I’ve divided the eighth grade into teams”….BSC Mystery # 20: Mary Anne and the Zoo Mystery

Memory Reaction

I don’t remember the exact resolution to this mystery, but it’s one of those books where one scene stands out vividly in my memory. In this case, it’s when Matt Braddock tries to “talk” to some gorillas in sign language. The BSC had hoped the gorillas would be able to report the culprit (who’s guilty of letting animals out of cages). I know that Matt asks them and the gorillas give a weird answer that doesn’t seem to be remotely useful. But then at the end, someone points out that whatever word the gorillas were signing could have been a clue. However, I don’t think they really know this for sure since no one could really ask the gorilla for clarification.

Revisited Reaction

The eighth-graders at SMS have a new science project where groups of three students observe animals and create a report about them….with no additional research allowed. They set up some kind of partnership with the nearby zoo, so kids can have access to animals. (They can also observe their pets, but most students seem to pick going to the zoo). There are two gorillas from the San Diego Zoo on loan to the zoo, so they get a lot of attention from the students (and the regular zoo customers).

Claudia, Dawn, and Logan are in one group, while poor Mary Anne’s stuck with Alan Gray and Howie Johnson (a friend of Alan’s). Kristy ends up with Stacey, but she’s unhappy about it because this is during the time Stacey had left the club. Because she’s so mature, Kristy decides that she and their other group member should just watch their own dogs and write about them separately. She makes the other group member tell Stacey she needs to find someone else’s dog to observe. Nice.

This leaves us with Claudia, Dawn, Logan, and Mary Anne at the zoo all the time. Alan and Howie are there too, but don’t get as much screen time as the others. The boys are getting competitive, because the group members with the “best” project get extra credit and passes to some water park. Mary Anne feels in the middle and is upset about it, but waits until the book’s almost over to tell Logan. But when she does he’s sensitive about it and says he’ll tone down the competitive stuff. But neither group ends up winning.

But to get to the actual “mystery”……One day, an animal gets let out of its cage. This doesn’t seem like a real mystery, but it’s probably more realistic than when the BSC’s battling counterfeiters. After additional animals are set loose, they girls try to figure out who’s letting them go, but don’t get very far. The suspects are a group of protesters (who think zoos are cruel) and some “weird” couple that wears matching sweatsuits and hangs out at the zoo a lot.

The SMS students all have fake keys to the zoo, that open information kiosks by each animal. Supposedly these look just like the real keys that zoo staff uses on the animal cages, and Mary Anne realizes that her key has been switched with a real one. She thinks Alan had something to do with it, but it turns out it was actually Howie. He admits that he found the real zoo key and accidentally let one of the animals out. However, he didn’t let out the others, so there’s still a culprit to catch. Then Mary Ann and Logan realize that the assistant to the zoo director lied about where he was when one of the animals was released. They tell the zoo director, who sets up a sting operation…and with the help of the BSC the guy gets caught.

The subplot’s about how some shopping center in Stamford has a baby elephant living in a little cage, to promote the place. Animal rights groups are raising money to buy the animal and send him to a habitat where it has more space. The BSC gets their charges involved by making and selling buttons and t-shirts, plus having a walk-a-thon. And of course, by the end they raise a bunch of money and save the elephant.

High/Lowlights

• Mary Anne gets screwed in all these group projects. There’s another book where she ends up with Logan (while they are broken up) and Cokie Mason.

• I knew there was a book where this happened, but I wasn’t sure which one. Kristy sees Stacey baby-sitting for Charlotte and is all, “but you’re not in the BSC. How can you baby sit?” I remember being a bit annoyed at her attitude because it was so ridiculous.

• SMS always seems to be giving fun/interesting projects to their students, but I kind of wonder about the effectiveness of this one. The kids are supposed to do reports based only on observation, but how much can they really observe by going to the zoo after school and on weekends?

• Mallory and Jessi seem a bit more forgiving towards Stacey than the other girls, which I guess makes sense. They weren’t quite as involved with the drama as the others, and they sometimes were impressed with the older girls, just for being 13.

• The girls realize at the last minute they don’t have a way to play music for the elephant walk-a-thon. Jessi’s relieved when someone says Stacey has a good boom box, until Claud reminds her that they’re not speaking to Stacey. So, Jessi calls Becca, then Becca calls Charlotte, than Charlotte calls Stacey to ask about borrowing it. This sounds ridiculous, yet realistic.

• Stacey lets them use her boom box, but insists on coming to the walk-a-thon and pulling the wagon holding the box. Kristy’s all annoyed, but I think it’s actually nice of Stacey to be willing to help. Of course, I don’t know if she did it because she really cared about the elephant or wanted to annoy Kristy.

