“I used to think Algebra was a type of lingerie”……BSC Mystery 27: Claudia and the Lighthouse Ghost

Memory Reaction

This was just after I stopped reading the books……

Revisited Reaction

The Hatts, old friends of Claudia’s parents are moving back to Stoneybrook and are staying at the Kishi’s. The Hatts are the owners of the Stoneybrook lighthouse, which has been shut down/boarded up for years. Because yes, the town apparently has a lighthouse. There are vague references to something bad happening there a few years back, right before it closed and the Hatts left town. Claudia goes with Mr. Hatt and his daughter to see the lighthouse, and a neighbor sees them and gets pissed that Mr. Hatt’s back in town. Then a bunch of threatening letters made by cutting out letters from magazines show up at the Kishi house.

Mallory and Jessi do some research and find out that nine years ago, a 16-year-old boy named Adrian was pulled from the water near the lighthouse in the middle of winter, and he ended up dying. The coroner noted that he showed signs of a head injury, gotten by a fall from 20-30 feet up. Adrian’s fingerprints were found in the lighthouse, but it was locked up, so it appeared that he had been inside when Mr. Hatt locked the lighthouse, and decided to climb out the window because he was claustrophobic and couldn’t take being locked in the place. The neighbor’s Adrian’s father, and he blames Mr. Hatt for the death.

In the basement of the lighthouse, Claudia finds an old note that says “If you last the night in the lighthouse you will be one of us” and has a picture of a gargoyle. Some investigation reveals that the gargoyle is a statue at the high school and there used to be gang-type groups who acted as his fans, or something dumb like that. The BSC goes there to look at it, and happens to meet the brother of the kid that died. They go back to his house to talk about Adrian, then Claudia steals/borrows a picture of a bunch of his friends.

Meanwhile, the Hatts keep getting notes, and then a smoke bomb goes off in the lighthouse. To send a message to the person doing this, the Hatts let their teenage son, Steve, have a party at the lighthouse, which the parents and the BSC attends. Even though the stairs to the top of the lighthouse were closed off, Claudia sees someone up there, and she recognizes him as someone in the picture of Adrian’s friends. She gets Mr. Hatt, but then the guy tries to climb down the side of the lighthouse. He falls, but they’re able to save him. It turns out that this guy, Patrick was the leader the group Adrian wanted to be a part of. Adrian was supposed to stay in the lighthouse overnight as an initiation, and his friends locked the door to make sure he did it. Patrick was trying to find the note that proved that. It’s kind of convoluted and anti-climactic.

Subplot: Some comet’s going to be visible in Stoneybrook. It’s not Halley’s Comment, but it seems to be comparable. All the kids can’t stop talking about it and the BSC has a comet viewing party. Some of the kids think the comet will make them sick or cause other negative events, but Kristy gets them to calm down. I may have liked this subplot if I read it when I was a kid, but now it just comes off as annoying.

Highlights/Lowlights

• Did you ever notice how all sorts of landmarks pop up in Stoneybrook for certain books? A country club? An arboretum?
  

• Janine seems kind of out of character in this one. She’s pretty bitchy to Claud. She’s also having problems with her boyfriend, and is flirting (sort of) with Steve. It’s not unrealistic, but she just seems more immature than usual.

• Claudia comments that teachers get excited when they see Janine’s IQ score. But would teachers see Janine’s IQ scores? I didn’t think that kind of information was typical for a school record, but I could be wrong. Or maybe Janine’s IQ was documented because it’s so high?

• Claudia says that her parents love Janine, but tolerate her. I think it’s kind of sad if she really feels that way.

• The comet story’s boring, but also typical BSC. Of course they have a viewing party. No parents would have wanted to see this rare event WITH their children. And it’s certainly logical to gather as many people in one place so that each person has the least time looking through the one telescope.

• What’s interesting, is that this book takes place in the weeks leading up to Christmas, but it isn’t Christmas-themed or anything. Claudia says that Steve’s party’s a Christmas one and mentions shopping, but that’s it. And that makes me think of that mystery with the old diary where Charlotte talks about a book with a similar treatment.

