“I had no idea what a sitting job inew neighborhood would really mean”…..BSC # 11: Kristy and the Snobs

Memory Reaction

For some reason, what really sticks in my head from this one is the funeral they had for Kristy’s dog. And I remember how they made this huge deal out of Stacey using “reverse psychology” and even remind people of it in later books. Because whenever I hear the term, or see an example of it I think of the BSC.

Revisited Reaction

This book starts out a few weeks after Kristy has moved into Watson’s “mansion.” She is predisposed to hate the kids in her neighborhood for being “snobs,” so, she is a little bitchy to them. Of course, they are a little bitchy back, then they call each other snobs and jerks. There is sort of two levels of this conflict – one is the Delaney’s, the snobby kids she has to sit for. The other is Shannon, who ends up joining the BSC.

Shannon is pissed that Kristy is taking her baby-sitting jobs. So, they play some practical jokes on each other and try to ruin the other’s sitting jobs. But, they sort of bond over the fact that Kristy’s dog Louie is sick and gets put to sleep. Shannon ends up giving one of her dog’s puppies to David Michael. He names her Shannon, cause everyone wants to have a dog named after them. After that, Kristy and Shannon become friendly and they ask her to join the club.

Meanwhile, the Delaneys, are acting like a couple of spoiled brats. She calls them snobs, complains about them, etc. Stacey is apparently a mini-psych major and pulls “reverse psychology” on them. That weird them out, and they eventually, they start to behave.

High/Lowlights

• Amanda is really annoying. Every day she talks about how much money her cat costs. You’d think they could make the rich snobs interestingly evil, like Gossip Girl, or something. Talking about a cat is just dumb.

• Shannon always seems to be hanging out with Amanda Delaney in this book….it is kind of random considering their ages.

• So, this is kind of cute. This book is right before Mrs. Perkins had her baby, and Myriah and Gabbie are talking about names they like. Myriah likes Laurie and Gabbie likes Beth…. which seems sweet since they end up naming her Laura Beth.

• The Delaney’s living room is apparently all white. That doesn’t suggest rich to me, it suggests stupidity. Even rich kids can get messy.

• Kristy lets the Delaney’s order her around because she wants the kids to be happy (so their parents keep calling the BSC). But, she can’t really turn around and complain about the kids, can she?

• In this book, Kristy describes Dawn and her family as “semi-vegetarians.” Inconsistent, much?

• Dawn sits for her brother, and they have a fight about him wanting to live in California. So then Dawn waits up until her mom comes home at 1:00 am. That seems pretty late to leave a 10- and 13- year old alone. I guess I never realized how much Jeff’s move to California was built up before it really happened.

• I don’t really think reverse psychology would work….when I was ten, I would say I liked a messy room. If someone came to baby-sit me and tried to mess it up more, I would just go with it.

• Wouldn’t people as rich as the Delaney’s have a maid? Why are they cleaning up after themselves anyway?

• Stacey teaches them to play “Snail” which I remember them playing in later books.

• So, Shannon orders pizza to come to Kristy while she is baby-sitting. Then Kristy tells the pizza guy to send it over to Shannon’s house. And of course, Shannon gets annoyed.

• Kristy orders diaper service for Shannon? Is that like, an actual thing?

• This is ANOTHER book where the Pikes are all sick. Five of them have chicken pox at once. Then during the job, Nicky and Vanessa end up coming down with it as well. And of course, they all eat dinner in their bedrooms cause they are not allowed out of bed when sick. I was five when I had the chicken pox, so I don’t remember that much, but I know I didn’t stay in my room the whole time. I just remember how they didn’t let me go to school on the last day of Kindergarten, and I was totally devastated.

• Are cream cheese and jelly sandwiches really “sick” food? That is what the Pikes all eat while sick. Maybe the Pikes should serve them vegetables some time, instead of always letting them eat whatever they want…it might keep them healthier.

• It is so sad to read about Kristy’s dog dying.

• Kristy really does egg the “snobs” on. At least Shannon. She calls her jerk-face when they talk to her for the first time.

• They drive Louie to the vet’s twice a day to get shots, as a final treatment method. Can’t they be taught to do it? Why drive to the doctor twice a day if you don’t have to.

• They have a funeral for Louie. Kristy thinks it was Watson’s idea, even though Karen tries to claim credit for it. Brat.

• Charlie gets all embarrassed to be digging a “grave” because Karen invited all the snobby neighbors.

• Kristy actually misses a BSC meeting because she is so upset about Louie.

• Shannon talks about how she and Tiffany both baby-sit. Isn’t Tiffany a sittee later on?

