“As long as she’s no longer the Worst Kid Ever”…..BSC # 116: Abby and the Best Kid Ever

Memory Reaction

I didn’t read this one as a kid, but I do remember Lou and like that they did a follow up book.

Revisited Reaction

So, Lou McNally, the Papadakis’s old foster child’s back in town.  Her aunt and uncle have now adopted her and her brother and bought a house in Stoneybrook.  Abby gets a job sitting for them, and she’s worried about whether Lou’s still “the worst kid ever.” But as it turns out, Lou’s very polite and well behaved this time around.  In fact, she’s so well-behaved she starts driving Abby crazy.

Abby’s also working on a project for Black History Month because she needs extra credit at school.  She decides she wants to involve little kids in her project, because she’s kind of crazy.  And because it’s the BSC and that’s what they do.   She ends up asking Lou and her brother to help out, along with some other kids in town.  They’re making a mock news show about escaped slaves using the Underground Railroad to get to freedom (using Dawn’s secret passage). 

Lou tries to be really helpful with the project, but she keeps accidentally screwing things up.  She almost drops the camera, she walks into the middle of scenes, and she’s constantly popping up asking what she can do to help and annoying Abby.  She also keeps apologizing for every little thing. Finally, Abby reaches her breaking point and tells her to lighten up.   Lou takes this advice to heart and starts acting up again.  Not nearly as badly as in her original book, but she keeps trying to scare people by jumping out at them.  Then, she accidentally drops a plate and it breaks.  Not because she was doing anything wrong, she just dropped it while setting the table.  She’s all panicked that her aunt and uncle will “send her back” because she’s bad.  Her brother and Abby try to tell her this won’t happen.  Then when the aunt and uncle get home, the brother tells them what Lou’s worried about.  Of course the aunt and uncle are very reassuring, and I guess that settles things.  And I know you’ll be surprised to hear this, but Abby’s project’s a huge success.

The subplot’s that the Addisons are moving out of Stoneybrook. The BSC wants to help them out with move stuff and to say good-bye. Corrie’s all sweet about it, however, Sean doesn’t believe the BSC will miss him because he’s caused so much trouble for them.  They spend way too much time trying to convince him otherwise, and eventually they succeed.  It’s a very nice goodbye, considering the Addisons aren’t one of the series most prominent clients.  And Abby tells us how Stoneybrook now really feels like her home.

High/Lowlights

• In the first chapter, Abby’s thinking about Kristy and how she has a soft spot for “bad kids,” then randomly mentions Lou as an example.  It made me laugh because Abby didn’t even know Lou, so the statement comes out of nowhere.  It’s like on a TV show when they have a “previously on…” and show something from two seasons ago, so you know it’s going to be brought up again.  Of course with this book we knew that anyway since it’s on the cover. 

• At a BSC meeting, Claud’s has a bag of M&Ms and is separating out the green ones to eat.  Interesting.

• Outfit 1: “Stacey was wearing a cropped sweater in dark green-blue that looked good with her blue eyes. She also had on a short skirt (black faux suede), pale blue tights, and very cool-looking black suede boots that came to just above her knees.  Tiny gold knot earrings completed her ensemble.”

•  Outfit 2: “Claudia had decided to wear red.  That meant she had on a red tunic with an orange-red braided belt (that she had made herself, naturally).  Her leggings were a rose-pink color, and she had on black shiny flats with tiny rosettes on the toe.  She’d pulled her hair back with a large red silk scarf that matched the tunic.  Her earrings were silver snowflakes, also homemade.”

• Abby hears that the McNally’s are moving in at the same time as the Addisons are moving out and assumes the McNally’s are moving into their house.  Which actually seems like a weird assumption, but whatever.  This isn’t actually the case, as the child abuser from the next book’s moving into the Addisons.  We get introduced to him and his kids here.

• Nicky Pike’s the one who suggests doing a project on the Underground Railroad, using Dawn/Mary Anne’s house.  I don’t know if this was intentional, but I thought it made sense he would think of this because he found the passage before anyone else.

• Abby references Jenny Prezzioso, saying she was once nicknamed “Miss Priss” because she went through a phase where she had to wear very dressy clothes.  This, again, is something that happened before Abby was in town.  Which may be why it’s inaccurate – the reference is that Lou’s dressing in the same style as Jenny, when Lou’s wearing corduroys and a sweater.  Maybe she just meant that’s Lou’s version of dressing up?  The way extra lacey dresses were Jenny’s? 

• The girls offer to do anything Sean wants for an hour to convince him they don’t hate him.  He makes the girls take him sledding and actually pull him back up the hill while he’s sitting on the sled.  After they finish, Stacey says “Wow, that was hard work, I’m glad we’re done,” (meaning physically pulling him on the sled), but it erases all the good will they just got. 

• Honestly, I don’t know why they care so much about Sean. Just let the kid think you don’t like him.  Who cares?  He’s leaving town so it isn’t like he’s causing you any trouble now.  He’s not going to be scarred for life because he thinks his old baby-sitters weren’t big fans.  He’s got way too many issues with his parents for that.

• Also, it’s not great precedent to tell someone you’ll do anything they want to get them to like you.

• In the club notebook, Claudia comments that it’s “strange” that spending time with Corrie made her think of Mimi.  But that’s not strange at all, considering Corrie was a pretty big part of her life at the time Mimi died.

• Mary Anne’s sitting for the Addisons and the parents suggest ordering pizza for dinner.  Mary Anne asks if they can make it instead, which they say is fine.  Then she looks around the kitchen and finds pizza dough and sauce all ready to use.  Who keeps stuff like that in their house, especially when they are packing up to move? 

• Why didn’t the Papadakises ever get another foster child?

• Abby refers to something as “Easy as pie,” and Stacey’s all “Pi r squared,” while Claudia’s all, “what flavor?”  For some reason that made me laugh.  I know, I am a nerd.

• When they’re at the library, Stacey picks up a book called “Finance for Dummies” then reads it and keeps laughing. I don’t remember Stacey being such a math dork in the earlier books, just that she was good at it/liked the subject.  But I really like that they’ve raised the bar with it, just because it shows you the popular/sophisticated/fashionable one can still be smart.

• What is it with Abby and February?  She starts this book by complaining that you can’t really play sports in winter and talking about the number of holidays in February.  There’s at least two other books where she talks about disliking the month and/or needing something to do to get through it.

• Claudia helps Corrie make this huge map of Stoneybrook, with pictures of key events/places on it as a memento.  It’s very elaborate with all kind of things glued on.  I feel like I’ve seen them do a big map like that as a goodbye for someone else too.  Maybe one of the times Dawn left?

