Monday, August 24, 2009

#20 Kristy and the Walking Disaster


Is the kid in green
Pants a boy or girl? I don't
Have a clue. Do you?
Summary

Kristy's siblings and some of the BSC's sitting charges are into softball. They'd like to play on a team, but most of them are either too young or too awful to join Little League. Kristy hears about a neighborhood team run by Bart Taylor, and goes to ask him about letting the kids join. The bad news is that Bart doesn't have room on his team for all the kids Kristy has in mind, but the good news is that Bart is hot stuff and Kristy has a crush!
After talking to Bart, Kristy decides to start her own team. At the first meeting, Jackie Rodowsky comes up with the team's name: Kristy's Krushers. Karen hates the spelling because it's not correct, but no one pays attention to her. :) Kristy finds out pretty quickly that she's got an uphill battle with her new team. She's got "klutzes" (David Michael), kids who are afraid of the ball (Jamie Newton), walking disasters (Jackie R., of course), and even a kid who's too young to understand the game (Gabbie Perkins). Meanwhile, things are also tense with Bart. Some of his players show up at a Krushers practice and make fun of Kristy's players. Kristy thinks that Bart let it happen. Even so, she ever-so-coincidentally walks Shannon by the Taylor's house one night, and meets Bart walking his own dog. They agree to hold a real game between their teams in the near future.
Game day arrives. The Krushers fight pretty hard, but end up losing to the Bashers 16-11. The day isn't a total loss, though: afterwards, Bart offers to walk Kristy home. He apologizes for his team's earlier teasing, and they talk a little about how competitive they both are. Bart also asks Kristy if she wants to hang out, and she's pretty excited. I guess Bart is a step up from Alan Gray in her book!

Thoughts and Things

  • This book should totally have been called Kristy and the Krushers. Jackie wasn't any more the focus of this book than he is in any of the others in which he makes an appearance.
  • Bart's dog is a Rottweiler....named Twinkle. Hee hee hee.
  • Speaking of, Rottweilers are big, but Bernese Mountain dogs are even bigger. A puppy Shannon's age shouldn't have been able to easily walk underneath Twinkle, like the book says she could.
  • Kristy is actually kind of mean to some of the Krushers in her narration. She repeated calls Jackie Rodowsky a walking disaster, and I think she even calls him hopeless at one point. She also refers to her own brother as a klutz, and to Jake Kuhn as a fatso. Geez, Kristy!
  • Normally, I'm not all that enthralled with the softball-related BSC books, but I really like the Krushers' team spirit in this one. They have every right to be proud about scoring 11 runs against the Bashers in their game!

9 comments:

  1. Who did Bart's team play before Kristy's Krushers came along? And with all these skill levels (being a former softball player) fielding a team would not have been easy. Too many issues in my mind for this to work well.

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  2. Maybe Bart's team just played practice games with each other, and not against another team? I don't know...

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  3. I always wondered that, too, LAK. I mean, if they're sooo good, why wouldn't they just join Little League or some school related program? Maybe they were better than the Krushers but still pretty crappy so beating the Krushers was like their high point?

    Also at one point don't the Bashers and Krushers form the Krashers (yech) and play some out of town team? Who are all these random teams?!

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    Replies
    1. Maybe they tried for intramurals or Little League and were cut. That's what I've always thought.

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  4. i know this is immature but who thinks Bart is gay and is only using Kristy? I mean, Twinkles?

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  5. I don't get a gay vibe from him. I'm willing to bet that Bart's mom named the dog. :)

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  6. I love this blog I wish I had thought of this idea! You have me decide to go back and re read the series! I never finished it so I am super excited!

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  7. I can't believe that Kristy the tomboy found a boy she liked!

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  8. Bart's team seems like one on my old soccer leauge.

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