• Karen is talking about the ghost “Ben Brewer” and says he roams the halls to get exercise. Then Mary Anne is all, “don’t you mean e-x-o-r-c-I-s-e?” Karen doesn’t get the joke, but wasn’t she always kind of a spelling snob? I know she is young, but I think she would have understood.

“Will Karen’s wish come true?”…..Baby-Sitters Little Sister Super Special # 1: Karen’s Wish

Memory Reaction

I never actually read this book as a kid. In fact, I only read a few of the Little Sister books. I read the BSC books after I was too old to, but the Little Sister books were at an even lower reading level, and I just didn’t bother with them. But, I got this in a package of BSC stuff on e-bay, so I figured I’d blog about it.

Revisited Reaction

The basic plot is that is December and Karen is looking forward to Christmas and all the new toys she thinks she is going to get. Seriously, she is a little spoiled brat about it. Then, Nannie falls and injures her hip, and might be in the hospital for the holidays. Karen decides the only thing she will ask for will be for Nannie to get better. Which, shockingly, she does, and she comes home on Christmas Eve.

Meanwhile, Karen has been talking to her friend Nancy about Hanukah and the girls “trade holidays,” where Karen goes to Nancy’s house and celebrates Hanukah with her one night and Nancy does the same thing on X-mas. And they get each other the same Bobbsey Twin book as a gift because they are just that close. It was really predictable.

Like I said, I never read this book, but I must have read the surrounding ones. Karen talks about how “last month” at Thanksgiving she had two turkey dinners (which I do remember happening). I also remember some book where Karen is a little bitch telling people they aren’t keeping their New Years resolution, and tells Nannie she isn’t working hard enough in physical therapy. I am guessing that was right after this book. Although, I don’t remember any mention of Nannie getting hurt in the regular BSC books. That was really the only thing I liked about the Little Sister books, that their was sometime crossover stuff.

High/Lowlights

• I think I may have lost IQ points reading this one. It is supposedly at a grade three reading level, but the sentences are all so simple, it was painful to read. It is like, “My name is Karen and I am seven. I have blonde hair. I like Christmas.” It continues like that for the whole book.

• Supposedly, Karen, Hannie, and Nancy are the “three musketeers,” but Karen and Nancy totally leave Hannie out of everything they do in this book. Karen invites Nancy to go do all this Christmas stuff, and Nancy invites Karen to do all this Hanukah stuff, and Hannie is barely mentioned. Also, Karen spends hours thinking of a good gift for Nancy and finding it in the store. For Hannie she gets ponytail holders, which Hannie told her to buy. No thought whatsoever.

• Karen keeps feeling sorry for Nancy because she doesn’t celebrate Christmas and won’t get gifts. Then, when Nancy tells her she gets Hanukah gifts, Karen still doesn’t believe she’ll get as many presents as her. It is either a spoiled attitude or a closed-minded attitude. I know she is only seven, but really.

• Karen and Andrew sing “Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg. Batmobile lost a wheel, and Commissioner broke his leg.” Is that how it is supposed to go? Cause when I was little, we always sang it “Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg. Batmobile lost a wheel, and the Joker got away.”

• After she starts talking to Nancy about Hanukah, Karen gets all enlightened and starts wondering why the mall only has Christmas decorations and not Hanukah ones. I am thinking this book is supposed to be a lesson on kids about diversity.

• When Nannie starts to get better, Karen decides to write a Christmas list after all, but as soon as she does, she finds out Nannie got some infection. That probably isn’t supposed to be funny, but it is.

• Karen and Andrew don’t mail letters to Santa, they throw them in the fireplace, where they “magically fly up the chimney to the North Pole.” I would have made fun of that, but last December I saw one of these ABC Family Christmas movies where the characters did the same thing. It was the first time I had ever heard of it, but I guess it is more common that I thought.

• Karen wants a doll called “Baby-Grow-a-Tooth.” I TOTALLY had a doll like that when I was about six. But it wasn’t just a tooth, it was a growing doll, and if you turned a crank on her back, the doll got taller and her teeth came in. Then you could change her clothes.

• I can’t believe Karen’s parents allowed her to call her mother’s home “the little house.” It is really quite mean.

• In the token introduction chapter, Karen talks all about how sometimes being a “two-two” can be bad. Because even though she has two of everything, that can sometimes make life hard. I guess this is Martin’s commentary on how divorce effects kids, but she could probably be more subtle about it.

• Karen and Nancy both talk about books by saying the author after. Like, “I want to read Matilda by Ronald Dahl.” I barely do that now, let alone when I was a kid.