• There’s a scene where Mary Anne accuses Alan of letting the animals out of the cage, and he’s just like, “What the hell are you talking about?” These girls are always trying to be all serious about their detective skills, so it made me laugh that Alan seemed clueless that an investigation was even happening.

• Alan really needs extra credit in Science, so he gets a book from the library on the Emu (on of the animals they’re observing) to add to his observation. But Mary Anne finds out and at the last minute they switch to another animal so they can do the assignment fairly. It’s so last minute that they can’t pick a zoo animal and have to follow Tigger around for a weekend.

• I’m not sure why Mary Anne was surprised to find out Alan had used a book for his research. He’s “observing” an Emu, and writes down the bird’s weight, how much food it eats, how it swallows food, and the fact that it uses dirt to get rid of parasites on its body. He CLEARLY didn’t get that from looking at an animal in a cage.

• Shawna Riverson’s in the group that gets the “best project” prize. The BSC thinks they cheated (because the girls didn’t see how someone could write a 50-page report on observation alone). But no one bothers mentioning that Shawna has cheated before.

• Of course, the BSC decides to bring their sitting charges along with them to the zoo so they can still baby-sit.

• The gorilla’s at the zoo know sign language, so Jessi brings Matt Braddock to the zoo to “talk” to them. She has him ask the gorilla who let the animals out of their cages. But a) Isn’t Jessi really good at sign language too? Why didn’t she just sign to them herself? And b) Isn’t it kind of mean to invite Matt to go to the zoo just because you want him to translate for you? I’m sure he enjoyed it, but still.

• Alan complains about the price of soda at the zoo being one dollar, but that doesn’t seem too expensive to me. It’s not cheap, but it’s not horrible. Alan only had a quarter with him, and he seems surprised that he couldn’t afford one. I can’t imagine a place where that was enough for a soda (even in 1995).

• There are actually quite a few scenes where people complain about prices of things inside the zoo. I’m not sure if there’s any hidden meaning to that.

• When Mary Anne sees a picture of the gorillas and says they’re cute, Dawn tells her that she thinks all four-legged creatures are cute. Which may be true, but it’s a bit irrelevant in this context, since gorillas actually have two legs.

• There’s an exhibit at the zoo where elephants paint “pictures” with their trunks. I don’t know if it’s realistic but it sounds like it would be kind of fun to watch.

• Of course there are protestors at the zoo (they don’t think animals should be locked up) and of course the girls suspect them of letting the animals go. What’s up with the BSC always suspecting protestors?

• Oh, and the weird couple with the matching sweats? They are trying to figure how much it would cost some crazy rich guy to build a zoo on his estate in New Hampshire.

• The director’s assistant’s reason for committing these horrible crimes? He wanted his boss’s job, so he was trying to make her look bad.

• During the “sting” security people actually dress as gorillas. That seems a bit extreme.

• Also during this sting, the zoo director wants to make sure someone with a camera’s around to get pictures of the assistant in the act. So, she asks Claudia. Because that’s an appropriate thing for a thirteen-year-old to do.

• In the backstory chapter, Mary Anne’s talking about the Schafers moving to Connecticut and says “my ten-year-old brother never adjusted….” I know technically he’s her step-brother, but I think this was supposed to be Dawn’s line. Do you think the ghostwriters actually have a template where they just go in and switch who’s saying I?

• I don’t have much to say about the subplot, but it seems a bit weak. A shopping mall bought an elephant for publicity? How does an elephant promote a shopping mall?

• How much money would it take to buy an elephant (from the mall) and send it to a habitat? They raise enough with the kids’ efforts plus a donation from a “wealthy benefactor,” but I’m guessing the benefactor paid for the majority of it.

“I know what I’m doing when it comes to detective work”……….BSC Mystery # 17: Dawn and the Halloween Mystery

Memory Reaction

The main thing I remember about this one was that at this point, it was really obvious Dawn had been in California more than the initial six-months. She had left in September/October, experienced a winter AND a summer, and was now experiencing Halloween. The not aging thing didn’t bother me too much, except when they made references to the timeline like this. Interestingly enough, I can’t remember if I wanted Dawn to come back to Stoneybrook or not.

The other thing I remember is how all the kids were not going to be allowed to go trick-or-treating because of a robbery in town. I didn’t understand how something like that could be enforced. It’s not like they made a law stopping trick-or-treating. If some parents weren’t letting their kids go out, it would be one thing. But talking about it like it was some town-wide ordinance (which is how I remember it) annoyed me.

Revisited Reaction

As the title would suggest, it’s almost Halloween (again). Dawn’s living in California and a store in town gets robbed at gunpoint by someone wearing a clown mask. Dawn witnesses the culprit running out of the store and getting into a car, so she has to give her statement to the police. This also means she knows enough details about the crime to play detective. When the parents in town hear about the robbery, they decide to establish a curfew preventing kids from being out after 7:00 pm, unless they are with an adult. The parents also decide that if the robber isn’t caught by Halloween, there will be no trick-or-treating. Obviously, the kids in town are upset by this, so Dawn and the We Love Kids Club decide to save the day. First, by trying to catch the thief on their own, and second, by planning a Halloween party for the kids.

