie was supposed to be at Dawn’s, but it’s weird that they wouldn’t mention that.

• It’s hard to make fun of a book where a child dies, especially since the letter from Ann Martin in the back is about how she did it because she got letters from readers who had lost a classmate. I think she does a nice job showing different reactions to grief.

• Dawn, on the other hand, is always easy to make fun of.

• Dawn writes a letter to Mary Anne that starts with the sentence: “Great News! (Finally, after the sad news about Amelia)….” Followed by a recap of her adventures with the garden project. It’s nice to see that she’s being sensitive to her “sister” losing a friend.

• Dawn writes 3 letters in 3 weeks to the owner of the lot, gets no response, and assumes the guy doesn’t care. It must be her age, because 3 weeks seems like no time at all. I wouldn’t even write a second letter until then. But time did seem to go slower as a kid.

• Some good news does come from Stoneybrook…Peaches is pregnant, and they waited until she was almost six months along to tell people this time. Good for her, I guess.

• I remembering liking that when these books were coming out, they were more continuous/sequential….this book took place in early January, the one before it was Christmas-themed, the one before that was Thanksgiving-themed, etc. They were like that at the beginning of the series, but then they fell into an ambiguous time loop.

• Dawn writes letters to the owner of the lot in Tucson, where he lives. When the guy finally shows up, he tells her that he’d been out of town and came by as soon as he got the letters (that morning). But if he got “home” that day, he would have been in Arizona and anywhere near Dawn’s neighborhood.

• So, Dawn let all the neighborhood kids and parents think that she’d gotten the okay from the owner to turn his lot into a garden, and they all help out and donate supplies. When the owner shows up he tells her that he now owns everything they put into it, and points out he could sell it or bulldoze the lot, and Dawn has no control over that….but of course he doesn’t do either of those things.

• I don’t have an issue with them cleaning up the garbage without permission, but planting a garden and talking about a gazebo so seems over the top.

• The California plot does serve some purpose, because it’s what gives Mary Anne the idea to use a garden to memorialize Amelia. She wasn’t sure how to do it originally.

“Had they all bought the bogus study guides too?”…..BSC # 96: Abby’s Lucky Thirteen

Memory Reaction

I remember a scene in this one where Abby’s mom catches her eating at a pizza place during school hours, by seeing her through the window. Only, her mom’s not catching her cutting school, she’s finding out that Abby was suspended. I think it stuck in my head so much because these girls were usually pretty “good,” and Abby getting suspended seemed like a big deal. That may also be because I was a total goody-goody as a kid…..I was always fascinated to hear exactly what happened to people who were tough enough to break the rules.

Revisited Reaction

Abby’s Bat Mitzvah’s coming up, so she’s busy studying to get ready for it. Or, she should be studying for it, but has been procrastinating. She also somehow forgot about a math test that will be 25% of her grade, until the day before. She’s freaking out about it, then is relieved when some guy offers to sell her a “study guide.” She’s a bit desperate, so she buys it without thinking that this guide may not be on the up-and-up.

Anyway, the next day Abby comes in prepared to take the test and is shocked to see that the test has the exact same questions as her study guide. Imagine that! But she isn’t sure what to do about it, so she takes the test and gets a 98. The two points off were something that was wrong on the study guide, and when five students make this same mistake (and only that mistake), the teacher realizes something’s up. She suspends all of them for three days. Abby tries to explain what happened, but when Abby says she doesn’t know the name of the guy who sold her the test, the teacher doesn’t buy it.

Abby manages to keep this from her mother by deleting the voicemail and taking the letter out of the mail. It’s especially hard though, because her mom took off from work to get ready for the Bat Mitvah party. She ends up hanging out in the town library all day, trying to catch up on school and study the Torah passage she needs to read at the Bat Mitzvah. But on the last day, she decides to go shopping and her mother sees her through the window of the pizza place. The whole story comes out and her mom’s pissed, but lets her off relatively easy.

When she’s back in school, Abby sees the same guy selling a study guide to Mary Anne….Abby goes over and tells Mary Anne what happened. Then they go to talk to the teacher, who believes them this time because Mary Anne can give the guys name. I’m sure the fact that Mary Anne’s a good student played a role as well. The teacher offers to give Abby a re-take of the test, so the whole thing’s settled before Mrs. Stevenson can talk to the teacher herself. And the whole thing inspires Abby for the speech she needs to give for her Bat Mitzvah.