• Lou seems to really believe her aunt and uncle will “give her back.”  Probably a realistic fear for someone in her situation. My only issue with this is how much time are we supposed to think has passed since her original book and now?  Wouldn’t someone have picked up that she was having an issue and talked to her by now?  Wouldn’t a kid like that probably need/get some kind of counseling anyway?

“These will create a wonderland effect”………BSC # 121: Abby in Wonderland

Memory Reaction

I’m sure I wouldn’t have a memory even if I did read it as a kid.  I started reading it last night, but had to start over this morning because I couldn’t even remember what I read.  I should add that I was completely exhausted and had just taken melatonin when I read it. But the book’s also ridiculously boring.

Revisited Reaction

Abby and her mother/sister are going to stay with her grandparents (Gram and Grandpa) at their house in the Hamptons.  Apparently it’s an annual thing.  While there, they help the grandparents plan their big anniversary party, which is also an annual thing.  The parties always have themes and this year it’s Alice in Wonderland.    I didn’t really catch why.  Maybe because “Abby in Wonderland” sounded like a cute title?

Anyway, Abby notices that her grandmother’s upset that some people in the family aren’t going to be able to make it to the party.  Abby also notices that Gram seems to be acting a little different than usual (mostly just resting more), and she overhears a conversation where Gram sounded upset.  Then while looking for the menu for the party, Abby accidently sees a brochure about dealing with breast cancer.  So, Abby assumes Gram is sick and worries about what will happen, but doesn’t want to say anything.  She wants to help, so she calls all the people who couldn’t come to the party to say how much it would mean to Gram if they came (and so they all do).  At the party Abby ends up crying during her grandmother’s speech thanking everyone and runs inside.  Gram follows her and when Abby admits what she found, Gram tells her they found a lump but she’s waiting for tests to find out if it’s cancerous.   And that’s the freaking end, we never find out if she actually has cancer.  I think they were going for the message of our family will handle whatever comes up, but it’s still annoying to leave it up in the air.  And I think this is the last Abby book, so I doubt it gets addressed again.

Meanwhile the Pikes cancel their vacation to Sea City because Mr. Pike’s car broke down and they need to spend the money fixing it.  So, the BSC helps them have a beachy stay-cation type thing, where they set up wading pools in the yard and play in a sandbox, and other similar stuff.  It causes about 3 chapters of hijinx, and everyone’s happy at the end.  

High/Lowlights

• Abby mentions how she likes sleeping in, but I could swear there’s another Abby book where she says she’s an early riser.

• Claudia outfit:  “She had on orange leggings and a long yellow tunic on which she’d sewn wild zigzag patterns of tiny beads.  Her dangle earrings were also handmade, from a combination of clay beads and the same sparkly beads she used on her tunic.  Her shows were a deep aqua.  She looked like a human sunset.”  Anything that starts with “orange leggings” can’t end well. 

• When I read the Europe Super Special, I thought that this book must be before it, because it seemed like that book referenced things in a book I hadn’t read.  But this actually takes place right after the trip to Europe.

• I’m surprised the Pikes could get a full refund for that house they always rent. 

• Abby says her grandfather recently had heart surgery.   I guess that happened in the one Abby book I have left to read, but I could be wrong about that. I’m sure I’ll find out soon though.

• Abby’s grandmother hasn’t spoken to her sister in years.  This family sure has its share of drama, doesn’t it?  Her mother and sister hadn’t spoken in years either.

• Speaking of Abby’s aunt, she and her baby show up at the beach house as well.

• Who has a costume party for their anniversary?  A theme costume party no less.  For Alice in Wonderland.  No wonder some people didn’t want to go.

• One day, a friend of Anna’s from Long Island comes to visit.  I like hearing about Anna having friends and not just being dragged into BSC events.  Her friend’s apparently some super-smart music genius because she could tell the music book Anna was using had a mistake in the score/notes/whatever you call it. It was really random.

•  I feel like this plot would have worked better for another character.  I like Abby well enough, but I certainly don’t care about her family drama or her grandmother who’s barely mentioned before.  If it was Kristy’s grandmother who might have cancer, I’d be more invested.

• Abby’s mom says the grandmother was mad at the sister because she revealed a secret.  But later Abby’s aunt tells Abby, the “secret” was that the aunt told Gram (in front of other people) how Weight Watchers must be going well, when Gram didn’t want people to know she following it.  Yes, totally worth not speaking for years.

• Gram is making a family tree for the party and Abby tells her about computer software for building family trees online.  But the computer isn’t at their beach house so they have to start it by hand. But Gram and Grandpa are very excited about buying “fancy equipment” like a scanner to put the thing together.   Because there’s not much that’s fancier than a scanner.

• We also hear about an outfit of some friend of Gram’s: “She was wearing a red-and-orange tie-dyed outfit with flowing sleeves.” I can’t tell if Abby’s complimenting it or insulting it, but it totally sounds like something that would end with: “But on Claudia it looked great!”

• Most of the BSC members are watching the kids at the Pike’s party, but they say it isn’t a real sitting job because Mr. and Mrs. Pike are home.  But they’re going to be staying in their bedroom the whole time.  Not just staying inside, but actually staying in the bedroom.  Interesting.

• We hear about the stuff going on in Stoneybrook, because Abby says that Mallory called and told her about it.  It seems kind of weird that Mal would call her on vacation about that. It’s not like Abby was gone that long or that she and Mal are BFFs.  Why not just say she heard about the Stoneybrook stuff later on?

• Okay, so Abby says she’s going away for eight days, and she leaves on a Friday.  Then she says Kristy’s coming to stay with them for their second weekend.  But eight days after Friday is a Saturday, so there shouldn’t really be a second weekend.  But they’re all still there Saturday night, so it clearly wasn’t an eight-day trip.

• I’m not even sure the point of Kristy showing up is.  She really didn’t do anything or have any interesting conversations with Abby.

• The Pike kids all invite guests to the beach party thing.  Vanessa invites Charlotte and Becca.  Margo invites the Arnold twins, but weren’t the twins actually friends with Vanessa?  I can’t remember what book it was in, but Marilyn’s all jealous that Carolyn keeps hanging out with the other girls without her?  But they let her join in at the end?

• Claire invites Hunter Bruno, which seems like an excuse to have Logan show up at the party.  Which would be fine if Logan had anything significant to do, but he doesn’t.  And really, has Claire ever interacted with Hunter before?

• When they’re looking at pictures from Gram’s childhood, Abby sees a picture of her grandmother’s brother who died when he was 18 and asks what happened t him.  It turns out he was killed in World War II.  Wouldn’t Abby have heard that story before?

