#23 Dawn on the Coast

Dawn says she'll never

Move back to sunny CA.

Oh, the irony!

Summary

It's spring break, and Dawn is headed to California for a visit. She's pretty excited, since she'll be seeing Jeff for the first time since he moved back, and she's missed her little brother. The visit is filled with plenty of fun; the Schafers go to Disneyland, and Sunny Winslow surprises Dawn by introducing her to the We Love Kids Club. It's a more relaxed, "California" version of the BSC, and Dawn is pretty impressed at first. She even gets a job or two with some of her old clients. Between that, the sun, and the beach trips, Dawn starts to seriously think of moving back to California. She feels she fits in better there than in Connecticut, but the decision isn't exactly cut and dry for her. She makes a list of pros and cons, talks to her dad and Sunny, and eventually decides that she belongs in Connecticut after all. At least, for the next 40 books....

Thoughts and Things

• Foreshadowing alert: Mr. Schafer suggests that Dawn bring all her friends out to CA for a visit. I'm surprised he didn't suggest they buy a lottery ticket to try and earn the money for the trip!
• LOVE the Feldman/Newton/Perkins sitting chapter. I've always liked those Feldmans, and I wish they'd been in the series more often.
• Heh...Jeff is stopped at the airport metal detector because he has a knife in his pocket. If that happened today, he'd probably be arrested.
• Dawn wants to go to Jungleland when she, her dad, and Jeff go to Disneyland. The trouble is that there is no Jungleland, and there wasn't back when this book was written, either. I think AMM probably meant Adventureland.
• It's funny how certain books lend themselves to short summaries, and some lend themselves to long summaries. This one was a snap.

#22 Jessi Ramsey, Pet-sitter

Why stare at the back

Of Jessi's knee, Jacques? Does it

Look like your dinner?

Summary

The Mancusis are going on vacation for a week, and they call the BSC looking for a pet sitter. Kristy pitches a fit at first; since she had a bad experience pet sitting, she doesn't want anyone else in the club to pet sit. Whatever, Kristy. Since Jessi's ballet school is closed that week, and the Braddocks (her regular, two-day-a-week clients) are on vacation, she volunteers to be the lucky zookeeper. What a zoo it is; the Mancusis have three dogs, five cats, birds, hamsters, two guinea pigs, a snake, some fish, some turtles and some rabbits.

In spite of feeling a little overwhelmed, Jessi does pretty well. She, Mary Anne, and the Perkins girls do manage to lose Barney the snake for a little while, bit thanks to Myriah's knowledge of the habits of cold-blooded animals, they find him pretty quickly. Jessi's only concern is about one of the hamsters. He's looking extra fat, and sleeps by himself, away from the others. By the end of her week with the Mancusis, Jessi figures that something must be wrong with the little guy, so she takes him to the vet. It turns out that the hamster is a she, not a he, and she's pregnant. The hamster ends up giving birth to 10 babies. One goes to the Ramseys (Misty), one goes to the Pikes (Frodo), and one goes to Jackie Rodowsky (don't know that hamster's name because we never hear about it again).

In club news, Kristy's bossiness is out of control. First, she tries to prevent anyone in the club from taking the Mancusi job. Then, she makes this checklist that's supposed to help her keep track of who's read the club notebook and who hasn't. The other club members minus Jessi and Mallory (they don't want to be involved in club fights), call Kristy out on her bossiness. It's that combined with the fact that the other girls are all sick of some aspect of their club jobs that leads them to decide to hold new elections. In the end, though, they unanimously vote each other back into their old offices, and Kristy promises to try not to be so bossy.

Thoughts and Things

• This book seems to get a lot of hate out in Fanworld, but I like it. I'm an animal lover, and I'd rather sit for a houseful of pets than a houseful of kids!


• Kristy drove me crazy. What right did she have to put that stupid checklist up on CLAUDIA'S bulletin board, over CLAUDIA'S pictures of herself and Stacey? Thank goodness the other club members didn't let her get away with it.


• If Jessi and Mallory really didn't want to risk anyone's anger by taking sides during this club fight, they should have just said so rather than hemming and hawing. That seemed to make the other club members even MORE frustrated with them.