The subplot’s that the parents in Stoneybrook have decided that their kids are watching too much TV, so they institute a ban. The kids are all complaining when the girls go to sit for them. But, when the kids are venting to each other, they start putting on a show that’s their version of some TV show they like. Kind of like a pre-internet fan fiction. They’re having so much fun that when the parents tell them they can watch more TV, the kids don’t watch as much as before.

High/Lowlights

• Claudia outfit: “Leopard-print tights, black ankle boots with fuzzy yellow slouch socks, black bicycle shorts, a yellow leotard, and this teeny, tiny fuzzy sweater with cap sleeves that was black with big yellow buttons. Her earrings were leopards: on one side a leopard looked as if it was coming through her earlobe toward you. On the other side, you could see only the back of the leopard, disappearing into her earlobe, as if her earlobes were these weird leopard cat doors. She’d crinkle-braided strands of her black hair, and tied the crinkled parts at the top with knots of yellow ribbon.” Is it weird that after that whole description, all I can think about is what earring she wore in her third hole?

• Abby tells us that in the BSC record book Mary Anne had blocked out the entire day of her Bat Mitzvah, so everyone could attend. It’s weird….it seems like Kristy usually freaks out if one person isn’t going to be available to sit, but they never bring the issue up when they all go on vacation together.

• It’s a pretty big deal to forget a test that counts as 25% of your grade. When I was in middle school, our teachers would remind us about something like that constantly. Are we supposed to believe Abby was spacing out THAT much in class?

• Abby thinks that Leave it to Beaver was one of the weirdest TV shows there is, which I think is supposed to be showing Ann Martin’s feminism.

• The guy sells his study guides for $3. That seems crazy low.

• Also, we’re supposed to believe that neither Abby nor Mary Anne realized what they were buying? This isn’t Claudia we’re talking about.

• At least the other kids in Abby’s class who bought the study guide seemed to know they were actually buying the test.

• It may seem like the teacher is a bit of a bitch to not believe Abby, or to not even consider giving her a yearbook and telling her to point to the guy who sold the study guide. Because, really, why would Abby make that up after she was “caught.” But there’s backstory about Mrs. Stevenson yelling at the teacher for not giving Abby an extension on a quiz when she was sick (based on what Abby says), but Abby also tells us she wasn’t being completely honest with her mom. So, I don’t totally blame the teacher for being annoyed.

• I can’t believe that the school doesn’t insist on talking to a parent about a suspension. Abby just deleted the voicemail and took the letter from the mailbox (which is the same thing Mallory did in the book about hating volleyball). I would think a suspension would warrant confirmation.

• One afternoon, a bunch of the sitters get together with their charges. We’re told that Kristy and Shannon are there with Karen and others, because they’d come to that side of town to play. No reason’s actually given.

• Abby hides out at the library during her suspension, and talks about seeing college students. Wouldn’t they have their own library on campus? Because doesn’t Janine sometimes talk about going to the college library?

• Abby gets grounded for lying, but is still allowed to baby-sit and go to all after-school activities. That seems…lenient.

• Stacey’s surprised on a sitting job to see that kids have put togethera show, and Kristy’s all, “didn’t you read the notebook?” So, I liked them showing that these girls sometimes slacked off about annoying stuff like that.

• Another Claudia outfit: “A long skirt, lace socks peeking out above her black Doc Martens, and a tunic top with a belt she’d made herself out of twists of lace and a silver buckle.”

• So at the Bat Mitzvah, the twins are supposed to give a speech. Anna plays her violin, because she’s better at playing music than words, but it seems a bit unfair. Especially since she and Abby each had their own topic to speak about.

• Because we need to cram in as much baby-sitting as possible, Claudia, Mary Anne, and Kristy take a job sitting for some of Abby’s relatives that are in town for the Bat Mitzvah.

• The “show” the kids put on, is like five minutes long. At first it seems like they’re making the story up as they go along, and are just doing it for each other. But when they invite parents to come see it, they only do a little bit, and say it’s continued. If you’re going to the trouble of inviting people to watch, I’d think you’d do more than a few minutes.