• The triplets start a water balloon fight at the party and accidently splash Mrs. Pike through the window.  She comes out, pretending to look mad, but hits them with a SuperSoaker.  Nice.

• I’m not totally sure how they accidently splash Mrs. Pike through her bedroom window.  They say that Adam was attempting to hit David Michael who was standing under her window. But if the bedroom’s upstairs, he must have been really off.  No way David Michael’s that tall.  Also, why was the window open if they were trying to stay away from the party?

• So, when Abby ‘s calling relatives to get them to come to the party, she calls Gram’s sister, who’s all, I wasn’t invited to the party.  It’s kind of awkward. But then she gets her grandmother to call and actually invite her.  Isn’t it great when a BSC member can resolve a years-long feud with almost no effort?

• The beach party thing includes a night under the stars.  The sitters helping out at this event are Stacey, Claudia, Jessi, Mallory, and Logan.  Ben Hobart’s also present.  But Mallory’s super strict parents have no problem letting this coed sleepover happen.  And Mr. Spier’s either okay with the arrangement or doesn’t know about it.

• Stacey remembers that the Pike’s like going to town in Sea City, so she arranges a trip to downtown Stoneybrook.  Since there isn’t much to do there, she arranges a tour of the fire station and police station.  Which seems…odd.   They should have taken the kids to a place with miniature golf.

• Whoever owned this book originally filled out the questionnaire thing in the back.  One of the questions is what you would change about the book, and she said she’d change the part about Abby thinking her grandmother had cancer.  Which made me laugh, because that’s basically the main plot of the book.

• In the questionnaire she also says that the character she’s most like is Kristy, because she’s always grouchy.  Which isn’t a word I would have used to describe Kristy.  Oh, and if she was throwing a party her theme would be Spice World.  It was 1998.

• I was watching Grimm while I wrote this and it’s opening shot was of a person tearing a page out of an Alice in Wonderland book.  Weird coincidence.

“Why on earth would anyone leave you here”……………BSC Mystery # 28: Abby and the Mystery Baby

Memory Reaction

After my time, so nothing to say here…

Revisited Reaction

Abby gets home from school and finds a baby on her front porch in a car seat.  Like what happens to most girls when they’re 13.  After the initial shock, she basically falls in love with the baby right away.  She IS a BSC member, afterall. They call the police, but Abby’s mom tells them (privately) that she wanted to let the baby stay with them.  And they agree right away. Which is when you know that Mrs. Stevenson knows more about the baby than she’s letting on.  So, the baby stays around, Abby and everyone else coo over him and that’s pretty much the bulk of the book.  Since they don’t know the kids real name, they call him, Eli.

This actually isn’t much of a mystery, but I think that’s why I like it as a mystery book…it’s actually believable for teenage “detectives.”  The BSC wants to see if they can find out who left the baby there.  

Their investigation’s pretty limited.  Mallory and Jessi think it was a woman in some writing group they are in, because she wrote a story about abandoning a baby.  I can see their point, because leaving a baby on someone’s door step’s such a rare and original idea…obviously there’s a connection.  Another suspect’s the nanny that Mrs. Stevenson hires, because Abby thinks she’s weird, and because she once calls him “E.J.”  The nanny says it’s because her nephew’s name is E.J., but the girls don’t totally buy it, because they always let their imaginations run away with them.  The only other clues the girls have are that Maria Kilbourne saw a green car in the area the day the baby was left, and that Abby finds a receipt from a NYC pharmacy on her driveway.  All of this, of course, leads nowhere.

The more interesting action is with Abby’s mother who’s acting a little weird.  First she acts shocked at the blanket that the baby was wrapped in.  Then, she agreed to take in the baby, and insisted on talking to the police and a social worker with no one else in the room.  And one day Abby calls her at work and is told that she was taking off for “family business,” which Mrs. Stevenson denies when she gets home.  Abby ends up searching her Mom’s home office, and sees that she had written the name “Miriam” down on post it note.  This reminds Abby that her mom has a sister named Miriam that the family hasn’t spoken to in years.  Abby and Anna look through old photos to see if they can find out what Miriam looks like, and they can only find one of her baby pictures…where she’s wrapped in the same blanket that Eli was wrapped in when he was dropped off. 

Abby figures out that since her mother ran off without telling them where she was going, that she must have found where Miriam was.  She hits redial on the phone, gets a hospital, and takes off to the city (by herself) to confront her mom.   She shows up at the hospital and finds her mom and aunt talking.  The story is that Eli’s father left her, she was struggling to make ends meet, and she didn’t take care of herself as well as she should (she’s diabetic).  She dropped the baby off at the Stevenson’s and then went to the hospital.  She was out of it/in a comma for a while, which I guess explains why she didn’t make a follow up call about the baby.  But everyone put the past fights behind them and wants to be family again.  Miriam and the baby are going to live with Abby’s grandparents in Florida while she gets back on her feet.  This way if she has to drop the baby off one someone else’s doorstep, she doesn’t have to worry about him freezing to death.

There’s a subplot that’s a bit more prominent than there usually is in mysteries – the BSC decides to say it is “writing month” or something for the kids they sit for.  They encourage all the kids to write poetry/stories, and then host some event at the library where the kids do readings.  It’s a nice idea in theory, but reading little kids’ stories isn’t the most entertaining thing.

High/Lowlights

• So, soon after Abby finds the kid, she goes to change his diaper (the mom had left a bag with some supplies).  And she’s all, “Suddenly, I had the answer to something I was wondering about. It’s a boy!”  The way that was worded just cracked me up for some reason.

• Claudia outfit: “A funky red-flannel minidress layered with a black-and-white-checked thrift-shop man’s vest, black tights, and red high-tops.”  I have two thoughts – first, could they possibly work in more hyphens into that description?  Second, that actually sounds a little like something someone on My So-Called Life would wear.  The only problem is that show was on in 1994, three years before this book was published.  Styles changed a bit.

• When I Googled My So-Called Life to find that link, I saw that the entire series is on Hulu Plus, and I’m now really tempted to spend my weekend watching it.

• Stacey was wearing jeans that “were stonewashed to a perfect degree of faded blue, and torn at the knee in this casual-yet-not-sloppy way. She wore them with a crisp white shirt, a green V-necked sweater, and brown Hush Puppies.”  That doesn’t really sound like a Stacey outfit to me.  Maybe the ripped jeans, but not the sweater.

• Apparently, Miriam left a note in the car seat, which Abby totally missed (but her mom found).  Some detective.