Their investigation involves going to stores in town trying to find out who bought clown masks, staking out the restaurant that the thief had a bumper sticker for, etc. They really get nowhere with the investigation, and after awhile, there’s a second robbery. Then, by pure luck, Dawn sees the car that the robber used in the garage of a neighbor’s house. This particular neighbor lives across the street from the DeWitts, one of her babysitting clients. She has actually been watching Timmy, the little boy who lives there, on most of her sitting jobs for the DeWitts.

Anyway, after she sees the car, she runs and tells Mrs. DeWitt. They call the cops, who come and arrest Timmy’s father. Word spreads around town that trick-or-treating’s back on, and Dawn takes the DeWitt boys, as well as Timmy (who’s not told about his dad, at least at this point). Towards the end of the evening, Dawn sees a person dressed in black and wearing a clown mask digging in Timmy’s backyard. She makes the kids go back to the DeWitt’s house, where Mrs. DeWitt tells her Timmy’s dad has an alibi for the robbery and couldn’t have been the thief. So, they call the police again, and the real robber (who’s digging in the yard) is arrested. We find out that it’s Timmy’s mother (the parents are separated), and she had to steal because “she was poor.” Anyway, after this, everyone goes back out to the party Dawn and her friends planned.

We only get a few chapters about events occurring back in Stoneybrook…..Mrs. Barrett and her fiancé are looking for a new house where they can fit their seven children. They find one in a town about a half-hour from Stoneybrook. The kids don’t want to move, so they pout about it and make their parents retract their offer on the house. They go house hunting again, but the place in Stoneybrook that they can afford is a tiny one by the elementary school. The kids swear they don’t care about the size, and so Mrs. Barrett and her fiancé buy it. They will regret this decision later on, but somehow will have all the money they need to build an extensive edition to the house.

High/Lowlights

• I understand the concern about keeping kids safe, but I have an issue with the curfew, mainly that both robberies happened in the middle of the afternoon. Keeping the kids in at night’s not necessarily going to be any safer.

• Jeff says he has trouble remembering what it was like when his parents were still married. But wasn’t that less than two years ago? He’s ten. He should remember something about it.

• Dawn and her friends are staking out a hot dog place because the robber had one of their bumper stickers on her car. The food doesn’t exactly appeal to them, so her friend Jill’s all, “we should have brought sandwiches.” Because restaurants LOVE when customers bring their own food.

• I’m actually shocked that a hot dog place exists in California. Aren’t all Californians healthy eaters like Dawn?

• I’m surprised that it doesn’t even occur to Dawn that the robber could be a woman. Usually, at least one of the BSC members will give the feminist point of view. Plus the robber was around 5’8,” one of the people who purchased the clown mask was a tall blond woman, and a tall blonde woman worked at the hotdog place. And if Dawn checked, she would have seen that this woman was wearing a pair of the sneakers like the robber did.

• At the hot dog restaurant, Dawn wonders why the cashier was staring at them. She decides it’s because they stayed for ages and only bought soda. Sunny thinks the woman’s an undercover cop. But it’s most likely because they told her they were looking for a person driving a car that looks just like hers and wearing shoes like hers.

• Dawn said that she used to dislike Carol (her dad’s fiancé) for driving a red convertible, because “adults” shouldn’t own them. I’m not sure what age she’s using as a cut off for “adult,” but someone should tell her that usually “kids” can’t afford fancy new cars.

• Dawn says that Carol has a “cool hair cut.” I’m not exactly sure what that means. How’s that a description?

• The reason the robber was digging in the yard where her soon-to-be-ex-husband and son live, was that she had hidden her gun there. Or something. I can’t imagine why she would have done this. Or why she would have gone to dig it up on a night when all the neighborhood kids are running around outside.

• Dawn’s friend Maggie talks about a guacamole recipe that she got from Winona Ryder. Now…I’ll believe that her father’s a producer and she gets to meet celebrities. But getting recipes from them?

• After Dawn witnesses the robber’s getaway, the cops question her when she is by herself. (Carol was down the hall). Now, I realize they weren’t accusing her of anything, but shouldn’t there still have been a parent present?

• Dawn and Sunny go to a Halloween store to find out if any people bought the mask the robber used (they don’t say the real reason they’re asking). And the clerk says they sold three, then goes on to describe the people who bought them. What are the chances that this guy would have been present for the sale of all three masks, and that he’d remember what they all looked like?