• Janine has to move into Claudia’s room while the Hatts are staying with them because the two Hatt daughters “refused to be separated”…meaning they couldn’t have one girl stay in Claudia’s room and one in Janine’s room. But they kind of have a lot of nerve making that demand when they’re asking the Kishis to host five people for a minimum of two weeks. Especially, if those are two weeks in December when most people are busier than usual.

• Claudia outfit - “I was wearing a white high-collared dentist’s shirt and a loose-fitting Chinese silk jacket, cinched at the waist by a bright-orange scarf, over tight black flared pants. My hair was gathered on top of my head with an orange bandanna.”

• For anyone who ever wondered about the birth order of the Pike triplets, it was Jordan, Adam, Byron. For some reason I always assumed it was alphabetical.

• So, Janine and Claudia hate sharing a room (shocking, I know). But at one point, Janine decides to do some schoolwork at a Wednesday at 5:30. So, Claudia has to turn on call forwarding and meet with the BSC in the living room. But then, Mr. Hatt needs to use that room, so the girls have to keep roaming around the house with a cordless phone. But, anyway, my point is that I don’t think it would have been unreasonable for the Kishi’s to tell Janine she needed to stay out of Claudia’s room for a half hour.

• I think Claudia mysteries are usually good ones, but this one fell a little short. Mainly cause there isn’t really a lot of mystery about it. However, Claudia did call 911 as soon as she saw smoke in the lighthouse, and manages to get Mr. Hatt as soon as she sees the guy at the top of the lighthouse. The girl may suck at school, but she does stay calm in emergencies.

• Janine eats a bunch of Claud’s candy while rooming with her. Which I think is some nice continuity about her personality from one of the early books.

• I don’t really get the motivation for this guy to send notes to the Hatts. He said he wanted to find the note he’d written to Adrian years ago. I don’t really see how sending the notes helps his situation. He should have just broke in and tried to find it himself, without drawing attention to himself. Claudia found the note by accident, so it couldn’t have been too hard to find. And he’s had nine years to work on it.

• The BSC helps the Hatts paint the lighthouse, and Stacey wears a black cashmere coat and silk scarf. Claud has to tell her to change. Would she really be that clueless about it?

• Because this is a mystery, the BSC have a few other suspects for the notes to the Hatts get, but they’re really lame...Adrian’s father, Janine’s boyfriend (because he’s jealous of Steve, or the Hatt daughters (because one of them had been using scissors).

• At the party, Claudia says that people are hanging out outside as well as in. However, like I said, it takes place in Connecticut in December. It’s usually not the time for outdoors parties.

• Kristy leads the rest of the girls over to the guy whose son died and starts talking to him about it. Cause strangers love that.

• I think the whole mystery of why Adrian was in the lighthouse was pretty much obvious when Claudia finds the note, but the girls don’t piece it together until the end when they catch Patrick and he tells them. But maybe it just seemed clear to me because it reminded me of an episode of the “Littles.”

“Aren’t we all supposed to get leis?”……BSC Super Special # 13: Aloha, Baby-sitters!”

Memory Reaction

I didn’t read this book as a kid, but I do have a memory of seeing it in the store. I was flipping through it and was tempted to buy it, but decided not to. I think I was trying to go cold-turkey since I was too old to still be buying them. The specific thing I remember is Abby being in a commercial. I can’t remember if I thought it was unbelievable or not? Let's just say I thought it was unrealistic, just cause I like to think I wasn’t a total idiot as a child.

Also, and this is a little embarrassing, but I went to Hawaii a couple years ago…..and I remember thinking that the trip would give me an interesting perspective for reviewing this book. I know, it’s sad.

Revisited Reaction

Most of the BSC’s going to Hawaii on the most ridiculous school trip ever. It’s summer and Stoneybrook Middle School’s organizing a trip with 50 kids and 6 teacher chaperones. Most of the BSC parents agreed the kids could go if they paid for half. And for some reason, Dawn gets to go too, even though this is after she moved to California for good. The only BSC members not going are Shannon, cause she’s at summer camp and doesn’t go to SMS anyway, Kristy, who’s already going to Hawaii with her family later in the summer, and Mallory, who can’t have good things happen to her. And whose parents can’t afford it.

