Dawn heads back to
California for spring break. While hanging out with Sunny, the We <3 Kids
Club, Jeff, Disneyland Daddy and so on, she gets the idea that it might be good
to move back to California permanently. Eventually she decides she could never
leave her mother--we all know how long that lasts.
There's not really a
subplot--just a few chapters where we get to hear about Stoneybrook sitting
jobs.
Interesting tidbits
The cover is kinda
hilarious. First, the tagline says, "Dawn's a California girl!" As if
fans of the series didn't know that anyway. Dawn looks like she's sixteen, and
Jeff like he's thirteen. I used to have a swimsuit that looked almost exactly
like Dawn's, circa 1990, so the fashion's pretty accurate.
Dawn is picking through
her clothes, deciding what to bring. Clothing she considers: white cotton
skirt, bikini, jeans, sneakers, yellow cotton overalls.
At this point, they're
still saying Jeff went back to California "for six months" instead of
permanently.
Dawn says that things
between Richard and Sharon have "cooled" since they started dating
again.
Dawn's got a case of the
italics again. Apparently, being an eighth grade makes you a very
experienced babysitter, emphasis hers.
Dawn says she needs to
bring suntan lotion to California with her, because, I guess, her dad won't
have any.
Why in hell are they
having a goodbye party for Dawn? She's only going to be gone for two weeks! (Of
course, they do the same thing in the California Diaries when Dawn goes to
Stoneybrook for the summer...) Speaking of, why do the kids of Stoneybrook get
a two week spring break? I know that East Coast kiddoes tend to get a week off
in February (which we never got in the Midwest) but it's kinda silly.
Oh gawd. Shannon the
puppy gets loose, and Jessi makes a grand jete, surprises her and
catches her collar. They couldn't just make her graceful and quick and have her
sneak up on the dog, could they?
They decide to order
pizza (surprise, right?) Dawn wants broccoli pizza, because she can't be normal
or anything; the only other thing everyone agrees on is no anchovies, though in
at least one other book (#95), Kristy likes anchovies.
The BSC watches Fright
Night at Spook Lake (which sounds as if it would be dreadful) and they let
Karen watch with them. Set aside, for a moment, the idea of letting a six year
old watch a horror movie; imagine letting Karen, with her ghosts and witches
and ridiculous imagination, watch garbage like that.
Reading about Dawn at
the airport was a flashback: Remember when getting to the airport an hour
before your flight was being "early?" Remember when people not going
on the flight could go to the gate? Remember when you called flight attendants
stewardesses? Dawn says the "stewardess" looks like a Kewpie doll
because she has caked on makeup, attempts to redefine the shape of her lips
with lipstick, and has drawn in eyelashes. (I wonder if she also shaves her
eyebrows and then draws them back in with eyeliner...way above where they're
supposed to be.)
The ditzy flight
attendant gives Dawn's vegetarian meal away. She bitches that she can only eat
the salad and cornbread. Honestly, that's about all you get with vegetarian
meals on flights these days anyway. Besides, there was cole slaw that she
should have been able to eat if she wasn't so picky.
Dawn's family still
lives in Anaheim at this point.
There's a waaaaay too
detailed description of Disneyland. It literally goes on for pages, with very
little plot in between. And they're only there for about eight hours!
Dawn says Sunny lives
down the block. By California Diaries, they're next door neighbors.
Clover Austin, one of
Dawn's babysitting charges, has an even crazier imagination than Karen does.
It's a good thing they never got together in a room...
A little pedantry...At
the party before Dawn leaves Stoneybrook, Karen and Andrew are spending the
weekend at "the big house." They go to their dad's every other
weekend. Dawn is gone for two weeks. Why are Karen and Andrew back at Watson's
during that time?
Dawn calls Kristy the
babysitting police because she follows her mom and Jessi around, pre-sitting
job; she asks Jessi why she didn't ask where the first aid kit is.
Foreshadowing: When the
Brewer/Thomas kids are acting like monsters (Sam booby-trapped the third floor
to scare Karen, who's all keyed up, etc.), Elizabeth asks how another child
would fit into all of it. Of course, she and Watson adopt another child in the
very next book.
Mistake! Sam is referred
to as Sam Brewer. Maybe Watson adopted him when no one was looking?
The next few chapters
consist of Dawn being pensive and boring...even the one about Mallory and
Kristy babysitting the Pikes.
Dawn wonders whether her
hot seatmate from the flight to California will be on her same flight back.
Instead, she finds the same Kewpie flight attendant she hated on her previous
flight. She actually changes seats to avoid her.
Real movie: On the
flight back, Dawn watches Adventures in Babysitting.
Oh Lordy. Not only does
the whole BSC come to the airport to pick Dawn up, they make a banner for her.
She's only been gone for two weeks, people!
Yet again, the entire
BSC crams into a small car without seatbelts.
My copy of the book is a
"first edition"--it was actually printed in 1989. I had forgotten
that, in the early books, there's actually a paragraph long description of each
book at the end of the books. By this point, there's actually eight pages just
listing the other BSC books.
Outfits
Kristy: jeans, sneakers,
turtleneck
New characters
Sunny Winslow, Maggie
Blume, and Jill Henderson, 13 (38)
Daffodil and Clover
Austin, 9 and 6 (33 and 30)
Next week: Probably
Mystery # 26 Dawn Shafer, Undercover Babysitter
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