• After she talks to the police, Dawn remembers seeing a logo on the clown mask that the robber was wearing. This logo ends up revealing there was only one store in town that was selling it. And she decides she and Sunny should go around questioning sales clerks first, and THEN she’ll tell the police. It is not like it is important information that could have helped their investigation.

• This is the second time Dawn has “solved” a mystery simple by being in the right place at the right time, not because of her actual “detective work.”

• Apparently all of Mal’s siblings are young enough to be captivated by Halloween. So the triplets love it, but Mallory’s too old to get into it? I know it’s been said before but that 11th birthday must be magical in Stoneybrook.

• It’s kind of annoying that the Barrett kids get to stay in Stoneybrook. Not because I dislike them, just because it’s unrealistic. Sometimes kids have to move away. If Mrs. Barrett and her fiancé can’t afford something in Stoneybrook, then they should tell the kids to deal with it.

• Dawn finds out about all the Barrett drama via letters that BSC members send her. But after each letter, Dawn calls one of her friends to get rest of the story. That seems to defeat the purpose of writing letters (assuming one reason for the letters is to keep the cost of phone calls down).

• No one can figure out the problem when the Barrett kids react negatively to moving to the house in another town. Why was it so hard to figure out? I would expect most little kids to be upset about moving.

• Mrs. DeWitt (the California client) has decided that Dawn should start calling her Cynthia. I guess this is because when Mrs. Barrett gets married, she’ll become Mrs. DeWitt as well, which could cause confusion.

• Mrs. Barrett gets frustrated while house hunting and says, “We’ll never find a house, and then we’ll never be able to get married.” It just made me laugh for some reason.

• The parents association that helps the We Love Kids set up the Halloween party want to help decorate the school gym (where the party’s happening), but Dawn and her friends insist on doing it themselves. It seems a little unbelievable that a bunch of teenagers could have that much control over it.

• The haunted house Dawn and Sunny set up at the party consists only of stations where kids are blindfolded and told to feel cold brains (spaghetti), eyeballs (peeled grapes), etc. While I can certainly see kids enjoying that, it doesn’t really seem like a haunted house.

• While trick-or-treating, Stephie Roberts starts to eat some candy, but Dawn stops her by saying that her dad didn’t want her to eat too much along the way. Now, when I was in elementary school, I remember teachers telling us not to eat candy until we got home for “safety” reasons. We were always supposed to have our parents look at it to make sure no one poisoned it or stuck in needles or something. Why isn’t that an issue here?

• The We Love Kids Club decides to dress up in costume for the party. For those interested: Maggie goes as the Pink Panther, Jill goes as Marge Simpson, and Sunny goes as Mrs. Claus. Dawn recycles a costume from her childhood, and goes as Pippi Longstocking.

“Ten years of baseball and where was I?”……BSC # 129: Kristy At Bat

Memory Reaction

I have read this book before, but it wasn’t as a kid, it was a few years ago shortly before I started this blog. However, I remember very little about it….just that it had a very predictable plot. Kristy and Watson meet some famous baseball player and are upset when he isn’t nice. But then Kristy gets him to see the error of his ways. What would the world do without the BSC?

Revisited Reaction

Kristy’s about to spend her spring vacation at a “dream baseball camp” that’s run by a bunch of former major league players. This includes Bill Bain, Watson’s childhood hero, which is perfect because Watson’s going too….it’s a special father-daughter session of the camp.

Before they go, Kristy tries out for the school softball team. Apparently she’s a returning player, but she makes no reference to the events from this book. Anyway, since the coach knows her, Kristy’s not that nervous about trying out. She also doesn’t really put all her effort into it and ends up on the second string team. So, she’s all upset and thinks she won’t enjoy the camp. Once there, she keeps angsting about each little mistake she makes. All the softball also makes her think of her dad, who first taught her to play. She’s upset that he isn’t there to see her play, but she’s also upset that she even cares about her dad when Watson’s there.

Some of the campers are getting anxious because they aren’t seeing very much of Bill Bain. When he finally shows up, Watson tries to introduce himself, and Bill snaps at him. One of the other coaches talks about how Bill’s having a hard time because he’s getting older and can’t play as well as he used to. So then Watson starts to angst…partially because Bill Bain isn’t as great as he expected and partially because he realizes that he’s getting older too.

The other issue about the camp is that the coaches are not as organized as President Kristy. This annoys her, so she keeps stepping up to “help” by organizing the campers, giving players tips and semi-pep talks, and helping sort out the equipment. When Bill yells at one of the other coaches (who was doing nothing wrong), Kristy tells him off. She’s actually pretty nice and respectful about it, but Watson’s annoyed at her for being “rude to a legend.” It turns out okay, because Bill decides she’s right and tries to be nice/spend time with the campers. He even apologizes to Watson for being rude. So, the end of camp’s great, and Kristy decides that since she loves playing, she doesn’t care about being on second string.