• When talking about the woman in her writing group, Mal’s all, “I know it’s a mistake to confuse fact with fiction,” and it cracked me up because Mal is ALWAYS mixing the two up.

• Miriam’s story makes no sense.  The sister lived in NYC, so she rented a car, drove to CT, and knocked on Abby’s door.  When no one answered, she didn’t know what to do and was feeling faint, so she left the baby on the porch, but then apparently drove back to the city before going to the hospital.  If she was that out of it, why not go to a closer hospital?  I mean, this takes place in February, not the best time for leaving a kid outside.  She really couldn’t sit in the car for an hour to wait to see if anyone came home?

• Also Mrs. Stevenson said that Miriam used her last few dollars to rent a car and drive to Connecticut.  Did she not think of making a freaking phone call?  If she knew where her sister lived, she must have known where she works and that she’s in the city all the time.

• The Stevenson’s borrow a crib from Kristy’s family, one that supposedly belonged to Emily Michelle but was now in the attic.  My question is: Emily hasn’t aged since shewas adopted.  So, how did she outgrow her crib?

• Mrs. Stevenson tells the nanny she hires that the baby is four months old, and Abby notices that she says this as fact.   But this is before she tracks down Miriam, so how did she know about the 4 months part?  Unless maybe it was in the note?  But it sounded like Miriam wrote a somewhat incoherent note, so it seems weird that she would put in that info but forget contact information.

• Abby does attempt to call the pharmacy to find out if the receipt’s really from the baby-abandoner or if it actually came from her mom.  The first thing I noticed was that when she calls the pharmacy she gets an actual person. How retro. Then the rest of the call’s kind of silly – she pretends she’s her mom and asks about her prescription to see if her mom is a customer.  Then there’s a contrived moment where she asks if her maiden name is in the system, which is all so that the pharmacist can say they have an M Goldberg in the system.  Which I guess is a clue, but it’s a stupid one because who’s going to read it and think, “Oh, I bet that means the baby was left by Abby’s aunt that we have never heard about.”

• I don’t know why Abby didn’t think to say…ask her mother if it was her receipt.

• Mrs. Stevenson’s first name is Rachel, and her maiden name was Goldberg.  In case it ever comes up in BSC trivia or something.

• Abby calls Kristy when she finds the baby, because she doesn’t know what to do.  Kristy comes over with her grandmother, and then calls that cop they are always working with.  I don’t know she couldn’t just call the main number at the station.  When they are looking for clues about who’s robbing banks or whatever, it makes sense that they need to talk to him because most cops won’t talk to kids.  But when it’s an actual emergency anyone would listen.

• At a sleepover, the girls are all into watching Eli, and Abby says it’s like the movie “Three Men and a Baby” because they all fought over who got to take care of the baby.  Which doesn’t totally sound like the plot of that movie (at least the majority of it), but whatever.  I remember in that movie the baby was left on the doorstop of where the father lived, so maybe this was supposed to be foreshadowing that Eli was left on their doorstep because they were family.  Cause the girls all think the person just picked the Stevensons at random, because it’s a nice house.

• Eli’s real name is Daniel.  I like Eli better.

• So, Charlotte, Becca, and the Arnold twins are talking about how they are worried about boring people with their writing, so Claudia and Stacey talk them into writing and performing a play.  Because Carolyn’s a science nut, she wants to write about photosynthesis, and that’s what they make the play about.  Good thing they won’t bore anyone.

• I guess Charlotte is over her stage fright/shyness at this point?

• The girls are looking at pictures from Abby and Anna’s Bat Mitzvah, and Mary Anne asks if all their relatives were there.  Abby says, “All the one’s were speaking to.”  Which comes off like a joke, but I guess is a  hint they have a relative their not speaking to.

• Also, when talking about families, Kristy mentions her Aunt Colleen, who was mentioned way back in book 6. 

• Abby totally gets away with going to NYC alone because her mother felt guilty about lying.

• Other stories read at the BSC poetry slam thingy a rap about boogers and puke (the Pike triplets) and a bunch of stories about mystery babies appearing (the kids in Abby’s neighborhood who are obviously influenced by actual happenings).  Oh, and Vanessa gives a bunch of background on poetry.

• Since Eli/Daniel is moving to Florida, Abby thinks that she should figure out a BSC trip there.  I guess no one told her it already happened.

“Isn’t she supposed to pass it now?”……BSC # 110: Abby the Bad Sport

Memory Reaction

This is another one I first read as an adult, before doing this review.  And I thought it was the worst BSC book I’d ever read.  Abby drove me crazy though the whole thing.  But, I set out to do every book, so I am making a sacrifice for it.

Revisited Reaction

The copy of this book that I have goes from page 1 - 26, then repeats pages 1 – 26, then jumps to page 59.  And I no longer have access to the library I got the full book from the other time I read it. So, I missed a couple chapters, but since BSC books don’t exactly have a Lost-level of complexity, I think I got most of the plot.  But if the details seem light, that’s why.

Abby’s taking part in a Special Olympics soccer program, where kids with intellectual disabilities (“athletes”) play on a team alongside kids who don’t (“partners”).  Abby assumes she’ll be the star of the team, because she apparently has a super-high opinion of herself.  Or maybe she’s picked up on the rule about BSC members always being fabulous with their hobbies.  So, she’s surprised to find out that one of the athletes, Erin, is a really good player.  She’s also annoyed that her coach wants her to play a different position than she usually does.  This all makes Abby a bit competitive and she spends more time trying to make herself look good than helping the team win.  Erin ends up doing the same thing, and the team loses their first game.  Their coach benches them for the next two games. 

Meanwhile, the BSC and some of the kids they sit for start a booster club to support Abby and the team.  This means that not only do we see Abby acting like a total brat, we also have to hear the BSC sitting in the stands talking about how Abby’s hogging the ball and wondering why she isn’t passing.  Maybe this was to make it really obvious what Abby’s doing was wrong?   In case someone couldn’t tell from Abby’s inner monolouge?  They also have a car wash to raise money to surprise the team with uniforms or jerseys or something.  I don’t really get why the kids all care so much, but whatever.  There are worse ways to incorporate the kids into the book.

At the end of the second game where Abby’s benched, the coach puts her and Erin in the game for a few minutes.  Since she’s so happy to be playing, Abby manages to be a team player and the game ends in a tie. Afterwards, the rest of the team goes out for pizza, but Abby skips it to go for a run.  Because she’s a brat and doesn’t want to be around people when they have no reason to congratulate her.  Erin shows up to run as well, and after they sort of race, they talk and pretty much make up.  Abby also apologizes for acting like a “stupid jerk.”  In the next game, they both manage to work together and help the team win.  Thankfully, they don’t end up best friends or anything cliché like that.