• So, this makes no sense. Karen and Andrew go over to “the big house” on X-mas Eve to spend the night. On Christmas morning, they go back to their moms’ place. So, why does their “big-house” family give them the gifts on X-mas Eve and not in the morning before going to their mom’s? It is only Karen and Andrew who open gifts then, so it is not like their tradition is to open them early. I can see Karen and Andrew opening the gifts on Christmas Eve if that was the only day they were going to see their Dad, but it is not. Maybe they were being nice and letting the kids open gifts early, but then wouldn’t Emily and David Michael have been allowed to do the same? It is just dumb because on Christmas morning, Karen and Andrew sit around while everyone else opens the gifts. They only open their stockings, which are from “Santa.” (Which are the only things Santa gives them, although at the “little house” he gives them bigger gifts. Which, you think would confuse a four-year-old). THEN, when they go back to the “little house” they wait until after dinner to open gifts.

• Of course, Karen gets everything she wanted. Even though she never made a list. But she still decides to write a list for next year.

1. My two families to be healthy.
2. Everyone in my two families to be home for Christmas
3. To celebrate Hanukah with Nancy
4. Nancy to celebrate Christmas with us
5. No more plane crashes
6. No more bombs or wars
7. Houses for everyone in the world to live in
8. No guns
9. Ricky Torres to ask me to marry him.
10. Three Madama Alexandra dolls.

Don't you love how cliche it is? All the "I want world peace" stuff along with the fancy dolls?

Lastly, check out this picture. Whoever did this illustration should be fired:

“I was already a beauty”…..BSC # 37: Dawn and the Older Boy

Memory Reaction

All I remember is Travis giving her gifts. And this scene where Dawn is surprised that Travis could drive at 16 – because even though it is the legal driving age, most parents make their kids wait until they are 17. Or, so Dawn claimed. I didn’t believe it at the time, but I grew up in NJ where you can’t get your license until 17. So, I have no idea what people in other states did.

Revisited Reaction

At a sleepover at Kristy’s, Dawn meets this guy who is friends with Charlie and Sam. He is from California, so Dawn is instantly into him. For some reason, he decides to talk to her, even though he is at least three years older than her. Plus, afterwards, he visits Dawn, then gives her jewelry and hair clips to wear. Then he starts giving her “advice” like saying she should cut her hair or get another ear piercing, etc. Some of this she does. Cause, as we already know, Dawn will change anything for a guy.

Then she finds out that Travis is actually dating a HS girl and feels all betrayed. But she eventually does tell him off for leading her on. And, she kind of has a right to because he shouldn’t be giving gifts to some girl he has no interest in. Especially a thirteen-year-old. So, good for her. Then Mary Anne gives Dawn Lewis’s address, and they start to exchange letters.

Interestingly, the BSC doesn’t know about all this as it is happening. She finally tells them the whole story, but not until the end. What they are doing in the meantime, is dealing with a baby-sitting crisis: The Perkins and the Hobarts are putting on a play. James wrote it, which makes one of the assholes from THIS book make fun of him. Plus, the Perkins dog is in the play, which makes things difficult. I always pictured that dog as this huge monster-size one. I think they had a similar one in Sleepover Friends…One of the girls had a large dog, and the scenes always made me think it was a crazy-big animal. But, anyway, the play goes well enough, I guess. And James sort of makes friends with the asshole. Of course, I think he did this in an earlier book too, so who knows how long it will last.

High/Lowlights

• Claud outfit: “Today, for example, she had stuck to two colors: black and white. Black cotton bib overalls over a white turtleneck with a shiny black parent leather belt lopped around her waist. Black suede ankle boots and white cotton socks. Long black hair swept off her face with giant white plastic barrettes.” I actually think it sounds kind of cute.

• Stacey does some weird style to Mary Anne’s hair where she scrunches it into a tangled “mane.” I am not sure I am picturing that correctly, but I am also not sure I want to. Anyway, Mary Anne hates it, but is afraid to tell Stacey.

• Mary Anne wakes the other girls up after a sleep-over at Kristy’s because she thinks the Brewers will be expecting them for breakfast. Um, really? The parents of a teenage girl expect them to get up early after a slumber party.

• Kristy convinces everyone to go down to the kitchen in their pajamas and old makeup cause no one important would be there. And of course, this is where Travis enters. Dawn and the other girls keep hiding behind each other, than run up to change. Then spend over an hour primping before going back down. I can’t believe that Stacey (who had a crush on Sam), wouldn’t look in a mirror before going downstairs.

• Dawn’s after sleep-over outfit: “A pale blue ten-button top with my favorite jeans.

• Travis hears Dawn is from California and is all, “I like to take long walks on the beach.” Then Dawn says she didn’t live on the ocean. Even though she always talks about the ocean. I mean, I know she didn’t live right on it, but I would think she would mention going there.