The framework of this Super Special’s that they’re making a trip journal for Mallory so she gets to experience what she’s missing. Overall, it’s kind of a boring trip. No one even falls in LUV which is usually somewhat of a given in a Super Special/Vacation book. Stacey and Mary Anne have some issues with Robert and Logan, but that’s not as interesting as a new boy.

Stacey and Robert are part of a small group that spend several days in Maui (everyone else stays on Oahu the whole time). Stacey’s been annoyed at him because some girl was flirting with him on the plane ride out. Then the helicopter she’s on (for a tour) crashes and no one knows where she is for about a day. She ends up in the hospital for a few hours because of her blood sugar, and her feet get sore since she wasn’t wearing the best shoes, but that’s pretty much the extent of the damage. Robert all worried, and they make up after Stacey’s found.

Mary Anne spends the trip trying to make a point of not being attached to Logan’s hip, because her friends had been telling her she spent too much time with him. She also takes a baby-sitting job on her vacation, because she wants to meet a “real Hawaiian” family. Then she feels a bit embarrassed because they are just like people back in Stoneybrook.

Claudia goes to Pearl Harbor, and starts to feel ashamed of the fact that she’s Japanese, and her “ancestors” were responsible for the attack. She’s worried that people will dislike her because of it. She also worries about the fact that Mimi was living in Japan at the time, and wonders what she thought of the attack. It’s actually the most interesting storyline in the book.

Other key plots: Abby talks her way into a commercial for sun lotion that’s being filmed on the beach. Dawn finds a beach that’s full of garbage and cleans it up, and gets some local kids to agree to keep it clean. Jessi barely gets any chapters herself, even though she’s the one who’s supposed to be leading the efforts in Mallory’s book. She just spends the whole time taking pictures/notes.

We also get to hear about Kristy and Mallory back in Stoneybrook, which sort of takes you out of the rest of the story. They’re both helping at some “farm camp” to help that woman in town that has a farm. It’s that’s so boring it’s barely worth mentioning. However, on a separate sitting job for Jenny Prezzioso, Mrs. P tells Mallory that she’s decided to start using discipline on Jenny. If Jenny has a tantrum, Mallory should just let her cry/scream until she stops herself. This happens at the park and some random woman tells Mallory she’s neglecting Jenny. She even calls the BSC to complain about it. But then Mallory sees the woman at the park, and her own kid has a tantrum. And the woman becomes a BSC client. Of course.

High/Lowlights

• I have this vague memory of a book where the BSC’s raising money for the trip and where Dawn’s on a waiting list to go (since she isn’t a SMS student). I thought that this was from some summary of the book, but I guess it was actually another book that I did read.

• The thing that’s weird, is that this must take place before the book where Stacey and Robert break up. That was the last BSC book I read as a kid, so I can’t understand how I missed the Super Special.

• I would have hated to be on the plane with the SMS group. There are fifty kids and they spend the whole trip switching seats so they can talk to each other.

• I do appreciate that they don’t have these kids staying in some resort right on the beach, and that they mention taking public buses. They don’t mention a cost for this trip, but if the BSC was able to raise half the cost, we can’t be talking about 5 star resorts.

• At one point they’re talking about food, and Claudia says she gave Dawn 3 of her Doritos. But since when does Dawn eat Doritos?

• At first I thought all the Stacey/Robert fighting was foreshadowing to the book where they break up, but Robert was apparently crying when Stacey’s helicopter went down, so I guess they didn’t want him to seem too dickish yet.

• Jessi took 13 rolls of film on the trip, and she mentions as least some of them having 36 exposures. That seems like a hell of a lot of film. I tend to take a lot of pictures, but that’s with digital camera. All that film and developing would get pretty expensive.

• I get that they wanted to have some baby-sitting in this book, but having these girls take sitting jobs on their vacation is really ridiculous.

• Dawn acknowledges the ridiculous-ness of coming to Stoneybrook over the summer, only to go to Hawaii. It would have been hilarious if she came back for a visit, only to see all her friends leave town.