• Taking care of all those animals is an awfully big job for an 11 year old who has to be in school all day long, too. I guess it's not the same as it would be if Jessi was working an 8 hour job and taking care of the pets, but still. I'm surprised Jessi didn't get there one afternoon and find that Pooh Bear and torn the house apart.


• Was it really appropriate for Jessi to let so many other people into the Mancusis' house to play with the pets? I don't think the Mancusis ever said she could invite people over...

I just wanted to thank everyone who's taken the time to read and respond to this blog. It's really flattering to know that people are getting some entertainment value out of it! I'm especially excited to see that some of the authors of my favorite blogs are reading and responding. Thanks, guys! Also, if you're out there lurking, feel free to comment. The more, the merrier!

#21 Mallory and the Trouble with Twins

This cover would be

Better if Mal was wearing

A party hat, too.

Summary

Mallory has a steady sitting job with the Arnold twins twice a week for 8 weeks. Things go pretty well at first, but it all kind of falls apart when Mallory makes a comment about how cute the girls are in their identical outfits. Marilyn and Carolyn start giving Mal a lot of trouble. They take off their name bracelets (the only way that Mallory could tell them apart), they ignore her, and they spend most of Mallory's afternoons there speaking in their own personal secret language. At first, the club thinks that Mallory is the problem, and that the twins are probably okay kids. Then, Claudia sits for them and they give her just as much trouble as they'd been giving Mal. Actually, they give her more. Marilyn has a special piano lesson that day, but when her ride arrives at the house, Carolyn leaves instead. Claudia doesn't know the difference until the piano teacher calls, wondering where Marilyn is. Later, Mrs. Arnold has the nerve to blame Claudia for the mix-up. What exactly could she have done about it???

The next time Mallory sits for the twins, she decides to fight fire with fire. When the twins ask for a snack, she responds in pig Latin. She keeps it up until the twins are so frustrated that Mal finally gives in and offers to teach it to the girls, as long as they don't use their secret language around Mallory anymore. The twins agree, and they even show Mal how to tell them apart without the bracelets. It isn't until after the twins' birthday party that Mallory finally learns what caused things to go so wrong with the twins in the first place. Mal gave each girl a very different present (unlike everyone else who gave them each identical gifts), and Mal's gifts end up being the girls' favorites. The twins just want to be treated like individual people, not like two of the same person, and when Mal made her comment about how cute Marilyn and Carolyn were, they thought she would just lump them together like everyone else. Mal apologizes, the girls apologize, and they decide to talk to Mrs. Arnold about letting them dress differently and more to their own tastes.

The conversation with Mrs. Arnold goes well enough that Mallory decides to have a similar talk with her own parents. She's tired of looking like a baby and a freak (her words, not mine), and she wants pierced ears and a decent haircut. Her parents agree, provided she pay for half her haircut and all of the ear piercing. Jessi gets permission to get her ears done as well, and Claudia gets permission to get another hole put in one of hers. Kristy decides that the club should make a day of it, and the first group mall trip is born. :) While they're there, Dawn also decides to get her ears done. She gets two holes in each ear, because she is, after all, an individual. A few weeks later, Mal gets her hair cut, and she feels less like a baby. At least, until the next book where she complains about how she looks. ;)

Thoughts and Things

• My favorite BSC books growing up were always the ones that involved mall trips, makeovers, and boyfriend stuff. Is it wrong that I liked those books more than the "Very Special Episode" books?
• In the book, it says that Mal writes on the twins' birthday cake with pink frosting. So why is it blue on the cover? The girls' dresses aren't exactly like they're described, either. At least they got Mal's goofy expression right.
• I can't believe that it took Mal so long to figure out that the Arnold twins got upset with her for not treating them like individuals. I mean, they were perfectly fine until she made her "you're so cute and you look like bookends" comment. Mallory isn't usually that dense about baby sitting stuff.
• I KNOW I'm not the only one who wanted a moon-and-stars sweatshirt like the one Carolyn got during their post-birthday shopping trip!
• I totally remember when pig Latin was a big deal.
• At the very beginning of the book, Mallory is completely fascinated with the mall. I remember being like that when I was a kid, but once I grew up and could go whenever I wanted, it kind of stopped being that fascinating.

#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!

#19 Claudia and the Bad Joke

Claudia's broken,

Thanks to Betsy Sobak. Let

The joke war begin!