The subplot’s that Abby’s mother’s planning to take her and Anna to Long Island to visit their grandparents and her father’s grave.  In the chapters I missed, we apparently hear about why this upsets Abby so much.  I’m going to assume it’s just her still dealing with grief over his death.  She convinces her mom to let her stay at Kristy’s, claiming she made a commitment to be on this team and needs to go to the game.  But when her mom and Anna come home, she’s upset about not being with them on the trip.  It makes her seem even more bratty, but I’ll give her some leeway here because a dead parent’s a bigger deal than not being a star soccer player.  But eventually, she tells her mom about how she’s feeling and they talk, blah, blah, blah.

High/Lowlights

• So, the book’s called “Abby the Bad Sport,” but I think “brat” is a better way to describe her.  In case you couldn’t tell from my recap.

• It seems weird for Abby to be giving us the club backstory, when she was hardly around for any of it.  How does she know the details of Dawn and Mary Anne’s parents getting married?  Or how hard it was for Claudia when her grandmother died?  Yeah, she’d hear about some of that stuff, but it comes off like too much of a checklist to be natural.  Unless all that stuff was in the wonderful club notebook.

• Abby makes an aside about how people who won’t be pushed around or bullied are always called “pushy” themselves.  She’s talking about Kristy at the time.  I think her point’s really that it’s okay for a person to be assertive, but it doesn’t really work, because sometimes Kristy’s beyond that and actually pushy herself.

• Claudia outfit:  “She was in a little crop-top muscle shirt that she had batikked green and blue.  She’d sewed a bunch of buttons up the front as if it were a vest. She also had on skinny black shorts, one blue sock and one green sock, and black Doc Martens with one blue shoelace (on the foot with the green sock) and one green shoelace (on the foot with the blue sock). Her long black hair had been gathered into a single braid.  A blue ribbon with more buttons attached to it was woven into the braid.  Her earrings? Buttons, naturally.” 

• Is it sad that I knew Claudia was going to do the reverse sock/shoelace color thing before I finished reading that description?

• Abby tells us that Karen’s a “stickler for the rules.”  Which is only sort of true.  Karen’s a stickler for everyone ELSE following the rules.  She likes to do whatever she wants.

• Even the kids notice that Abby’s being an annoying brat.  While they’re watching the game some of them say, “I’m never going to act like a bad sport like that.”  Which is actually really annoying as well.  But maybe it’s realistic that kids would say something like that, even if it isn’t really true.

• After seeing the soccer games, all the kids in town suddenly want to be soccer players too.  Kristy even jokes that they’ll need to make a soccer-version of the Krushers.  It just seems odd to me.  Have they never seen it played and now think it’s exciting? Or had they heard of it before but not realized how it could be fun? 

• I have to say, I don’t see how watching a soccer game could make it seem exciting.  But I hate sports and spent my childhood reading the same books over and over, so I guess I shouldn’t judge. 

• This must have been somewhere between pages 27 and 58, because I remember from the last time I read it and didn’t see it this time:  There’s an argument where Erin asks Abby if she doesn’t like her because she’s “retarded.”  (I use the quotes, cause I don’t really think that’s the politically correct term anymore, which made it seem jarring every time someone in this book used its.  The Special Olympics website uses “intellectual disabilities”).

• Sadly, I can’t remember Abby’s answer, which means it probably wasn’t very interesting, in either a good or bad way.

• This book seems like a PSA or something, but not about the existence of the Special Olympics, or intellectual disabilities in general.  It’s more about the importance of good sportsmanship behavior.  It made it really annoying to read as an adult.

• There are at least three times in this book where Abby (or someone) uses the word stupid to describe someone, then we have to hear someone (including Karen) say how you should never call anyone stupid.  It gets more obnoxious each time.  Not because I disagree, it’s just annoying to be preached at.

• For the trip to Long Island, Mrs. Stevenson drives home for her office (in NYC), picks up Anna, then drives out to Long Island.  That seems a bit crazy to me.  Why not have Anna take the train in to meet her mom there? 

• Not taking the train could be a safety issue, if it was one of the other BSC members.  But, Stacey takes the train alone in all the time, and HER mother can be over protective.  Mrs. Stevenson seems more relaxed, so I don’t think she’d have a problem with it.  It’s also summer, so Anna could have gone to work with her mom or something.

• I think I’m harping on this so much, because in the past couple of weeks I’ve had to deal with ridiculous traffic getting into NYC.

• Abby doesn’t tell anyone she was benched, but at half time of the game, Karen comes over to tell Abby she’s sure she’ll play later on.  Abby just nods and smiles, but then Karen walks over to tell Erin the same thing, who tells her about the benching. Karen of course tells Kristy.

• Kristy tells Abby she would probably have lied about being benched too….but then she proceeds to get into a fight with Abby for being such a “bad sport.”

• The game that Abby says she has to stay home for is the game where she’s benched.  Again, I’ll cut her some slack here because of the whole dead father issue.  But still.  Abby’s annoying.

• More proof that Abby’s a brat: Her team wins when she sits out….and all she thinks about is how they would have done even better if she’d been playing.

• The jerseys the team gets are all colored purple. If they explain why, I didn’t see it.  It was probably just the color randomly assigned to them, but it made me curious about something – In the town I grew up in, most of the little kid teams wore blue, which was the same color of the high school teams.  So, I was wondering what colors SMS uses.  There were a couple spirit week type things, where each grade dressed in a different color but I can’t remember a team color.  And sadly, this is the type of think I actually wonder about sometimes.

• So, maybe this did get an explanation and I missed it….but I really don’t get why anyone cares about Abby’s team enough to create a booster club supporting it.

• I’m guessing that one of the BSCers mentioned the team on a sitting job (for the Pikes maybe), and the kids got excited about the idea of it? It sounds typical for the BSC, but still a little unrealistic for so many of the kids to show up at all the games.  Maybe they heard about the Special Olympics tie-in and thought supporting it was important? And Abby did mention early on that they didn’t have a sponsor.  But still.  It seems weird.

• What’s really silly is that they seem to only get the uniforms in time for their last game.  Which seems like a bit of a waste.

“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.

“Have you ever experienced True Boredom?”….BSC Mystery # 35: Abby and the Notorious Neighbor

Memory Reaction

This was the second to last mystery in the series, so it was quite a while after I stopped reading. Therefore, no memory.