• And also, long walks on the beach? Cliche, much?

• How big are kid-kits supposed to be? I always picture them as shoeboxes, but they can’t fit that much stuff in a shoebox. But do they really carry around huge boxes.

• The timing is really off in this thing – the sleepover was a Friday night, so Dawn met Travis on a Saturday morning. Then at the Monday meeting Dawn asks Kristy if she has seen Travis again. I guess it could have been a full week away, but it seems weird to expect him to be there every day.

• Dawns says she sometimes gets a feeling when it is going to be an exciting day. Apparently, it happened the day Claud broke her leg. If Dawn thinks she is psychic, she should warn her friends.

• Now Dawn’s house has a smoke house and an out house? Seriously?

• Travis just pulls up outside Dawn’s house when she and Mary Anne are raking leaves and chats with her. How did he know where she lived?

• Would the Hobarts really be hanging out with the Perkins girls? I know they live next door, but they are not really that close in age – at least not James Hobart.

• I still think kids would think kids from Australia and being like “Crocodile Dundee” was cool.

• Travis is kind of an ass. He keeps talking about how all these sports teams and clubs at school are begging him to join them, because he is just so good at everything.

• If Kristy didn’t know Travis and Dawn had a ‘thing’, why would she start talking about him? I don’t know how much time has passed, so it is hard to judge, but it seems like it is supposed to be over a few weeks. Would the BSC think what Charlie’s friend does is interesting?

• Dawn totally stalks Travis. Twice. She goes down to his school and follows him downtown. She is lucky that those two days he just happens to walk downtown, not drive.

• Travis’s new girlfriend wears “a white cotton flight suit” that is supposedly like something Claud or Stacey would wear. WTF is a flight suit?

• Dawn doesn’t let Travis talk her into getting her pierced ears (as if she could get it done without her parents) and she says she had to work hard to get permission for the earrings in the first place. That’s not really how I remember it. She just makes a random phone call, right?

• So the kids just decide what day they want to perform the play, and expect people to show up. They want an adult, so Mary Anne calls Mrs. Pike, but it doesn’t seem like any other adults show up. Wouldn’t these kids want to put on the play for their parents?

• When Travis’s girlfriend is all, “I heard he turned you into a beauty.” Then Dawn is all “I already was a beauty.” Even she realized how conceited that sounded. But, I actually don’t think it was so bad to say.

• On two separate occasions Dawn’s teacher lets her out early and she gets to leave school ten minutes early. That never happened in my school. I think there was supposedly a legal thing.

• She writes in a letter to Lewis that she will make him vegetarian food….which she actually does. So, yea, continuity.

By the way, sorry if this post isn't showing up correctly, I am having issues with blogger.

“She was hysterical. Completely and totally hysterical……”BSC Mystery # 22: Stacey and the Haunted Masquerade

Memory Reaction

I may have actually thought this plot was kind of cool. It is completely preposterous and makes no sense, but I thought it was cool, nonetheless. I actually really liked Stacey in it. I was probably actually 13 by the time it came out, and wished I had her life. (As opposed to expecting I would have the life of the BSC girls, like when I was younger).

I DO remember being bothered by the premise that the school was having the first Halloween “masquerade” dance in over twenty years, because there had been like five Halloween dances in previous BSC books. I mean, it was the PLOT of several books, right? The phantom phone call one, the one with Mary Anne and the chain letter, the one with Kristy and a secret admirer…Or are they saying a “Masquerade” is different than a regular Halloween dance where you wear costumes?

Revisited Reaction

The school is having a “Masquerade” dance and it is a big deal, because they haven’t had one for a long time (again, whatever) and there are rumors something bad happened at the last one. Stacey joins the decorating committee because she wants to be more involved at school. She likes it and has a lot of good ideas and everyone except Cokie Mason likes them. Because apparently Stacey has a creative side too.

Meanwhile, a bunch of weird pranks start happening at school – funny announcements being made, things being written on the boards in classrooms, the school getting TPed, etc. It all starts the day after the new kid, Cary Retlin shows up, but no one wonders if it could be him. Cause, they are idiots, I guess. Anyway, these pranks bleed into sabotage of the decorations for the dance – posters get ripped up and someone strings up a dummy from the basketball hoop in the gym. There is also some old guy writing letters to the town paper about how the town should not spend money on school dances because of what happened in the past.