Summary

The BSC gets a call from the Sobaks, who they've never sat for. There's only one kid, 8-year-old Betsy, and Claudia is the lucky one who gets the job. She's nervous about it; other kids who used to sit for Betsy don't anymore, thanks to her penchant for playing practical jokes on them. Claud plays it cool and pretends she's not scared, but she is, and (as it turns out) with good reason. From the start of the job, Betsy does nothing but play jokes on Claud. First, she gives Claudia a drink in a fake glass that dribbles apple juice all over her hand-sequined white shirt. There's also a fake ice cube with a fly inside. Later, Betsy pulls the old trick gum gag (I don't think I would have taken anything edible from Betsy at this point, but whatever). The final trick comes when Claudia decides to take Betsy outside to keep her away from her stock of tricks and jokes. Betsy wants to swing, but what Claud doesn't know is that the swing that's assigned to her is broken. Betsy thinks that as soon as Claudia sits on it, it'll break, sending her onto the grass. That doesn't happen, so Betsy suggests a swinging contest. That's when the swing finally breaks, and sends Claudia flying through the air and onto the Sobak's driveway. The fall breaks her leg; Claud sends Betsy inside to call 911 as well as her parents, plus the Rodowskys. Mallory and Dawn are sitting for a group of kids there, and Claud wants to make sure Betsy is looked after. Dawn and Mallory end up beating the ambulance to the Sobaks, and Dawn gets to ride to the hospital with Claud while Mallory stays with the kids.

At the hospital, the doctors put Claudia to sleep while they set her leg. When she wakes up, her parents are there, and they have news. Her break was bad, so she'll be in the hospital for a week, and out of school even longer. It's not such an awful deal, other than the whole broken leg aspect of it; Claud gets plenty of visitors and presents, and even phone calls from Stacey in New York. She also has plenty of time to think about the accident, and Claud wonders what would have happened if she'd hurt her hands and couldn't draw or paint anymore. She starts to think that maybe sitting is too dangerous, and she should drop out of the club.

Meanwhile, there's sort of a joke-playing epidemic in Stoneybrook. The sitters are dealing with plenty of pranks, courtesy of their charges, including Betsy Sobak. Since Betsy doesn't seem to have learned her lesson after what happened to Claudia, the other sitters decide to teach her a lesson: they're going to turn the tables on her. The little jokes don't have much of an effect on Betsy; she just thinks they're funny. Kristy is the one that finally gets through to her, when she humiliates Betsy in front of some of her classmates at a movie theater.

After her successful prank on Betsy, Kristy asks Claud for her decision about the club. It's then that Claudia fully realizes that she'd miss kids too much if she gave up sitting, and decides to remain a member.

Thoughts and Things

• This has to be one of the Claudia's most unattractive covers in the whole series. Her broken leg is freakishly long, and it looks like she's missing her second leg. Also, who are the other two on the cover? Are they supposed to be Mary Anne and Logan? If so...wow. They actually look borderline age-appropriate, if not a little too young. That's a switch!
• I'm not normally an advocate of stooping down to a kid's level, but I'm really glad the sitters "got" Betsy. She deserved it.
• I can't quite believe that the Sobaks seemed to care so little about what their daughter did to Claudia, and that they had the audacity to call the club again. If I had a daughter and she'd pulled something like that, not only would I be mortified, but you better believe I'd be offering to contribute to Claudia's medical expenses. Then, when the kid was old enough, she'd be reimbursing me.
• One of the movies that's playing at Stoneybrook's movie theater is Mary Poppins. AMM must love that movie or something, because it was also playing during book #6. Actually, I don't blame AMM; I like Mary Poppins, too. :)
• The doctor that takes Claudia's cast off was a man. I didn't think they allowed male doctors in Stoneybrook, judging by the rest of the series!
• Claudia gets an 81 on a math quiz and has to convince her family that 81 is a good score. For someone who isn't good at math, that is a good score! I know the Kishis want Claud to live up to her potential and all, but they really need to lay off sometimes.

#18 Stacey's Mistake

The club sits for 10

Kids in N.Y.C. and they

Only lose one. Yay!