Revisited Reaction

Abby gets sick with bronchitis and has to miss a bunch of school. She’s a pretty active person, so she gets bored with this quickly. While watching some America’s Most Wanted-type show, she becomes convinced she recognizes one of the fugatives. Everyone tells her she’s imagining things, but she tracks down a tape of the episode and decides the person she recognizes as an embezzler is her neighbor. Again, people tell her she’s imagining things, but she convinces Kristy to snoop around the guy’s house to find out more information. Abby finally convinces that cop that the BSC has a totally inappropriate relationship with to look into the neighbor. He does, and because we want to encourage kids to spy on their neighbors, it turns out that this man’s the criminal in question.

He also appears to be a rather incompetent criminal, because despite being on the run, he gets mail at his home from his home town (in Iowa) and keeps pictures his kids drew on the refrigerator with their names visibly signed. And by visibly signed, I mean Kristy can look in one of his windows and see the names. We don’t see all the behind the scenes stuff, but apparently the cops found enough evidence that the neighbor was really the embezzler in question. Abby and the rest of the BSC get to watch, because they just happen to be in Abby’s room at the time of the arrest. The whole thing’s filmed by the TV show that first featured him, and Abby gets a reward from the show.

We also get an incredibly boring subplot about how kids in town are entering this go-cart race. The Pike triplets are making one, and Vanessa’s making one with Charlotte and Becca Ramsey. Nicky feels all left out, but manages to worm his way onto the triplets’ team by giving them some decals or something boring like that. The Rodowsky boys are also making a go-cart, but aren’t sure how. The end up spying on the girls’ team because they don’t want to admit they need help. I think it’s supposed to be cute, but it isn’t. There’s also drama with the Rodowskys because Jackie wants to be the driver, and Shea thinks that’s a recipe for disaster. But somehow Jackie convinces him and actually does pretty well. But they all lose to Bill and Melody Kormon, a last minute entry.

High/Lowlights

• Supposed the neighbor embezzled from his company, “driving it into bankruptcy,” then abandoned his family after stealing his wife’s life savings. But then they tell us he disappeared with more than $20,000 of stolen money. Now, I’ll assume that Abby’s interpretation may be exaggerated because she was sick when she first saw the show, but how’s $20,000 enough to warrant a spot on any kind of show like this? Or enough to hide out in the rich section of a Connecticut suburb? How much more do they mean?

• Just for the record, this book totally acknowledges that the plot’s straight out of Rear Window and other similar movies.

• Abby says she and Mary Anne are both old movie buffs, which isn’t usually mentioned, but I think is consistent with their characters/other books.

• Mal asks if he does anything suspicious like go out at odd hours or “wear disguises.” Does she mean leave his house in weird hats or sunglasses? I mean, really. What does she expect to see? I would think someone putting on an actual disguise wouldn’t do it before they left their house, since otherwise it would be obvious who they really were.

• It seems kind of out of character that the girls just laugh about the idea that the Rodowskys are spying on Charlotte, Becca, and Vanessa because they don’t want to ask girls for help. I would think they’d try and convince the boys it’s okay to go to the girls.

• Abby’s sister, Anna, plays the violin and likes classical music. I get that. But why does everything about her need to be connected to that? She tells Abby how if she was home sick and had time to do nothing she would read a biography on Beethoven, catalog her CD collection, and prepare for her Advanced Music Theory class. She can’t play the violin, but also watch soap operas or read romance novels?

• As I was reading this, I started thinking how if these books took place today, these girls (who are always going to the library to research during mysteries) could just Google the neighbor. So, imagine my surprise when Claudia and Stacey actually use the Internet (on Janine’s computer). I guess these books got “modern” after I stopped reading.

• I always wanted to build a go-cart when I was a kid. In TV-shows and books kids were always having chances to do this, but I never heard of one happening in the real world.

• During their Internet hunt, Claudia and Stacey find a couple pictures of the embezzler that Abby can use to compare to the neighbor. And in only “ten minutes” they have two blurry pictured printed out. Isn’t technology amazing?

• While Abby’s home sick she doesn’t just spy on the embezzler, she spies on everyone on her street, with binoculars. Kristy’s torn between being interested by what Abby’s learned and worried (because Kristy herself is a neighbor).

• Kristy and Abby have this ridiculous conversation about how the pictures on the neighbor’s refrigerator (they can see them through the window) are evidence that the guy has kids who are around 6 and 8. Apparently, they know that all six-year-olds draw houses with smoke coming out of the chimney and eight-year-olds draw horses or rocket ships (depending on gender).

• Throughout this book I kept thinking how Karen is always getting in trouble in the Little Sister books for spying on her neighbors, and here we have Kristy helping Abby to spy on the neighbors.

• So, the show Abby watched was actually called “Mystery Trackers,” so I’ll buy that a white-collar criminal would show up on one (when they wouldn’t on America’s Most Wanted). But stealing $20,000 does not seem worthy of that much attention. Not that it isn’t a bad thing to do, there are just worse criminals.

• One of the things Abby tells Kristy’s that the Kormons are building a go-cart that she thinks will be very fast, even though the rest of the BSC and the other kids entering the race don’t know about this. I guess Kristy offers to help the Kormons, because the day of the race she shows up with them, and has to convince the judge to let them enter (since they got there late). Kristy’s all thrilled and pleased with herself after they win, like she had some stake in the competition, but I’m not sure why.

• What annoys me about this book’s that everyone keeps telling Abby that she’s imagining things and that she shouldn’t be spying on her neighbors. But, having her be right basically invalidates all those comments and encourage kids to “snoop.” I hope this reaction doesn’t mean I’m old.

“Shouldn’t we go through something like this together?”……BSC # 104: Abby’s Twin

Memory Reaction

This is another book I didn’t get to as a kid.

Revisited Reaction

Stoneybrook Middle School’s testing their students for “health checks” – hearing, vision, and scoliosis. When Abby’s checked, she gets a letter telling her mom to have her checked by an orthopedist. Anna gets a similar note. Abby’s very upset and scared about what this means, but Anna seems a bit calmer.

When they go to the doctor, Abby’s told her scoliosis is very minor and she doesn’t need to do anything about it. Anna, however, is told she needs to wear a brace, although it’s a “low-profile” one that’s worn under her clothes and doesn’t show. Abby feels a little guilty that she’s okay and Anna isn’t, and thinks that since she and Anna are twins they should be going through this together. She vows to be by Anna’s side and give her all the support she needs, even though it’s obvious she’s annoying the crap out of Anna.