This gets the BSC to start looking into what happened at the dance 28 years ago. They find out that there was some prank that led to a black out, and a teacher had a heart attack and died in the panic that followed. But no one really knows the details of the prank, just that a girl left school after. The BSC manages to find out the name of the girl who left school and coincidentally, she lived in Charlotte Johanssen’s house. Imagine that! So, while baby-sitting, Stacey and Mary Anne manage to find an old note in the basement that this girl wrote revealing that she was in love with a guy….who has the same name is a new teacher at school, Mr. Rotham. Wow, can you believe the coincidences!

So, Stacey actually asks Rotham about it, and instead of telling her to mind her own business, the guy tells her the story. He was some football player and was playing some prank on a girl that involved asking the outcast to a dance and then laughing at her. Basically like Carrie, but without the pig’s blood. And he felt bad about it (but still did it).

No one has figured out who is sabotaging the decorations, but the dance goes on. It seems fine, and then suddenly there is this weird woman there with a cloak. Instead of seeing anything cool happen, we cut to the next day, and the BSC explaining what happened to Shannon: The woman was the person who was ‘wronged’ as a girl and had been in mental hospitals ever since. Rotham led her out of the dance and “got her help.” I don’t know how I feel about the idea that some chick went crazy because some losers made fun of her in eighth grade. I mean, they say she was “unbalanced” to begin with, but still. Oh, and Stacey figures out that Cary Retlin is behind the fun pranks at school.

High/Lowlights

• Like I said, I like Stacey’s attitude in this. She is thinking of “couples” ideas for her and Robert to wear to the dance, but then decides if Robert doesn’t want to dress up, she’ll just go as Marilyn Monroe or Wonder Woman because she wants to go in costume.

• Just because Dawn lives in California doesn’t make Mary Anne an only child….she still has stepsiblings even if they don’t live with her.

• Stacey’s ideas for the dance decorations are to use red and purple instead of orange and black and to use the Aadams family as a theme. The red and purple is kind of different, but the Aadams family theme seems a little cliché.

• Grace Blume outfit: “Thermal leggings and a blue plaid flannel shirt.” I totally had outfits like that in eighth grade.

• Stacey says it is a miracle for Claud to have made five posters and only made one mistake (spelling-wise). I pretty much agree with that.

• Oh, there is this stupid Ghostbusters theme, where all the kids are insisting on going on “ghost hunts” in their houses. It is lame, and I am not even going to bother thinking about if kids would really be into Ghostbusters in 1994ish. I don’t think so though. But anyway, this is the excuse to search Charlotte’s house.

• I call bullshit on finding a note from the last person who lived in a house. I don’t care if it is in the basement/attic/etc. Don’t people clean?

• Everyone shows their personality a little with their costumes:

Stacey: Mortica Aadams (Robert was Gomez)

Mary Anne: Dorothy

Jessi: Cowgirl

Mal: Ballerina (she and Jessi switched at the last minute)

Abby: Lucy Riccardo

Kristy: Amelia Earheart

Claud: A giant twinkie (seriously!)

• The girls take a bunch of little kids trick-or-treating….I don’t know, maybe I was a dork, but I went trick-or-treating myself all through high school. My senior year we had a car and drove around to as many neighborhoods as we could.

• Stacey and Claud talk about watching the movie Carrie….Um, isn’t that rated R?

• When telling the story about this girl from the dance, they say she didn’t know her fairy princess costume was silly. But Claudia goes as a Twinkie. What sounds worse to you?

• Cokie lies to the art teacher and takes credit for Stacey’s ideas to get to work on some special project. Grace backs her up, but no one bothers to ask Rotham (the advisor) or the other five people who worked on the committee. I guess, I liked Stacey in this book up until then when she stopped sticking up for herself, just because she liked the normalness of Cokie plotting against them.

• I kind of like how the BSC doesn’t really solve this mystery. They find out what happened at the last dance, but they don’t figure out who is causing the damage, and they don’t stop the crazy woman from showing up. It is a lot more realistic than the ones where they have an impact on a police investigation.

“Logan has nothing to worry about…..he’s my boyfriend and always will be”…….BSC # 34: Mary Anne and Too Many Boys

Memory Reaction

I already told you why I liked the Sea City books, and I actually liked this one even more than the Stacey book. Or at least I remember it better. I do know it was when it became blatantly obvious that they were screwing with the timeline. Before then, the girls had stopped mentioning time, but I don’t think they had had a “summer” after starting 8^th grade. There were a couple super specials that took place in the summer, but you can’t really tell where they fit in the time line, so it is less obvious.

Revisited Reaction

In this book Mary Anne and Stacey go on their second trip to Sea City, as mother’s helpers for the Pikes. They actually explain Mallory not being a second sitter, by saying her parents actually want her to enjoy the vacations. The Pikes being considerate of Mal? Shocking.