The subplot’s also about baseball, so I guess the ghostwriter had some kind of fixation. David Michael has been collecting baseball cards and trading them with his friends. One kid’s super into the value of cards and only wants to talk about how much money each one’s worth. He influences the other kids, and soon they’re all focusing on the money part. But the BSC gets David Michael (and some of his friends) to see that they shouldn’t just think about money, they should find cards that mean something to them and have fun.

High/Lowlights

• I kind of like that Kristy was put on the second string team, but I wish they didn’t have it be because she didn’t try very hard. It’s kind of annoying that these girls are all so good with whatever they like to do. I mean, Claudia sucks at school, but she’s fabulous at art, which is what she really loves. Abby and Kristy are good at sports, Mallory’s a great writer, Jessi’s this gifted ballerina, and in the book where Stacey tried out for cheerleading, she was great at that. In real life, some people just aren’t that talented.

• In this book Kristy describes her wardrobe as that of a seven-year-old boy's, but “minus Spiderman underwear.” This basically translates into jeans a T-shirt, and sneakers. I think this is a lot more realistic for a “tomboy” than jeans, a turtleneck, and a sweater, which used to be Kristy’s standard outfit.

• Kristy said that Mary Anne used to be the only BSC member with a steady boy friend, but that Claudia recently dated a guy named Josh. But what about Stacey? She dated Robert for a good thirty books, all before Claud even met Josh.
• Kristy refers to how Jessi has seemed lost since Mal went off to boarding school. Maybe if they had given Jessi her own book after that happened, or even a storyline in another book, we could find out what she was thinking about it. But no, Jessi hardly even gets mentioned outside of the backstory chapter.

• It’s so AWKWARD when Kristy finds out she’s on the second string team. She sees some other girl looking at the list who was placed on second string. And Kristy’s all, “oh, second string’s a great place to work on your skills.” Then when she can’t find her name on the first string list, the girl’s like, “um, you’re Kristy, right? You’re name’s over here.” I hate scenes where people embarrass themselves like that.

• Kristy mentions that Watson’s older than her mom, and refers to him as “old.” But how much older can he be? Karen and Andrew are seven and four, how old was he supposed to be when they were born?

• One of the things that supposedly shows how disorganized the coaches are, is that one of them tells people to split into two groups, but doesn’t give them any instruction on how to do it. Kristy has to get up and tell people to count off by ones and twos. But do you really think that would happen? I think most people would just naturally group with the people standing near them. It’s not exactly hard.

• There are references to e-mail and cell phones in this book. It feels strange to see that in a BSC book, but I guess all the later books are like that.

• Kristy makes friends with a camper named Vicki. Vicki’s only at camp because her dad wants her to play softball – she doesn’t really like it. She also doesn’t care about some of the other activities her dad wants her to do, which basically makes her Rosie Wilder. Kristy convinces her to tell her dad this. And of course, the father’s immediately okay with it. Because when you’re honest with someone, they’ll never even be a little upset about it.

• David Michael forgot to bring his “value list” with him to a baseball cad trading session, and ended up agreeing to a trade where he gave up an “expensive” card. He keeps whining about how he was cheated. So, Abby’s all “you weren’t cheated, you agreed to it fair and square. It’s not his fault you forgot your value card.”

• These kids seem to have baseball card trading sessions daily. But how many people would have been getting new baseball cards every night? Cause otherwise, there could only be so much trading.

• It seems kind of out of character for Kristy to not put all her energy into the softball try out.

• I wonder how much this dream camp cost. Assuming that everything Kristy mentioned was included in the price (food, hotel, uniforms, video highlight reel, autographed baseballs, evening entertainment, not to mention the coaches and playing), it seems like it could get pretty expensive. Good thing Watson’s a millionaire.

• There’s an awards dinner on the last night of camp, and after the rest of the awards are given out, Kristy gets a specially created "best coach" award. Because her leadership skills are just THAT good.

“Some bratty little kid is driving you nuts because she’s lying her head off”………BSC # 128: Claudia and the Little Liar

Memory Reaction

This is another one I never read as a kid….

Revisited Reaction

This is a sitting job-heavy plot, which is usually a bad sign. Claudia has a sitting job for the Braddocks, and when she got there, Mrs. Braddock says to make sure Haley does her homework. Haley shows Claudia some book report as proof that it’s done, and she’s allowed to watch TV. When the Braddocks get home, Claudia says, “Well, Haley finished her report on The Great Brain.” Only, Mrs. Braddock knows that the book report was from last month, and Haley ends up grounded.

Haley blames Claudia, and starts telling her friends that the BSC members are spies who report bad behavior to kids’ parents. At first, only some kids listen to her. Then, in an amazing coincidence, Claudia has several more sitting jobs for the Braddocks. Haley uses this to try to make Claudia look bad, and she ends up getting in more trouble. But this actually helps her convince other kids that the BSC is out to get them. At the time, Haley’s playing on a girls basketball team that Kristy’s coaching, and this turns into a forum to spread her complaints.

