AKA, Kristy Wants to Wear a Pretty Dress
In this noodle-scratcher (one of my favorites when I was a kid, mostly because the plot was so out there) Kristy's mom has had to move up her wedding...and be married in two weeks. In order to be ready, a bunch of friends and relatives come to town to help with the catering and whatnot. Because apparently, Watson's too cheap for a real caterer.
In order to keep the kids from being underfoot, Kristy and the rest of the club gather together all the kids in one spot and keep them entertained for a week. Each one of the girls runs across a problem or two. Mary Anne can't manage to take two babies for a walk. Karen scares a bunch of kids when Dawn takes her and a couple of others to the park. Stacey wants to kill Kristy's cousin Emma when they go to the movies. The boys act like brats when they go to the barber shop. Emma causes chaos the day of the rehearsal dinner when she switches kid's clothes around in their bags.
Interesting tidbits:
Nothing good ever came of a book that started with a Karen quote. *shakes head*
Kristy says she got straight As "again", but that doesn't really jibe with her almost failing science in #53, Kristy for President.
In the original book, Elizabeth offers to pay the BSC $600 for babysitting 14 kids for the week--$120 each. Sam offers to do the job himself for $500, but he has a job at A&P (does A&P even exist anymore? I think all the ones by gramma's house were taken over by another company.) In the re-write, the BSC gets $1000--$200 apiece--and Sam offers $800.
Heh heh. Kristy says she feels like she's in a movie. Sam suggests "Bride of Frankenstein" or "I Married a Witch."
Okay, let's talk for a minute about the ridiculousness of this story. It's not the BSC taking care of fourteen children that's really the issue--it's more about the set up. I get that Elizabeth and Watson need help setting things up. But wouldn't it be easier, to, say, hire a wedding planner and whatnot? They say they need all these friends and relatives to help make food. My cousin got married with not much more notice than this wedding and she was able to book a culinary school to do the catering. How big of a kitchen does Watson have that he, Elizabeth and six other people can comfortably fit in there, cooking? And I get that Watson wanted his best friend at the wedding, but how much help is a couple with four children under six going to be? I know someone whose kids have the exact same age spacing--they're now 13 1/2, 12, 11 and almost 9--and I guarantee you, she was not driving a long way to spend a week preparing for someone else's wedding when her kids were that small.
Getting to a bigger issue, Kristy says the wedding is a large one. Who decides to have a large wedding with a lot of guests when they only have two weeks to plan?? Assuming they HAD to have the wedding then at all-and that's a stretch--why not family and very close friends only, similar to the wedding Richard and Sharon later have? I get that a book aimed at preteens is not going to have Elizabeth and Watson live, unmarried, under the same roof. So IF Elizabeth did have to be out of her house within a few weeks, why not have her take the kids and stay in a motel for a couple weeks? They could have had an August wedding very easily, and had nearly two months to plan and get it ready.
I could say so much more, but my head might explode if I keep thinking about it.
Kristy says her Uncle Neal is not her favorite relative. This makes me laugh because I also have an Uncle Neal, spelled that way, and he IS one of my favorite relatives.
Fran the counselor has more sense than most of the characters in the BSC-verse. She makes Dawn take Karen home from the playground when she tells the other kids stories about Martians. Later Dawn says she's pretty sure Karen's no longer welcome there. I think Fran is my new favorite character.
Heh heh. Bad Claudia spelling alert! She says it's "unfiar" that it's raining one day.
Claudia gets the idea to have the kids put on a wedding to keep them occupied. Bratty old Karen gets to be the bride. I think they should have let anyone else play that role because I'm sure it fueled Karen's unending desire to be a STAR.
Boy, Emma may be a bigger brat than Karen. On second thought, nahhh. But she is a pain in the ass. She loses her money going to the movies (only to find it in her sock some time later) and then drops half a box of Junior Mints over the edge of the balcony. She makes fun of the boys when they go to the barber and then bites her cousin Ashley when she tries to stop her. And finally, she gets bored during the rain and switches elements of everyone's fancy dress outfits for the rehearsal dinner--so that a 3 year old boy might have a 10 year old girl's slip among his attire.
UGGGHHH. My Karen hate knows no bounds in this book. She interrupts both the rehearsal and the wedding with her witch talk. She scares David Michael, causing him to scream during the rehearsal. And then SHE screams during "first kiss" because Morbidda Destiny shows up with a gift for the happy couple. Man, I wish MD had put a spell on Karen...one that caused her slow, painful death.
Charlie cracks me up in the last chapter. Until the end of the series--mostly the last Forever Friends book, when he finally graduates high school--Charlie was really the most neglected member of the Thomas family. Right after the happy couple leaves on their honeymoon, Charlie starts giving his siblings instructions such as demanding that no food be eaten in the kitchen--only in the living room in front of the TV. David Michael asks if he still has to take his vitamins--his mother's last instruction to him before she left--and Charlie responds, "Don't press your luck."
Outfits:
Claudia:
Black leotard; tight red pants; lab coat-esque shirt with designs; red clips in her hair
Stacey:
Purple nail polish
Kristy's wedding dress:
Yellow, long, with an empire waist and sash; yellow high heels
Karen's wedding dress
Same yellow material as Kristy's, but with a regular waist and shorter; black Mary Janes
New clients:
None of these new kids are ever seen again, but here they are.
Kristy's cousins:
Ashley, Berk, Grace and Peter Miller (9, 6, 5 and 3)--34, 31, 30, 28
Luke, Emma and Beth Meiner (10, 8 and 1)--35, 33, 26
Watson's friends:
Katherine, Patrick, Maura and Tony Fielding (5, 3, 2, baby)--30, 28, 27, 25
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