Summary

The adults in Stacey's neighborhood have decided to hold a meeting to discuss the apparently rampant homelessness in the area. Quite a few of them ask Stacey to watch their kids during the meeting, and she feels bad that she has to turn most of them down. That's when she gets her idea: she'll get the BSC to come up for the weekend to help out! The visit gets off to a rocky start, though. The Connecticut contingent of the BSC gets lost in Grand Central Station, and it takes Stacey 20 minutes to find them. When she does, Stacey realizes that they look like.....CONSPICUOUS TOURISTS. Mary Anne pulls out a guidebook, in spite of the fact that she has a native New Yorker right there, Claudia has a suitcase with wheels, Kristy is ewaring her famous collie baseball cap, Dawn looks terrified, and they're ALL being loud. After a quick stop at the Mc Gills' apartment to drop off luggage, the girls go to lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. They make a big fuss over how cool the place is, which embarrasses Stacey, and Kristy orders fill-it-mig-nun. They go to Bloomingdale's next, where Mary Anne gets chased down by mall security for taking eye shadow that she thought was a free sample.

After the shopping trip, the girls head back to Stacey's, where they make their way through her apartment building, meeting the kids they'll be taking care of the next day. Then, it's time to get ready for the BSC party. Mary Anne insists that everyone wear what Stacey tells them (so they can blend in with all the sophisitcated New York kids), but in the end, she herself is the only one who doesn't. Laine Cummings arrives early (looking 19) to help set up for the party, and she and Claudia definitely get off to a bad start. To be fair, Claudia started the snide comments. Laine seemed perfectly willing to be friendly, but as Stacey tells us, "Laine isn't one to ignore a snipe attack." The party itself is sort of a failure. The Connecticut and New York kids aren't mixing, except for Mary Anne. She first bugs the snot out of everyone by reciting her New York facts, and then entertains them by describing how terrified Dawn is of everything. Kristy manages to make a love connection with Stacey's friend Coby but Claudia cuts in on them when they're just about to enjoy a nice slow dance. By the end of the evening, Dawn is mad at Mary Anne, Kristy is mad at Claudia, Claudia hates Laine, and Laine decides to go home rather than spend the night. I don't blame her...

Stacey calls a truce for the next day, to get them trough the sitting job. They collect the ten kids midmorning, and head to the Natural History Museum. They lose Henry Walker, but find him pretty quickly; he'd just gone back to see the brontosaurus after the rest of the group had moved on. After lunch in the museum restaurant, they head to Central Park. It's there that Stacey has an epiphany of sorts; Claudia points out that Stacey has been acting like nothing in New York is exciting to her anymore, and that makes Stacey wonder if her embarrassement is more about her own snobbery than her friends; behavior.

Later that afternoon, Laine calls. She wants to try again with the BSC (especially Claudia), and invites them out to dinner and a Broadway show. The night ends up a success, and Laine and Claudia become friends. Well...sort of. They exchange addresses as the limo is dropping the sitters off at the end of the night. I don't know whether or not they actually kept in touch. The sitters leave the next day, after a breakfast of bagels with lox and cream cheese. That sounds really good right now...and I don't even like salmon!

Thoughts and Things

• As of this book, Stacey didn't know about Jeff moving back to California. I know the pageant was going on at the same time, but you'd think that someone would have passed along that important bit of information!
• I hate to admit it, but I felt for Stacey a little at the beginning of the book when the rest of the club was being all loud and dorky. I still get embarrassed in certain situations if the people I'm with are loud and dorky.
• Grace Walker looks really cute on the cover. I'll ignore the fact that this scene never actually happened in the book. :)
• There are department stores in CT. At least one of them must have a makeup counter; Mary Anne totally should have known not to take that eye shadow!
• A 13-year-old who looks 19=jailbait!

#17 Mary Anne's Bad Luck Mystery

Mary Anne's cover

Outfit is ugly. Where's the

Famous cities skirt?