The BSC decides they need to solve the problem, and they call the Braddocks asking to do a "role play" with Haley. I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Braddock were glad to get that call, because otherwise they wouldn’t have had any idea how to help their daughter. Anyway, the role play gets Haley to admit that she lied about homework because she was having trouble in school, her parents decide to get her a tutor, blah, blah, blah. At the end, Haley tries to lie to a ref at the team’s first basketball game. But after a look from Kristy, she admits the truth. And the team wins! Happy endings all around.

The subplot’s somewhat more interesting than all the Haley drama. Claudia’s currently dating a guy named Josh, who she met while being temporarily sent back to seventh grade. Apparently she had been dating another seventh-grade guy, but dumped him for Josh. She has a lot in common with Josh, and he’s generally a nice guy – he even helps her design and sew uniforms that Claud’s making for Kristy’s basketball team. The problem’s that Claudia’s just not feeling the chemistry. While, they have kissed, Claudia just doesn’t have a huge desire to do it often.

Claud’s afraid to say anything, because she doesn’t want to ruin the friendship. But eventually they talk, and she finds out Josh feels the same way about her. They decide to try just being friends, and since they do hang out together at the end, it may actually happen.

High/Lowlights

• Now, I may be stating the obvious, but isn’t one of the reasons for having a baby-sitter so that the parents know the kid doesn’t get in trouble? I mean, the sitter doesn’t have to tell the parents everything, but she isn’t there on a play date.

• I’m guessing this isn’t the first time Claudia will meet a guy who can help her design clothes, but doesn’t want to kiss her. This is especially true if she gets a job in fashion. Of course, Claudia getting a job in fashion may be a sign of the apocalypse, so I try not to think about it too much.

• Claudia tells Josh that she can’t go out on Saturday because it’s her dad’s birthday. So, on Saturday she goes to wish him happy birthday, and he tells her it’s not for another week. That seems like a pretty hard mistake to make.

• I wouldn’t have expected Becca and Charlotte to join a basketball team, but they’re both players on Kristy’s team. So are Vanessa and Haley (who only wanted to be Krushers’ cheerleaders). I’m not saying that interest in softball has to equal interest in basketball, I was just surprised to see it.

• One of the jobs for Haley and Matt’s when Mr. and Mrs. Braddock go to the elementary school for a meeting about the spring dance. But since when do elementary schools have dances? And what other dance would they be planning? It just seems weird.

• While Abby’s sitting at the Rodowskis’, the kids make a reference to Noah Seger living next store, which is a reference to this lovely book. I was happy to see this, because if you’re going to have crazy-unrealistic books, you should at least have continuity.

• Claudia doesn’t know a lot of sign language, so Haley translates for Matt. She tells Claud that Matt needs poster paint for a school assignment, but doesn’t have any. Claudia says she has some at home, and she calls Stacey to get it for her. Mrs. McGill actually drives Stacey to Claudia’s house, waits while Stacey goes in and gets the paint, and then drives her to the Braddocks. It ends up being a fool’s errand, cause Haley was lying about it. But even if it wasn’t, this seems like a lot of effort for a second-grader’s homework.

• Also, taking advantage of your brother’s handicap to trick your baby-sitter seems a bit bitchy.

• I really want to get my hands on the books where Claudia’s temporarily sent back to seventh grade. They sound like they’d be fun to recap.

• Claudia calls the Pikes because Matt wants to borrow a book from Nicky (and can’t use the phone himself for obvious reasons). Mrs. Pike says Mr. Pike took the kids to a movie. Now, this is on a Wednesday night. It seems odd that elementary school kids would be going to the movie on a school night.

• I guess Haley’s rumors are effective, because Charlotte, who has shown Stacey her diary in the past, won’t show her a random school assignment.

• Stacey uses the word “composition” to describe something Charlotte was writing. Does anyone actually use that word? Especially kids?

• When did Mary Anne go to counseling? Because even though I didn’t read this book as a kid, I remember it being in referenced in other books I DID read. But I never read the book where it first happened.

• Of course, when Haley starts bitching to other kids in town, Kristy’s paranoid that the BSC’s doomed. She even worries that the Ramseys (who have a daughter IN the club) would stop using them. Her paranoia’s getting a bit old.

• Stacey says that she and Robert are friends now, even though it took a lot of time after their breakup to get to that point. I feel like that must have happened in a book I never read, and it makes me want to find it.

• Claudia says that Mary Anne has never gotten a complaint about scheduling jobs/her role as secretary. But, haven’t there been entire books about fights over jobs? Maybe the complaints weren’t specifically about Mary Anne, but they still happened.

