SummaryKristy's back from Hawaii, and she's ready to get back into the swing of things with the Baby-sitters Club. The trouble is that she's seems to be the ONLY one in the group who's ready to get back into the swing of things. The other members grumble when Kristy insists on holding a meeting on Labor Day; Claudia had to leave a family barbecue early to be there, and Jessi couldn't be there at all because of her own family party. She sends some news along with Mallory, though, that makes Kristy even more annoyed: her ballet classes are being switched to Fridays. Kristy is ready to make Jessi choose between quitting the club or quitting ballet, but the other members convince her to try moving the Friday meetings to Thursdays.
In order to breathe some life into the club, Kristy comes with a fabulous event for them to put on for the community: the Fall into Fall Festival Block Party. She wants to close off McLelland Road and hold all sorts of fall-related activities (hay rides, apple picking, maple sugaring, etc). Kristy's basically the only one who wants to make the event happen, though, and when she finds out that Stoneybrook is holding its own fall celebration on the day she wanted to have hers, the whole idea falls apart for good. Kristy's pretty crabby at this point; she just doesn't get what's going on with her precious BSC. Members are showing up late, no one wants anything to do with her patented Kristy ideas, and she starts to feel like she's the only one who cares about the club anymore.
Things come to a head during a sitting job for Jackie Rodowsky. He climbs a little too high in a tree, falls, and injures his ankle. Kristy feels awful, as if the whole accident was her fault. If she'd been watching, and if she'd been a better sitter, Jackie wouldn't have fallen. Kristy's bad mood continues right up to the BSC meeting the next day. To make matters worse, no one at the meeting is paying any attention to BSC business. Half the club is doing their homework, and Mary Anne and Abby aren't even there. Then, Mallory announces that she wants to join this writing group at the library...which meets on Wednesdays from 4:30 to 6. Now, everyone wants to change the Wednesday meetings to Tuesdays to accomodate Mal. Kristy blows a gasket, and suggests that the BSC just break up. To her surprise, the other members agree with her and the club is officially disbanded.
Kristy fully expects everyone to be miserable about the end of the BSC. As it turns out, Jessi and Mal are the only ones (other than Kristy herself) that are really upset over it. Everyone else is much happier. No one begs Kristy to reconsider, no one's walking around SMS with a sad face, and EVERYONE seems to be moving on just fine. Eventually, even Kristy starts to adjust to life without the Baby-sitters Club. Then, slowly but surely, reminders of their BSC days start to make the club members wonder if they'd made the right decision after all. Abby isn't sitting much since none of the clients ever call her, Claudia is stuck explaining the break-up to all the upset former BSC parents, and the kids themselves are unhappy because their parents are hiring non-BSC sitters. Life in Stoneybrook sure seemed simpler with the BSC around...
One day, Kristy is playing football with her brothers when Stacey runs into the yard. Jackie Rodowsky fell off his bike, hit his head, and is in the hospital. Abby's already waiting in the car so Mrs. McGill can drive them over to see him. As it turns out, Jackie had been riding his bike (without a helmet) near Kristy's house because he wanted to deliver a letter to her. In it, he promises to try harder not to be such a klutz so the BSC can get back together. The ex-club members try and make him see that the break-up wasn't his fault....just like his first accident wasn't Kristy's fault. She goes home and thinks hard about the situation. Maybe breaking up the club wasn't the right thing to do after all. She calls all the club members, and they agree to meet at Claudia's. Just about everyone is in favor of trying again, provided that there's a little more flexibility when it comes to other activities. Kristy agrees (but still expects everyone to put the BSC first), and the club is back in session!
Rating: 3
Thoughts and Things
- I can't believe Kristy was horrible enough to expect Jessi to quit ballet in order to be at the Friday meetings. Seriously...there are three of them every week. They couldn't just excuse Jessi for one of them?
- I'm glad the club put their foot down about Kristy's Fall into Fall party idea. She went overboard with that one. I mean, hanging apples from trees so people can pick them? Dumb.
- I love that Claudia and Mary Anne look like they're about to sock each other in the face on the cover. :)
- Speaking of, what did the the Kristy model do to piss off Hodges? This is the second cover recently where she's making a horrible face. Not that I mind; I hate Kristy in this book.
Wow - I never read this far. I had no idea the BSC almost disbanded!
ReplyDeleteI know right!?
DeleteNikki, it's intense. And Kristy is so insane in this one, too--you're right, Emily.
ReplyDeleteI did get the sense that there was a LOT of tension between Kristy and Abby. Perhaps of the, ah, sexual variety? :D Is this the book where Kristy says that Abby's a natural athlete but that she lacks discipline? I always thought the whole rivalry thing there was really funny.
Congratulations on the 100th book!
ReplyDeleteI never read this far either!! As a kid I only read up to Book #76 and even now I've only read up to #87. Congrats on Book 100!
ReplyDeleteto sadako:
ReplyDeleteyes this is the one where kristy says that. she also says that abby even outsmarts her or whatever.
don't forget that she was really jealous of abby for coming up with all the greatest ideas and stuff, especially while she was president when kristy went away on vacation.