• Mary Anne and Logan decide they both hated not spending all their time together, and decide to not listen to their friends about things like that. So….what message are we trying to send to young girls?

• Kristy gets everyone shirts that say “Baby-Sitters Club” with Claud’s phone number on them. And people actually wear them. Not just in Stoneybrook, but in Hawaii too. Good thing they don’t solve any crimes in this book, or else the culprits would have been able to stalk them.

• I was impressed to see that Claudia’s description of visiting Pearl Harbor was actually pretty accurate, at least compared to my experience.

• This must be the most boring trip to Hawaii ever. Maybe helicopter crashes make some things interesting, but not this.

• Karen’s attending the farm camp with a friend of hers that’s visiting from Nebraska. I remember the friend from a Little Sister book where Karen went to Nebraska, so I feel like this must overlap with another Little Sister book….it’s too random otherwise.

• Abby being in a commercial’s the most ludicrous thing ever. They’re filming some people playing a beach volleyball game, and are missing an actor. She just walks over and is all, “hey, I can play volleyball. And I’m totally 18.” And they just let her do it. They don’t even ask for proof of her age.

• We hear about these girls needing to ask permission from their chaperones more than we’ve ever heard about them asking their parents’ permission for stuff in other books.

• If you were Mallory and couldn’t go on vacation with all your friends, would having every minute of the trip documented make you feel better?

• At one point, a little boy gets lost in the hotel they’re staying at. And Mary Anne decides to just stay at the hotel to help look for him/watch his sisters while his parents look. And of course she finds him and saves the day.

• When Mary Anne asks one of the chaperones about whether she can baby-sit, the teacher’s all, “you want to baby-sit on vacation”? Now, she clearly has a point, but this is coming from someone who’s chaperoning her students on her summer vacation.

• The beach that Dawn cleans up has a for sale sign, meaning it’s private property. So, she’s encouraging these kids to keep on trespassing? It also says “swim at your own risk,” so it seems like a bad idea to be letting those kids swim there anyway.

• Stacey has bad luck in Super Specials, doesn’t she? In this book she’s in a helicopter crash, in the blizzard super special she gets stranded in the storm, and in the camp super special she spends half the time in the infirmary.

• At one point Dawn gives Logan a surfing lesson, but I’m kind of surprised they didn’t do any more of a surfing plot….Dawn’s all into it, and Stacey liked it the first time she tried it.

• Mallory’s surprised to find out that the judgmental woman from the park has kids. But why does she think this random person was hanging out at the playground anyway? Also, I don’t understand why her kid having a tantrum makes her understand what Mal was doing. Her whole point was about Mal’s reaction to the tantrum, not the fact that a kid was having one.

• This book seems a little weird, because everyone’s chapters are not evenly spaced out. Abby has chapters 2, 7, and 10, while Stacey has 11, 16, and 21.

“You’re only eighteen, yet you command the entire New York fashion industry”…..BSC Mystery # 29: Stacey and the Fashion Victim

Memory Reaction

This book came out after I stopped reading. I’ve been saying that a lot lately, mainly because I’ve recapped almost all the books that I read when I was a kid.

Revisited Reaction

Stacey goes to work with her mom on Take Your Daughter to Work Day, and gets invited to take part in “Fashion Week.” In this case, Fashion Week’s a few small fashion shows, one big fashion show, and photoshoots for Bellair’s national catalogues. They are looking for some “fresh young faces” to go along with the professional models.

The main models we meet are Sydney (the latest it girl), Cynthia (the previous it girl), Harmony (girl with a crazy stage mother), and Blaine (some other girl from Stoneybrook). Cokie Mason is also there, being surprisingly friendly with Stacey.

Stacey notices right away that modeling’s a pretty competitive thing. Then, some “pranks” start to happen. First Harmony’s tea is “poisoned,” giving her stomach cramps. Then someone destroys the clothes for the photoshoots and starts writing creepy messages on mirrors. The culminating event’s when Stacey and Harmony are posing on the roof and a railing comes loose, causing them to fall down to another section of the roof (only about a foot below where they were). Stacey, Claudia (who’s acting as an intern), and Mary Anne, and Mallory (who are working at the store’s “kid center”) try to investigate by roaming around the set watching people, but don’t really come up with anything.