• We keep hearing about how Haley’s “lies” include her using the phone when she’s supposed to be studying, and then pretending she was asking someone about homework. Now….didn't Mary Anne do this all the time in the early books? Because her dad wouldn’t let her use the phone otherwise, right? So, are they saying Mary Anne was “acting out” when she did that?

“It’s the BSC Across America”…..BSC Super Special # 14: BSC in the USA

Memory Reaction

This is another book I never read as a kid. I feel bad that this keeps messing up my format, but since I’ve covered most of the books I DID read as a kid, it’s going to start happening more and more.

Revisited Reaction

Dawn’s father volunteers to drive a friend’s RV from the east cost to California. His thinking is that since Dawn and Jeff need to get home from a summer visit to Stoneybrook, they should make a family trip out of it. Watson must be drunk when he hears about this, because he decides that putting his (big, and usually loud) family in one RV and driving it across the country is a great idea. He also invites any BSC members “who can fit” to come along, because we all know how much extra room RVs have.

Mr. Schafer gets competitive and decides that any BSC members who don’t fit in Watson’s RV should come along in his, and all the BSCers get permission to go. Each RV will be taking its own route – the Schafers take the northern route and the Thomas/Brewers take southern route. Each person gets to pick one place to stop for a visit. There is not a whole lot else in terms of plot.

The Thomas/Brewer RV’s supposed to have Watson, Mrs. Thomas, David Michael, Karen, Andrew, Kristy, Abby, Jessi, and Mal. However, this creates an uneven split and overcrowds Watson’s RV. Since Kristy’s destination choice is “as many baseball stadiums as possible,” she’s the only one who can switch to the northern route. Her family lets her get away with this, and the Schafer RV becomes Mr. Schafer, Dawn, Jeff, Claudia, Stacey, Mary Anne, and Kristy.

The northern route’s early stops include Cleveland (a baseball stadium and the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame), Chicago (Wrigley Field for Kristy and the Art Institute of Chicago for Claudia), and the Mall of America in MN (where they meet up with Mary Anne’s grandmother). Then they have an unscheduled stop in South Dakota, because Mr. Schafer ran out of gas in the middle of the Badlands. Jeff’s pick was Yellowstone National Park because he wanted to try rock climbing, but since you can’t actually rock climb there, they also stop in the Grand Tetons. Then they stop at a theme park in Idaho that Dawn thought was a real ghost town, in Seattle (so Stacey could hook up with her latest love interest), and in San Francisco (Mr. Schafer’s pick).

The southern RV visits Jessi’s family in NJ, Chincoteague Island (the location of some horse books Mal likes), Graceland (because Abby’s obsessed with Elvis), and a slave plantation in Mississippi where Jessi’s ancestors were slaves. After this, they visit Watson’s old college roommate in Oklahoma and get there just in time to see a tornado. But, they all make it out alive and go on to a rodeo in Texas (David Michael’s pick), Four Corners (Karen’s pick), the Grand Canyon (Mrs. Thomas’s pick), and the San Diego Zoo (Andrew’s pick). They also make an unscheduled stop in Zuni, NM, where they meet some of the pen pals that no one’s thought of for 60 books.

Anyway, at the end everyone meets up again at Dawn’s house in CA.

High/Lowlights

• Claudia refers to touchdowns when talking about baseball. Doesn’t even the most sports-ignorant person know that touchdowns are part of football?

• Sam and Charlie get out of the trip because they are at camp, and Nannie stays at home with Emily Michelle because she’s smarter than the rest of the family.

• When they stop at Jessi’s grandparents’ house, Jessi noticed that Mallory’s sort of hanging back and is a bit quiet, and she thinks it’s Mallory’s hidden racism coming into play. She mentions this to her grandmother, who says, “she’s just nervous about meeting your family. Don’t think such bad things about your best friend.”

• I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in an RV with 7-8 people. My family went on a trip in a motor home a couple times, and it felt crowded and small. And there were four of us.

• It hardly seems fair that they go to so many baseball games. I mean, Mary Anne has one afternoon with her grandmother, Claudia has one afternoon at the Art Institute, but Kristy gets to have multiple stops. And while Jeff and Mr. Schafer like baseball, none of the other girls really do.

• Dawn says her mother was pissed at Mr. Schafer for wanting to take the trip, because it meant Dawn and Jeff had to leave Stoneybrook two weeks earlier. I have to say, I see her point, and I’m surprised she agreed to it. Unless Dawn was just pissing her off.

• Claudia packs two down jackets for a trip in the middle of summer. Seriously, WTF?

• Jeff mentions how Old Faithful only goes off every seventy minutes, instead of every hour, and that Dawn says it’s because of what people have done to the environment. Then he says, “but Dawn says that about everything.”