Pretty soon after arriving, they run into Alex and Toby, they guys they met last year, on the beach. For Stacey, this is cool, because she loves boys. For Mary Anne, it is a little awkward because of Logan. But, they still hang out on the beach, and make plans to go out to dinner. They go out as separate couples, not a double date, so first it is even more awkward. But Mary Anne and Alex do end up having fun.

Meanwhile, Stacey is acting like a bitch, wanting to go out two nights in a row, even though she and Mary Anne are supposed to alternate nights off. Then, at the end of the trip, she gets bitchy again, but admits it is cause Toby dumped her. He didn’t want to be “tied down” or something. When Mary Anne and Alex go out again, she lets it slip that she has a boyfriend. Alex is all, “that’s cool, I have a girlfriend too.” So, they decide to just be friends and have a nice evening.

While all this has been going on, Vanessa has developed a crush on this guy who works at the ice cream parlor. He is supposed to be about twelve, so I don’t know how he got this job. Even on “Secret Life of the American Teenage”, they reference needing working papers. (Not that I watch it). Vanessa leaves him poems, but he thinks they are from Mallory – who he likes. But by this point it is time to go home, and so Vanessa just writes a good-bye note without saying who she is. It is rather anti-climactic.

High/Lowlights

• In the standard Chapter 2, Mary Anne talks about how when Dawn came to town, she had to reassure Kristy that she wouldn’t affect their friendship. But….Dawn does affect Mary Anne and Kristy’s friendship.

• The girls talk about how great the pizza is in Sea City. Um, really? Stacey, Miss New York City, thinks pizza is better at the Jersey Shore than NYC?

• Dawn’s outfit for flying to California (which she does while Mary Anne is in Sea City): “A beautiful Laura Ashley dress and had swept her long blonde hair back in pearl barrettes.” This is for a 6-hour plane ride?

• Do the Pikes have any rules for their kids (other than Mal)? They take two cars to the beach, and on the trip down the triplets and Nicky keep taking turns posting mean signs to each other from the window. This is only possible because Mr. and Mrs. Pike keep passing each other on the highway. It is like they are encouraging them.

• I wonder what the Pikes would do if they ever got a hold of the internet….

• They stop to get ice cream on the drive and Claire disappears. Mary Anne finds her at the counter trying to get a new ice cream because it all leaked out from the bottom. And the guy working there just gives her a new cone for free.

• So, while reading this I started thinking about what happened with Mary Anne and Alex the first year they met. Mary Anne tells us they exchanged rings from some place on the boardwalk. We know Stacey had her first kiss with Toby then, so I wonder if Mary Anne did too. We never really heard her say for sure that Logan was her first kiss. And a lot of the other girls make a point of telling us when theirs happens.

• Isn’t Vanessa a little young to be “eyeing” a guy?

• When we are introduced to the cute ice-cream parlor guy, he and Mal actually bump heads. Then, he loses control of the whipped cream machine and ruins her sundae. Romantic.

• I don’t believe this. Claire spills her ice cream soda and they just give her new one. It doesn’t say for sure that it is for free, but it seems like it. She is way to lucky.

• As soon as I started reading this chapter I remembered it. Kristy takes the Rodowski’s to the local pool, and makes the mistake of letting Jackie buy a huge cookie - which he then proceeds to drop in the pool. When I picture that scene, I picture it happening in the community pool where I grew up.

• This pool has a height restriction for the diving board. This seems kind of mean. I can understand an age restriction, but not a height one.

• Kristy keeps asking for trouble. She lets Jackie go up to order their lunch by himself.

• When Mal asks her about Logan, Mary Anne is all, “he is my boyfriend and always will be.” Do some people really think that about their middle school boyfriends?

• Jessi thinks Squirt is some kind of genius – after watching some Sesame Street type show about “which one of these things doesn’t belong?” – he takes the Pike’s hamster (which Jessi is taking care of) and puts it in the Ramsey’s hamster cage.

• Is it that shocking a 13-year-old guy wouldn’t want to commit to someone who doesn’t live anywhere near them? Why would he even think it is expected of him? Stacey went out with other guys after meeting him.

• The way Mary Anne slips to Alex that she has a boyfriend is that she wants to pay the check – apparently she and Logan alternate.

• Mallory fun fact: She talks in her sleep. Not just talks, she sits up and starts yelling at people. Vanessa just let it roll off her shoulders, so it must happen a lot.

• Vanessa talks about how she has left notes for the ice cream guy several times…um, how did she do this without Mary Anne and Stacey knowing? I don’t think the Pikes would actually do something with their child, like take them to an ice-cream parlor.