The day before the last event, the director announces that Harmony will be “Princess Bellair,” and get to marry Will Smith. Or maybe she just gets to star in the big fashion show. Stacey notices that Harmony looks disappointed when she hears the news, and realizes Harmony has been trying to sabotage herself. So, the next day, Stacey, Claudia, Mary Anne, and Mallory show up early to catch Harmony in the act of writing on a mirror. It turns out Harmony wanted to quit modeling, but was too scared to tell her mother. But, of course, Stacey gives her the strength to do so. She ends up giving the “princess” role to Blaine, and I guess this is good news, but I can’t remember a single thing Blaine did, so I’m not really sure if she deserved it.

Subplot: Even though this has never been mentioned before, a whole bunch of parents in Stoneybrook smoke (which is probably realistic). Kristy’s siblings get the idea to have a “Stoneybrook Smoke Out” to get Watson to quit for a day, and hopefully more. They also reach out to their friends, who extend it to other people in Stoneybrook. And of course, everyone they ask goes along with it and is grateful. We’ll probably never find out if people quit for more than a day, because the books won’t mention it again either way.

High/Lowlights

• Stacey says she once entered a modeling contest at Bellairs, but it was a bad experience. I don’t remember this happening…does anyone know what book it was? I know one of the videos had her getting into modeling, but they generally wasn’t connected to the books.

• The over-the-hill model’s 16. Now, I get that modeling celebrates the young, but 16 being old? Really?

• Would the hottest model of the moment be involved in a fashion show at a department store in Connecticut? Or a catalogue shoot for the store?

• How come the culprits in stories always stand around explaining what their crime was and why they did it? This isn’t a problem specific to the BSC books, but it’s still annoying.

• Harmony’s mother says she knows her daughter was poisoned on set, because it’s late afternoon and she hadn’t eaten anything since dinner the night before. Yup, that’s something she should be proud of.

• They tell us early on that all the events are after school hours so that they don’t interfere with the models’ educations. But then we hear the models (other than Stacey and Cokie) talk about not being in regular school.

• Harmony’s last name’s Skye. Harmony Skye seems a bit like a porn star name or something.

• There are a ridiculous number of outfits in this one, since modeling’s basically the only thing that happens. I’m only going to mention the crazy-ish ones. For instance, “a raspberry-colored ROMPER….accessorize[d] with white sneakers and a white baseball cap.” The emphasis on the romper’s mine, because who the hell wears a romper?

• Stacey spends a whole bunch of time trying to pick out an outfit to impress the woman running Fashion Week. And it was all a waste, because she has to take it off right away to get into her clothes/makeup for the shoot.

• Isn’t Claudia too young to be an intern? I know they’d make exceptions for models being young, because they need people to fit certain clothes. But there are plenty people over the age of 16 who would be happy to intern at something like this.

• It’s kind of bizarre how these books almost never mention cigarettes unless it’s to show that someone’s “bad,” then suddenly have this book where we hear about a bunch of regular characters who smoke. I understand why they wouldn’t mention it, and I think it’s realistic that adults in BSC-land do smoke, but it’s still jarring.

• We only see one Claudia outfit, “A pair of white jeans with drips and squiggles of colorful paint all over them, a smocklike denim shirt, her favorite red high-top sneakers, and a hairdo that said ‘creative’ – a loose bun held in place by two red lacquered chopsticks.” If she has a favorite pair of red high-tops, does that mean she has multiple pairs of them? That seems excessive.

• Mallory’s such a dork (and I say that with love). She hears about the drama at fashion week and complains that she doesn’t have the Mystery Notebook to take notes in.

• Stacey tells us the mystery notebook was Kristy’s idea. Was that really the case? I can’t find my copy of the Mystery Super Special where they started it, so I can’t check. But I thought they all came up with the idea together. Maybe these girls are just brainwashed to think that Kristy’s the only one with ideas.