• At Yellowstone, Jeff claims that a bear wanders into their picnic spot. But they just stay quiet and he walks away, so they are able to hike out in the opposite direction. For a bear encounter, it’s surprisingly boring.

• At a stop in South Dakota, Claudia spends a dollar on a sketch that she thinks is by a random artist. But later Mr. Schafer’s friend (an art dealer) looks at it and they realize it’s a Georgia O’Keeffe. He offers to buy it for $500, but Claud decides to keep it.

• One of the few continuing stories is that Mr. Schafer teases Mary Anne a little, and makes a few cracks about her father (his work habits, his diet, etc). Mary Anne’s tense about it the whole trip, but finally says something to him, and all is well.

• Abby tries to convince everyone that Elvis is still alive, and of course Karen gets all into her stories. By the time they get to Graceland, Watson and Mrs. Thomas drop everyone off and make Abby, Jessi, and Mal, take care of the little kids while they go off and do their own thing.

• Karen picks Four Corners, and David Michael keeps making fun of her because he thinks they won’t be able to tell where the borders actually are. When they get there they see it’s actually a major tourist stop, and the border’s marked. Which makes me laugh because when I went there as a kid, I thought it was going to just be dirt as well.

• Stacey’s pick for a stop seems sort of lame. The guy, Ethan, is someone she met in New York and has been writing to. He’s in Seattle on vacation with his family, and she wants to visit. But….he lives in NYC. Stacey visits her dad there all the time. Why not use the trip to go somewhere you normally wouldn’t get to go to, and see the guy next time you’re in NY?

• I guess this book’s recent enough that We Love Kids have meetings around a pool with a cell phone and Mr. Schafer wants to shake Bill Gates’s hand.

• However, the book’s old enough that Stacey has Mr. Schafer driving all over the city because she thinks she got the meeting spot wrong, and can’t contact Ethan. With cell phone, a problem like that would be pretty rare.

• Claudia mentions how the girls and Jeff play cards to kill time during the ride, but that everyone kept beating her.

• The southern group keeps running into this girl who is traveling on a similar roadtrip with her grandparents. Everyone’s annoyed by her, but then they get offended when they hear the girl complaining about them.

• Like most Super Specials, the book’s structured as journal entries that the girls are keeping. But in this one, there’s no real explanation for it – like, they are making a journal/photo album as a gift, or for a school project, or the school paper, etc. They’re just automatically doing a trip journal.

• When Jessi, Mallory, and Abby meet Watson’s old roommate, the first thing they ask is if they can hold the guy’s baby. I get that they like little kids, but it seems rude to just ask right away.

• Claudia and Stacey have this really random fight….Claudia accidentally picks up Stacey’s journal, and Stacey thinks she’s snooping. So, she snaps at Claud and they don’t speak for days. After Stacey has her visit with Ethan, she’s so excited (because he kissed her) that she just starts babbling to her, and all’s forgiven.

• Abby has a lot of issues with the Grand Canyon visit because her father loved the place, and she and her family were supposed to vacation there before he died. She describes his death, and her description’s pretty much identical to her autobiography. So, good for the continuity person.

• Another point for continuity – they mention several of the pen pals from that Sleepover book by name.

• Kristy spots her dad in the stands at a baseball game in San Francisco (via the video screen). Her friends are all, “let’s find him,” and when Kristy says no, they ask why. Really? They can’t think of a reason Kristy wouldn’t want to see the man that abandoned her twice?

• Of course, Kristy DOES agree to talk to her father, and they somehow manage to find where he’s sitting. She basically says she has to go, right after saying hello. Then her dad says he wishes he could see her brothers, and Kristy’s all, “You could. Just come to Stoneybrook.” Then she leaves.

• At the rodeo, some guy in the stands starts telling David Michael about what actually happens when you rope a calf. He gets freaked out, and everyone ends up leaving and spending the day at some rodeo-inspired carnival thing in the parking lot.

• One of Dawn’s California friends tells her that Stephie Roberts’s mom wants her to baby-sit “next Wednesday.” So, I guess Mrs. Roberts thinks Stephie and Dawn will both be in heaven by then? Or else Dawn’s friend has the ability to talk to the dead, and is wasting it lining up baby-sitting jobs.

• When they get to California, Dawn makes a few comments about how her friend Jill’s acting babyish. I never read the California Diaries books, but I know this is a nod to events in them.

• Dawn’s step-mother and housekeeper have a surprise party to welcome the two RVs. Watson didn’t know about this, so he picked up food at a deli (including cold cuts) to treat everyone to lunch. When Dawn sees them, she’s all, “ew, processed dead pig slabs!” Way to be grateful.

“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.

Update

I just wanted to let everyone know I'm leaving for vacation today, so the next update will be in about two weeks.

I was hoping I'd get a chance to update again before I left, but I just didn't get to it (sorry about that). I'll make the next one really good to make up for it.