• Mary Anne agrees to keep the Vanessa think private, but I wonder if she will tell Mal. I mean, Mallory is supposed to be one of her best friends, and she would probably appreciate knowing a guy liked her.

“Coach! I liked the sound of that.”……..BSC # 20: Kristy and the Walking Disaster

Memory Reaction

I…am coming up with nothing. I know I read this book a million times, because I found my old copy and the cover was worn off. And I remember the complete plot. I just can’t remember what I thought of it. I am even having trouble guessing what my childhood brain would have thought (thinking about it now).

Revisited Reaction

Kristy realizes that her siblings and some of her neighbors really like softball, but all suck at it. She hears about a guy in her neighborhood who has his one softball team for kids, but he can’t take on any members. So, she decides to start her own team, the Kristy’s Krushers. Most of the standard BSC clients join – at least the ones that suck at sports. Basically, the team is for kids who are too or too embarrassed or young to play in Little League.

The kid who coaches the other team, is Bart, who Kristy immediately develops a huge crush on. The two of them decide to have a game between their two teams. Bart’s team has some older kids so they beat the Krushers pretty easily. But then Bart asks Kristy out, which thrills her, and they decide to have more games between the two teams.

As for the title reference to “walking disaster,” that is Jackie Rodowski. He is on the team, but constantly causes disasters because of how klutzy he is. I don’t know why he is named in the title, he isn’t really in the book more than any other kid on the team. Kristy does single him out (in her head), to keep pointing out how he always looks messier than the other kids. It is kind of mean, especially since Jackie seems like a sweet kid. But again, he doesn’t do anything to drive the plot. He’s just there.

High/Lowlights

• There is some foreshadowing to Emily’s adoption, because Kristy tells us how her mom wants another kid. She is surprised because her mom is at least thirty-seven. She doesn’t know how old her own mom is?

• Kristy gets nervous around Bart because he looks at her like she is a hot movie star. It kind of reminds me about when Alan asked her out and she was so flattered someone liked her that she said yes.

• Myriah and Gabbie Perkins are apparently gifted at sports as well as everything else.

• What exactly is a “rec room?” I have never heard anyone use that term to describe their house, except of course in the BSC. I would guess it is a basement, but Kristy talks about going downstairs to the rec room, then downstairs again to the basement. Am I just clueless about something?

• The team wants to spell “crushers” with a K, to go with Kristy’s name. Karen is a brat and complains they are spelling it wrong. She even refuses to use the K on her team shirt. Brat. I thought she was supposed to be creative, not an obsessive compulsive.

• I don’t really see Charlotte Johanssen being a cheerleader. At first she just writes the cheers, but she ends up cheering at the game.

• Gabbie Perkins is on the team, at two-and-a-half. I think when I read these originally, I didn’t really realize how little that is. How can someone that young really play baseball? And what parent lets there kid play at that age? It is absurd.

• Jackie breaks a window at the elementary school with a baseball, and the school makes him pay for it (or his parents, anyway). I am trying to decide if that would really happen, or if the school would use insurance.

• Dawn sees Kristy talking to Bart at a practice and then writes in the club notebook about how she can tell Kristy likes him. That seems a little bitchy, but also like something a real teenager would do.

• The boys on Bart’s team make fun of Matt Braddock for being deaf. Assholes.

• So, Bart is oblivious to his team making fun of the Krushers while it is happening. But later, he tells Kristy he found out and apologizes. I want to know how he found out? Did the kids confess or something?

• The BSC actually cancels a meeting the day before the game. I’m shocked.

• Ha. After the game, Bart asks Kristy to walk home and her family and Claudia and Dawn all give each other these knowing looks. It is kind of funny, but Kristy is so happy when he says he wants to be “friends,” which is kinda cute.

“Either way…I was adopted”……BSC # 33: Claudia and the Great Search

Memory Reaction

I don’t remember any of the details of this one, but I know I felt embarrassed for Claud. It is one of those stories where you know someone is going to do something stupid, and cringe in sympathy.

I also think this is the one where she gets some picture of Mimi…then she talks to it in later books. But I may be combining that with other books.

Revisited Reaction

We start out with an awards ceremony for Janine. This makes Claudia feel even dumber than usual, and she keeps thinking about how she is different from the rest of her family. She looks at some old photo albums, and she sees a ton of Janine pictures and almost none of her. So, she decides she must be adopted. She finds a lock box in her parent’s closet, and randomly decides it has her adoption papers. Instead of asking her parents, she decides to investigate, but doesn’t really come to any conclusion – except to declare that since there was no birth announcement in the paper, she must be adopted. Because all births absolutely HAVE to be listed in the paper.