• Early in the book, Abby catches Buddy Barrett and Lindsay (his step-sister) about to try one of Franklin’s cigarettes. The say how they were tempted to try smoking because the “ads make it look so cool.” I can’t believe anyone would say those words outside of an after-school special. It’s horrible dialogue.

• One additional outfit that Stacey has to model’s a “flowery, ankle-length dress” that she “likes,” but it doesn’t sound at all like something she’d normally wear. It actually sounds more like those Laura Ashley dresses they’re always talking about.
  

• Stacey criticizes another one of her outfits as “too trendy.” But isn’t she all about being trendy?

• Jessi says how she couldn’t be a ballet dancer if she smoked. But don’t a lot of dancers smoke? Or am I just thinking of an episode of the Simpsons?

• So Watson, who changed his entire life style after his heart attack, didn’t bother to stop smoking? And no one commented on this when he was trying to become healthy in all sorts of other ways?

• So, other smokers in Stoneybrook - Aunt Cecelia, Franklin DeWitt, Mrs. Hobart, and random guy who works at the hardware store. The Aunt Cecelia one surprised me….apparently she tried to be “sneaky” about it and not do it in front of Jessi and Becca, but they knew anyway.

• On the day of the Stoneybrook Smoke Out, Watson puts on a tux, asks the rest of his family to dress up, and then proceeds to bury and say good-bye to a bunch of expensive cigars. I’m picturing that scene and it just seems hilarious.

• Stacey’s staking out the food table at Bellairs to see who drinks tea (to try and figure out if Harmony was the real target of the “poison”). No one’s taking any, and Stacey’s all, “hmmm, I wonder if people are avoiding tea because of what happened with Harmony.” And this is right after she said she didn’t want tea for that very reason. So, shouldn’t she assume others would feel the same way?

• Stacey and Harmony are doing a shoot on the roof, and it’s supposed to be them sitting on lawn chairs. Harmony suggests they pose by the edge instead, because it seemed more natural. Really, it was just a way to make herself look like a victim of the prankster (and make it really obvious she was the culprit). But, they made it seem like it’s the easiest thing in the world to change the angle of a shot. In reality, they would have needed to change all kinds of lighting and camera set ups before making a switch like that.

• I really like that they don’t have Stacey being all gung-ho over modeling. She has fun, but she doesn’t want to drop out of school to become a star or anything.

• Stacey makes a couple comments about how she’s glad her mother’s busy and hasn’t heard about any of the accidents, because then she would make Stacey quit. Now Mary Anne and Mallory both hear gossip about this when they’re working at the store’s day care center, so the gossip’s clearly going around the store. Are we really supposed to believe that no one mentions anything about it to Mrs. McGill? When they know her daughter’s involved?

• You know, when I was a kid I never noticed how these books tend to encourage lying to your parents. The BSC acts all goody-goody most of the time, but in all the mysteries they don’t let their parents now how they’re spending their time, and acknowledge that they wouldn’t approve of all the detective work.

“My Nancy Drew books have taught me to notice things like that”……BSC Mystery # 11: Claudia and the Mystery at the Museum

Memory Reaction
I don’t completely remember the circumstances for how Claudia meets the artist she admires, but I do know that she starts running around the museum with her, looking for something and hiding from some guy she suspects. And he’s just totally amused by it and goes along with her (amused in a good way).

I also remember how the thief had hidden what he stole in some secret compartment of a statue. I always thought that was kind of a cool concept. I actually used it as inspiration for a story I wrote in college. The rest of the story was totally different though.

Revisited Reaction

There’s a new museum in Stoneybrook, with a special exhibit by an artist Claudia really likes. She brings Corrie Addison and the Arnold Twins to see it, because it just wouldn’t be fun if she wasn’t baby-sitting. They all have a great time, but some ancient coins are stolen and they don’t get to see the sculpture Claud was interested in. Of course, Claudia’s obsessed with solving this “mystery” and gets the rest of the BSC to help.