Since Anna will need slightly larger clothes to go over the brace, Abby goes out and buys her a whole bunch of new clothes with money her mom gave her. However, Abby picks out stuff that she likes (a jogging suit, sweats, etc), that Anna would never wear. She also tries to cheer Anna up by making her play a “fun” video game instead of watching some “boring” classical music performance on TV….even though Anna was enjoying the concert. This all ends up driving Anna crazy. The two girls get into an argument at school, when Alan Gray accidentally knocks Anna down in the hallway and Abby starts yelling at him about it.

Later, Abby sees Anna sledding down a hill (at a BSC event), and is worried for a minute, until she sees that Anna’s fine. Then the girls make up. Anna admits she was acting cold because she was dealing things in her own way, and Abby realizes she was going overboard with all the help. Abby also admits that she feels worried that because Anna needs a brace and she doesn’t, it seems like they aren’t twins anymore. She fails to recognize that she and Anna are already different medically speaking, because of her asthma/allergies.

The subplot’s about a winter carnival, yet another annoying BSC event. However, this plays out a little different than usual. Instead of Kristy having the idea, then getting several chapters of the BSC meeting with kids to bake cookies, or practice a talent, or whatever, we get chapters of the BSC and their charges shoveling snow to earn money for the carnival. Unfortunately, this change doesn’t make the chapters any better. They finally get everything they need, but at this point there’s almost no snow left on the ground. The girls think they’ll have to cancel, but it starts snowing that morning, just in the nick of time to make a great event.

High/Lowlights

• Stoneybrook must have really crappy weathermen/women. In the blizzard super-special, snow had been predicted for ages with none arriving, which explained why everyone was so unprepared when it actually happened. In the Sea City one, they didn’t believe predictions of a hurricane until the last minute. And here, they don’t know that it will snow the day of the carnival.

• The back of the book says that Abby and Anna weren’t dressed alike as babies, but still have stuff in common. Except there was a whole section of Abby’s autobiography about them dressing alike. I don’t know which book came first, but one of them’s wrong. Probably this one, since I think the back cover of a book isn’t written by the same people as the ones who write the actual content.

• Hey, some consistency. Abby tells us how she hates January (and February). Which is the same thing she said in one of the mysteries. But, I think other characters had the same complaint, so I’m thinking it was really Ann Martin or a ghostwriter with the problem.

• The health checks are run really badly. They cancel classes for all the 8th graders and send them to the gym, where they all wait in line for their turn to be checked. I remember having these in elementary school (not middle school) and they just sent a few people to the nurse’s office at a time. Sending everyone at once is just a waste of time.

• Claudia outfit: “Multicolored, tie-dyed painter’s overalls she’d dyed herself over a blue, hand-beaded long-sleeved shirt. Five colorful, bead-studded papier-mâché bracelets clattered softly on her wrist whenever she moved her arm.” I’m not really surprised Claudia dyed her overalls herself, cause where the hell would she buy tie-dyed overalls?

• Haley Braddock has “short blonde hair (with a long tail down her back).” Have we been told this before? It totally changes my vision of Haley.

• Abby can be really annoying. I didn’t read that many of her books, but from what I did read, I think she had a tendency to be a bit it obnoxious. Not all the time, but enough to be annoying.

• I’m not sure why, but the BSC first tries to make money shoveling snow in Kristy’s neighborhood…where the driveways are longer and most people hire a plowing service. Also, most of the people doing the shoveling (The rest of the BSC, some charges) have to be driven over (in the snow) to do any work.

• The one job they do get on Kristy’s street is to shovel a very long, steep driveway. After the finish, the woman who lives there gives them $10, and half of that is because she liked a snow sculpture some of the kids did in her yard (they got bored shoveling). The BSC thinks it is too low, but shouldn’t they have agreed to a price beforehand. Also, this also happened in a Sleepover Friends book.

• Abby hasn’t heard of scoliosis before, which I find a little surprising. I remember schools making a big deal about it when I was in elementary school. That would have been before this book came out, so I assume the condition was in the public eye by then.

• The BSC gets the kids to help them shovel, which seems a bit mean to me. I don’t know if they split the money with them, but they do charge (albeit very little) at the carnival. So, the kids helped them earn money that’s then used to make things for them to buy?

• Abby’s sitting for the Braddocks on a day when they’re shoveling snow, and Kristy wants to start shoveling before the job starts. So, Abby calls Mrs. Braddock to see if she can start watching the kids earlier, and Mrs. Braddock’s thrilled. Parents in Stoneybrook really can’t stand being around their children, can they?

• Abby gets her hair cut at Gloriana’s House of Hair, which she tells us once butchered Karen’s hair. I’m not sure why Abby knows that when she wasn’t living in Stoneybook at the time, but it was the subject of a Little Sister book. Maybe the BSC has a secret sitting notebook where they laugh about all the bad things that happen to their annoying charges?

• The reason Abby gets her hair cut is because she’s trying to show support for Anna or something like that. I guess she is just doing it to make them seem more twin-like?

• Abby asks Stacey to go shopping with her for Anna, and then proceeds to ignore her advice. However, maybe this was because Stacey recommended Laura Ashley outfits for Anna. That seems a bit young for a thirteen-year-old, doesn’t it?

• For someone who supposedly has a connection with her twin sister, Abby sure seems clueless about how Anna’s actually feeling/thinking.

• Kristy tries to put an announcement on the radio about the carnival being cancelled. You gotta love how important she thinks a BSC carnival is.

• How fast was it snowing that it “saved” the BSC’s carnival? The snow was almost gone the morning of the carnival, then it starts to snow. By the afternoon there’s enough snow for sledding and making snow sculptures. It seems like that would need to be pretty heavy snow, in which case most people would not be venturing out.

“Here’s the most exciting thing of all – Anna and I were invited to become members of the Baby-sitters club!”….BSC Portrait Collection: Abby’s Book

Memory Reaction

Once again, this is a book I never read as a kid, so I don’t have a memory of it and don’t have a lot to write in this section. Of course, it also means I’m looking forward to reading it. I don’t know Abby as well as all the other girls, so there may actually be new information in this book. With the rest of the BSC, there was pretty much no new knowledge gained from the autobiographies.

Revisited Reaction

Abby’s early years chapter is centered around being a twin. We hear all the stereotypical things that are usually in twin stories…she felt pain if Anna was hurt, they spoke in their own secret language, etc. Abby also thought it was normal to have a twin. On her first day of preschool she saw all the other kids without a twin, and thought Anna was going to be taken away from her. She also tells us how she and Anna used to pick out identical clothes, toys, etc. The first time they didn’t was when they were picking out backpacks for the start of first grade. They both ended up changing their minds, because they felt too weird otherwise.