This theory is influenced somewhat by Emily Michelle. Kristy is talking about her a lot, because Emily’s doctor said she was less developed than most two-tear-olds. This means that Emily can’t register for preschool. This is obviously due to the fact that Emily lived in an orphanage, and has only been in the United States for a few months. But, Kristy is worried anyway. Claudia gets a job sitting for her, and tries to help Emily learn shapes and colors and stuff. She does such a good job, that the Brewer’s hire Claudia to be her tutor (cause millionaires can’t afford to get any kind of real tutor, or even to spend time with their kid). But this gets Claudia to see Emily a lot, and when she does, she thinks about how lucky Emily is to be told she is adopted. Well, she would kind of have to be, doesn’t she? I mean, at some point, Emily will be old enough to see that no one else in the family is Asian.

Claudia comes up with all these wild theories about her “birth parents,” but none of them really make sense. Stacey finally convinces her to talk to her parents. As soon as Claud does, they tell her she wasn’t adopted, her birth announcement was in another paper, and they didn’t take as many pictures of her because they were busier when two kids were around. They also point out that she looks exactly like Mimi, which Claud loves. Oh, and that locked box? Full of cash – $500 worth, in case her parents ever need “fast cash” in the middle of the night.

Also, after a few weeks working with Claud, Emily has improved greatly and is now far enough along to get into pre-school for next fall. I guess it is true that peer tutoring works.

High/Lowlights

• Let’s start with an outfit: “A long pleated plaid skirt, a white shirt with round collar, stockings, and blue heels.” – Does that sound normal? That’s because it is Janine’s.

• Here is Claud’s outfit: “A very short black skirt, an oversized white shirt with bright pink and turquoise poodles over it, flat turquoise shoes with ankle straps, and a ton of jewelry, including poodle earrings.” I am ashamed to say I thought clothes like that were once cool to.

• Claud says that all Janine’s friends walk around with protractors in their pockets. Has anyone ever seen someone actually do this? In my school, even the “dorks” dressed normally.

• Huh, weird piece of continuity here. Claudia says she thinks that Kristy doesn’t think she (Kristy) is pretty, but she is. This fits in with what Kristy was saying about herself in the last book.

• Have I mentioned this before? Cause they say this in every book – it is another sign of the ghostwriters having it out for Mal. When talking about the record book, it is all, “Mary Anne keeps track of my art classes, Jessi’s ballet practice, Kristy’s Krushers practices, and Mal’s orthodontist appointments.” Everyone else gets hobbies and Mal gets orthodontist appointments.

• This seems kind of mean – the day of her award ceremony, Janine kept running into Claud’s room with different outfits on. Claudia thought they all looked boring, so she says they are all fine. I mean, Janine was probably lucky she didn’t take Claud’s fashion advice, but really. Janine helps Claud with school all the time. Claudia could at least look at her clothes.

• Fun fact: Claud’s mom is certified to teach elementary school.

• So, Dawn is sitting at Kristy’s while Kristy is at the Papadakis’s. She brings the kids over to play, and David Michael, Linny, and some other neighbor start to play baseball with Kristy. Meanwhile, Dawn watches Hannie, Emily, and the little Papadakis kid. But, isn’t Hannie on the Krushers? I am sure she is. She should have been playing ball too.

• Another sign of the genius Perkins girls – Myriah is able to make a perfect batch of chocolate chip cookies with no recipe.

• Claud reads “Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye,” and decides her life is just like the book. Imagine if she read “The Face on the Milk Carton?”

• Why is Claud so convinced that birth announcements HAVE to be in the paper?

• Kristy’s grandmother takes Emily back to the preschool to be evaluated. Wouldn’t this be something parents normally do? I know Kristy’s mom and Watson work, but you’d think they would take time off for something like that.

• David Michael asks Kristy if he is a good ballplayer, and she says, “you’re getting better.” Nice.

• Why isn’t Becca Ramsey a Krusher’s cheerleader? They always talk about how she is Charlotte’s BFF, and Charlotte (uncharacteristically) is one, along with Vanessa Pike and Haley Braddock. In later books, I think those four are super close, so why is she left out?

• Want an example of Claudia’s detective work? She sees birth announcements from the paper for the week she was born, looks up the parents, and calls to find out if they still have a 13-year-old daughter. Perfectly logical. At least she knew to eliminate the boys.

• She also visits her pediatrician – and when the receptionist says Claudia didn’t start coming there until she was 3, Claud decides it is part of a mass conspiracy theory.

• Why would Claud’s parents need fast cash in the middle of the night? And if they did, wouldn’t you want to keep more that you could get from an ATM.

• Claudia never ends up telling the BSC her theory – she only talked about it with Stacey. That is a pretty rare occurrence in these books.