She goes back to the museum to investigate and gets to see the art exhibit. It’s one where people are allowed to touch the sculptures, and Claudia thinks that one sculpture feels different than the time she saw the same thing in New York. She thinks it might be a fake, but when she tries to tell the curator he basically throws her out. Then of course, the BSC suspects him. They even do research and find out that several museums he worked at in the past were also robbed. But that is all a red herring.

Meanwhile, Claudia calls the artist of the sculpture (he’s from Stoneybrook, amazingly enough), and he actually takes this call from a random 13-year-old. When she tells him about it, he says a lot of his sculptures had hidden compartments that he used to hide toys for his (now grown) kids. He thinks maybe one of the toys got left in, and that’s what Claudia was feeling. But Claudia has a working brain in this book, and points out that hidden toys from a long time ago wouldn’t explain why it feels different from last year. This gets the artist curious, so he invites her and her parents to some fancy party the museum’s having, saying they can check the sculpture together.

At the party, the artist and Claudia go to look at the sculpture, but it has already been packed up to move to another museum. They head to the storage area, and they just happen to get there when a custodian’s taking the missing coins out of a compartment in the statue. Apparently, he found the compartment while setting up the exhibit and used it to pull off the theft. The night of the party was the first chance he got to retrieve the coins. After reaching this climax, we skip ahead to Claudia and the rest of the BSC writing a letter to Dawn (in California) about what happened, because it’s not an important part of the story or anything. Exposition is much more interesting than seeing actual events. Anyway, it turns out the curator wasn’t involved, another guy they suspected was really a federal agent, and Claudia gets a whole bunch of credit for “solving” the crime.

Subplot: Claire Pike has decided she wants to be a star. At the mall she gets to make a video of herself singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in front of a Wizard of Oz backdrop, and she keeps showing it to everyone she can. Claudia takes her to see Rosie Wilder to get advice, and Rosie gives Claire the name of some talent agents. But later, Jessi tells Claire the downsides of show business, and Claire decides she doesn’t want to go through with it. She’s still a little upset when the agent rejects her though.

High/Lowlights

• One nice thing about Claudia books is that they almost always start with an outfit. This one is, “a red-and-white striped shirt that hung down almost to [her] knees, red leggings, and black high-top sneakers.” It actually sounds kind of cute.

• Janine’s talking to Claudia and starts going off on some tangent about Greek and Roman mythology, so Claudia just leaves the room and goes upstairs. Which seems a bit rude, but maybe Janine’s used to it.

• Janine also gets to be surprised/impressed by Claudia talking about art, and sounding like a critic. It’s nice when Claudia does get recognition by her family…..I think she doesn’t think they’re proud of her at all.

• There’s actually something (relatively) interesting in the backstory chapter – Claudia tells us which animal each BSC member would like to be (if they had to). Apparently, they talk about stuff like this. Here are the picks: Claudia, colorful parrot; Kristy, dog; Stacey, panther; Mary Anne, koala; Dawn, dolphin; Shannon, cat; Logan, Hawk; Mallory, horse (shocking, right?); Jessi, some kind of stallion that can dance.

• Speaking of koalas, does anyone else remember a Nickelodeon cartoon where a stuffed koala came to life, and had adventures with it’s owner? The girl (Jenny?) just had to rub noses with it. And she just happened to have a eucalyptus tree outside her bedroom? Oh, and because the internet is awesome, I found a clip. (I apologize for the randomness of this comment if no knows what I'm talking about).
  

• Claudia’s outfit for visiting the museum: “Pink lace leggings and a long black sweater. [Her] hair was tied back with a pink ribbon, and [she] was wearing pink ballet-type flats.” Again, not too bad, at least for the 80s. But she claims she’s “dressed up,” and she totally isn’t.

• The day of the theft, Claudia notices a custodian with a mop and pail, the guy with one blue eye and one green eye, and a brownie troop. She suspects the guy with two eye-colors, but not the custodian, which I thought seemed pretty obvious, since he could have hid the coins in his pail. But I think I may have subconsciously be remembering the end. I am guessing I don’t need to say that she doesn’t suspect the brownie troop.