Summary

It's almost Halloween (the first of many for the BSC), and Mary Anne gets a chain letter in the mail. It orders her to send out 20 copies of the letter or risk bad luck not only for her, but also for her friends and family. She ignores the letter (as I probably would have done), and the bad stuff starts the next day. Mary Anne falls out of bed, spills juice on her white dress, temporarily loses her shoes, scares Tigger, and can't get her locker open when she gets to school. That's just what happens before lunchtime! During lunch, she spills a plate of macaroni and cheese in front of everyone, and when she stomps off to the library to spend lunch alone, she finds that her favorite book (Little Women) isn't on the shelf. That afternoon, she completely forgets a sitting job at the Newton's, until Mrs. Newton calls, wondering where she is. A couple of days later, she gets a little package in the mail. It's addressed not only to Mary Anne, but to Mary Anne and all the girls in the club. When they open the box at their next meeting, they find a necklace inside, with a note. The note warns the club to beware of evil forces, and tells Mary Anne to wear the "bad luck charm" - or else. Dun dun dun (scary music)! Mary Anne doesn't want to, but the other club members think she should. They've all had bad luck since the chain letter, too: Claudia flunked a spelling test, Dawn had a particularly accident-filled sitting job with Jackie Rodowsky, Jessi fell in ballet class, Kristy lost her watch, and even Stacey in New York broke her dad's favorite paperweight. Even though most of the club members didn't think anything of the chain letter at first, just about everyone is convinced at this point. They decide they need to ward off the bad luck with a good luck spell, which means a trip to the Stoneybrook Public Library. The girls each find a book on witchcraft, spells, etc. and take them back to Claudia's room for reasearch. The books are kind of a disappointment, though. Most of the spells either take too long or require stuff that the BSC would never be able to find (like ox tails).

It's Halloween Hop time again, and Mary Anne and Logan are going dressed as cats. As they're dancing, Cokie Mason (archenemy of the BSC ...this books marks her first appearance in the series) "complements" Mary Anne on her bad luck charm. Mary Anne doesn't think anything of it at the time. When she gets home, she finds a note taped to her door, ordering the whole BSC to appear at the cemetary (Old Hickory's grave, to be exact) the next night (Halloween) at midnight. Mary Anne calls the BSC the next morning, and they decide to go for it, though some members are convinced that they'll never get out alive. Rather than sneaking out of their houses so late, Kristy decides to throw a late slumber party as a cover. Mary Anne is on pins and needles the whole day, and her dad knows something's up. She doesn't tell him anything, of course...at least, not directly. She asks him if he believes in bad luck, and then feeds him a story about buying her necklace at a junk store and then having a "friend" at school tell her that it's a bad luck charm. Her dad takes a closer look at the necklace, and tells Mary Anne that it's not bad luck at all. The mustard seed inside the glass charm is a symbol of faith. That gets Mary Anne thinking; since no one in the club ever talks to Cokie Mason, and since the necklace isn't really bad luck, why did Cokie call it a bad luck charm at the dance? Duh - she was behind the whole thing. Mary Anne gets back on the phone with Kristy, and they hatch a new plan to get back at Cokie and her friends.

That night, in the cemetary, the BSC rigs up a bunch of bedsheet ghosts, with a sound effects tape, some flashlights, and scary masks for effect. Cokie and her friends show up, and the BSC scares them good. They had also come to the graveyard with masks and sheets and stuff, and had planned to freak the BSC out in front of Logan. Instead, she shows up just in time to see Cokie's gang freak out. The BSC then adjourns to Kristy's house for their slumber party.

Thoughts and Things

• Who in the world actually has a favorite paperweight???
• I really like the way that Jessi helps Jamie Newton with his fear of Halloween. I never really thought much about Jessi either way when I was a kid, but now I think she kind of rocks. I'll cover that more in depth when I read my next Jessi book.
• I'm really surprised at how soon in the series the timeline gets screwed up. We're still on our first pass through 8th grade, which started in book 10. It took 8 books to get to Halloween...that's a long time. I guess it's possible, if each previous book only covered a few days, but I don't think any of them did. At least four weeks passed in Claudia and the New Girl; that's how long Claud had to prepare for her art show. About two weeks passed in this book, and the girls must have had at least that long to prepare their pageant contestants in Little Miss Stoneybrook...and Dawn. I'm guessing AMM saw how popular the series was going to be, but hadn't yet decided to just have the sitters repeat 8th grade. Hence, the dragging out of the first few months of the school year.
• Daddy Stew=gross...but not as much as fried baloney.
• Richard Spier listens to jazz at one point in the book. That's a nice bit of continuity; his love of jazz is also mentioned in #60. Then again, it could just be a fluke. :)
• Nitpick: if the girls were in the cemetary at midnight on Halloween, it would technically be November 1st at that point.