When Abby and Anna started first grade, their teacher and classmates had trouble telling them apart. Most of the kids just started calling them both Abby-Anna, which they hated (understandably). It’s a lot like what happened to Marilyn and Carolyn Arnold, but that was almost a hundred books ago, so I won’t complain too much about a recycled storyline. Abby’s teacher sends a note home, telling the Stevensons to always dress one of the girls in blue and one in red, to help tell them apart. I can’t believe six-year-olds have enough clothing of any color to wear it every day, but Abby and Anna do, so they go along with it. This led to some kids calling them “red” and “blue,” which Abby and Anna also hate (again, understandably).

The twins switch colors for a day, to see if anyone notices. Their father sees them when he drops something off at the school, and refers to them by the wrong name. So, Abby and Anna are devastated for the afternoon, thinking their father can’t tell them apart. But, it turns out he was just kidding and playing along with their trick. Abby’s happy to hear this, but she and Anna tell their parents they’re sick of only wearing one color. Anna agrees to cut her hair shorter so that it would be easy to tell them apart. After this, the other kids started getting to know them, and they start developing their own hobbies. By their birthday, the kids all give them different gifts that actually fit their personalities. Abby and Anna still think of that as their favorite birthday. Which again, is just like the Arnold twins, and how their favorite birthday presents were the ones Mallory gave them (just because they were different).

When Abby was nine, her father was killed in a car accident. It’s all very sad, and I’m not saying that to be sarcastic, it really is….there’s not a lot to snark on. Unlike Mary Anne, who never knew her mom, Abby was close to her dad, and he seemed like a really good father. In the weeks after his death, Abby’s mom started working crazy long hours, gave up cooking (which she used to love), and let the housework go. At this point, Anna and Abby stop going to their respective after-school activities. Eventually, their mother realized this, and she gets it together enough to start grocery shopping again and make Abby and Anna rejoin their activities.

The next anecdote’s from a year later, when Mrs. Stevenson’s still spending most of her time at work. Abby and Anna are also spending a lot of time with friends and sports/music, but wish they spent more time together as a family. Mrs. Stevenson overhears them talking about this, and decides to take them on a vacation to Florida over the holidays. Abby’s excited, but once they get there, the three of them spend all their time apart…her mom works and plays golf, Anna hangs out with another girl staying near them, and Abby hangs out on the beach and plays various sports with other kids at the resort). But Abby does get them both to go with her to sign up for some family New Year’s Eve party the resort’s hosting. A person who works there sees them together, and expresses surprise that Mrs. Stevenson has kids, and that Abby and Anna are twins (he thought they were one person). Mrs. Stevenson realizes she’s still not really spending a lot of time with the girls, and they have a family talk about it. They agree to do their own thing for New Year’s Eve and start their own traditions.

When Abby’s twelve, the Stevensons are spending more time together, but her mother’s still depressed about Mr. Stevenson’s death. She makes a New Year’s Resolution to make a change in her life. Since we already know that the Stevensons move to Stoneybrook within the next year, it’s pretty obvious what the change is going to be. But we get to read a whole chapter building up to it, because the book has to have fifteen chapters to be a BSC book. Abby and Anna don’t want to move, but they deal with it (and really, what choice do they have?). Once they arrive in Stoneybrook, we get to see Abby's perspective of the end of the Kristy book that introduced the twins. Abby knew Kristy didn’t like her at first, but says she won her over, and was happy to join the BSC.

High/Lowlights

• Claudia barely gets mentioned in this book, but we still get an outfit. “She wore leopard-skin tights with a black velvet minidress to school. Here earrings were made of fake-fur buttons.”

• Abby says her parents knew they were having twins, but didn’t know they would be born early. Aren’t most twins born early? If I know that without ever being pregnant, someone who IS pregnant and preparing to give birth would probably have heard of it.

• Abby’s first grade teacher seems surprised to have identical twins in her class. But shouldn’t she have been somewhat prepared? Teachers usually have lists of their students before the first day of school. And two girls with the same name’s probably a big hint that they’re twins.

• Abby and Anna’s birthday is October 15th. I find it pretty unbelievable that between the start of school (usually early September in the northeast) and mid October, they could have went to school dressed alike, spent a few weeks with red and blue color coding, cut Anna’s hair, and then developed unique friendships enough to get separate gifts.

• One of Anna’s birthday presents (at age six) is a tape of classical music for her walkman. Do most six-year-olds have walkmans (or DID they, back when people still used walkmans)? And would someone that young listen to classical music?

• Abby’s dad tells her to be careful crossing the street because there are crazy drivers out there, and a couple hours later he’s killed in a car accident. That seems almost creepy. Or it would, if it happened in real life.

• We never really hear the details of what happened to her dad, just that it was a car accident (which isn’t really specific). I guess they didn’t think it was necessary in a kids’ book, but it feels like something is missing.

• Abby refers to her family life after her dad’s death as a “new kind of family.” Which feels sort of weird, because that’s what ABC Family uses in all those promotional spots. Not that I watch ABC Family.

• From the Abby books I did read, I thought I remembered that her mom only got a job at a publishing company after her dad died. But in her autobiography, that’s definitely not the case. I guess I like that….otherwise it’s too much like Kristy’s mom getting a job after Mr. Thomas left. And I kind of like showing a female workaholic, just in the interest of feminism.

• Abby’s mom decides to get rid of all her furniture and buy all new stuff when they move to the Stoneybrook. The girls convince her to keep some things, but she still gets a lot new. That actually seems like so much fun, although I guess I would save some things (like my collection of childhood books).

• Abby asks for (and gets) a convertible couch for her bedroom (so her friends from Long Island can visit). How big is her room that she can fit a couch and a bed?

• Also, Abby says her house is as big as all the other houses on the street. So, how come we always hear about Kristy living in a mansion, but nothing about Abby (or Shannon, for that matter) living in one?

• Abby says that if the BSC were around when she was leaving Long Island, she would have figured out from all the “clues” that her mom wanted to move. I guess because the BSC are such good “detectives?” But considering the clues included a real estate agent from Stoneybrook calling her mom, I don’t know how great a detective would be needed.

• And how come the Pike triplets never run into trouble with people mixing them up, but all the female twins we meet do?

• Anna already has her graded and returned to her before Abby turns hers in. But from reading all the other autobiographies, I had the sense that they were due at the same time.

• Also, Anna only turned it in a week earlier, and I can’t believe a teacher would grade a full class of autobiographies in less than a week. That is a hell of a lot of reading.

• Lastly, for anyone who cares, Abby got an A- on her autobiography.