• Claudia wants to go to the museum with someone, so she arranges to take Carrie and the twins. In a situation like this, do you think she charges? Cause it seems kind of weird for her to call up Mrs. Arnold or Mrs. Addison and ask to get paid to take their daughters somewhere.

• Before leaving for a trip to the mall, Adam Pike tells his mother that Mallory’s making Nicky change his socks, because he’s been wearing the same ones for three weeks and will be trying on shoes. But would they not have made him change his socks if he wasn’t trying on shoes? Three weeks is a long time.

• The BSC thinks the coins must still be inside the museum, since everyone who had been there the day of the theft had been searched. They think maybe the coins were mixed in with the fake coins sold at the gift shop, but it turns out those were actually chocolate. However, they’re arranged in a locked display case. Why the hell would CHOCOLATE coins be locked in a display case?

• The BSC also tries to find the coins in a fountain by the front of the museum and the donations box by the entrance. I’m not sure why that seems like an important detail to me, but it does.

• Rosie suggests that Claire make copies of her video and send it to a bunch of agents at once. Claudia convinces Claire to only send it out one at a time, so they don’t need to make copies (since this is pre-digital). So, Claire dictates a note to Claudia and they send it off. But isn’t it A) a bit reckless to not even make a copy for herself in case the agents don’t return it, B) not really professional to have a five-year-old compose the note, and C) a bit inappropriate to just send out the tape without talking to Claire’s parents?

• Why would a random custodian have keys to the display cases with valuable artifacts? Wouldn’t they have more security about that?

• The day of the crime, Claudia sees that the case with the coins is covered with shattered glass, and thinks that the coins must have been taken before it was broken, therefore being an inside job. Now, I would hope that the cops also knew that and were checking on the employees, but I guess that’s silly, since the cops can’t really do anything without the BSC’s help. But my more pressing question is, how does a girl that can figure that out have so much trouble passing eighth grade?

• The outfit Claudia wore to school, that Kristy thinks is acceptable for a formal party: “Bright red leggings topped by a white man-tailored shirt and a vest that used to belong to [her] father.” I feel like all of Claud’s outfits in this book are the same.

• All the Pikes just watch Claire’s video again and again so she doesn’t have a temper tantrum. That’s a way to not spoil a child.

• Claudia’s father tells the reporters who write about the incident that he had no idea his daughter was a detective (or something like that). But this isn’t exactly the first time the BSC has gotten attention about “solving” mysteries. I guess this may be earlier in the series, but I know they at least got mentioned in the paper with the dog-napping case, and MAYBE the counterfeiting one.

• The back of the book says that “Claudia can’t wait for the new museum in Stoneybrook to open….” But that isn’t really true. The museum has already opened, and Claudia can’t wait to get to see it.

• When Claudia gets credit for catching the thief, she at least acknowledges that there was a lot of luck involved. Something other BSC members fail to do.

• The tagline on the front of the book says, “What kind of thief would steal art?” Now, first of all, it was ancient coins stolen from the museum, not art. But even if it WAS art, that’s not exactly an unheard thing to steal.

• Towards the end, we find out that the guy with two different colored eyes is a federal agent. But the last chapter also includes a letter to Dawn, where Kristy says that he was a private eye. I’m wondering if that was a last minute change in the manuscript or something.

• This book takes place when Dawn is in California, but I totally didn’t even notice she was missing. I only realized it when they talked about Mallory feeling sick, and figured out it was build-up to her having mono.

• Because she helped catch the thief, Claudia’s named an honorary trustee of the museum. At first I thought this was just a meaningless name-only thing. But apparently she’s allowed to go to any open night parties the museum has, and the curator wants her to help him display local student work. That seems a bit excessive as a reward for what she did. Not that we ever hear of her being involved with the museum in later books, or even that a museum exists.

• Claudia wore a kimono that used to be Mimi’s to the formal party at the museum. The scene where she’s figuring out what to wear was a really familiar one. I remembered it as soon as I started reading it.

• This museum has a discovery room, a science center, a music exhibit, art rooms, an Egypt room, and possibly more. How big a museum is this exactly? I can buy Stoneybrook having an art museum or a history museum, but one that has everything listed above? Unlikely.