“Mom, Abby’s allergic to Stoneybrook.” BSC Portrait Collection: Abby’s Book (1997)

The story of Abby! Dum da dum! Heh, drama.

From Birth to Backpack: Abby as a small fry, looking identical to Anna but not acting identically

Red and Blue Just Won’t Do: In first grade, Abby and Anna’s teacher couldn’t tell them apart, so she makes them each only dress in one color

Without Dad: Abby’s dad dies in a car accident

The Shooting Star: Abby’s family goes on vacation to Florida, but they don’t spend any time together until Abby makes them enjoy each other’s company

New Places, New Faces: Abby’s point of view on moving to Stoneybrook

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: Abby’s actually kinda cute here. And according to the note on the inside of the book, that’s actually a real Aretha Franklin CD cover.

Abby says she doesn’t approve of forcing kids to write about their lives instead of living it. But we’re also talking about a girl who forgot she had to write a whole autobiography assignment until the weekend before it was due, so that explains a whole lot.

Anna is eight minutes older than Abby, but she walked a couple of hours earlier than Anna did. I would have thought, given their personalities, that Abby would have walked early and Anna would have chilled for a month or two until she decided to join her.

This is stupid. Abby’s parents knew they were having twins. They even knew they were having identical twins and that they were girls. But her parents were completely surprised by the fact that their twins arrived early. I would think that would be something they’d prepare for, since that’s pretty par for the course for twins.

Oh, Abby. She even makes preschool puns.

Abby hates that no one can tell her and Anna apart in first grade and calls them both Abby-Anna. Being five, she can’t vocalize what’s bothering her. You’d think that the kids would figure it out eventually, since even then, the two of them had completely different interests, but it’s not helped by the fact that the two girls insisted upon identical school supplies and insist upon wearing the same outfit. It’s the same story as the Arnold twins: twins with different interests and different personalities, who dress identically. Only difference? Mrs. Arnold made her daughters dress that way. It just never occurred to Abby and Anna that they could wear different clothes and still be twins.

I’ve always wondered when schools switched to allowing twins to be in the same classroom. When I was in elementary school, twins had to be separated so they would develop separate identities. I can see how that would be difficult for some twins, though, so I could see letting them stay together for a couple of years.

Abby and Anna switch colors so that Abby can prove no one can tell them apart. When their dad comes to school at recess, he can tell they’ve switched but goes along with their scheme. Unfortunately, the girls think their dad can’t tell them apart either, and it depresses them enough that they tell their parents what’s been happening at school

So, school starts after Labor Day where Abby lives, yet by October 15—six weeks later—there’s been enough time for a) everyone to confuse the Stevensons’ identities b) the two of them to wear their colors and c) the two of them to look different long enough that they establish separate friends who know their identities. Sure.

Abby and her dad have an ongoing joke about Abby rolling her eyes and saying how much she love meatballs. I’m not sure if there’s something I’m not getting or if it’s just a lame joke. (That’s actually the last thing she ever said to her dad before he died, so I have to wonder how long it took before she ever ate another meatball.)

Oh, and with all the pasta here—the spaghetti and meatballs Abby’s dad was going to make for dinner that night, the ziti casserole a neighbor brings over after hearing about the accident—all I can think is, isn’t Abby allergic to tomatoes?

Abby overhears her grandfather say that his death was instantaneous, so her dad didn’t suffer. I was Abby’s age when my grandfather died and no one told me anything, but I overheard stuff. A lot of stuff. Some of it made it harder to sleep and some of it made me easier. Honestly, looking back, I really wish someone had just told me straight up that he had a DNR and they’d pulled the plug, but I think they didn’t think I could handle it.

Even though this book is really lame, I found myself trying not to cry when Abby and Anna were talking to their mother. It had been a little more than a month since their dad died, and there was no food in the pantry, no dishwashing detergent, a house full of dirty dishes and full trashcans, and Abby admits she’s worn the same pair of socks for three days in a row. Abby says they need to pull the house together, and her mother says she needs to pull herself together. It’s sad because it’s actually realistic. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to lose a husband…never mind having to carry on for your daughters. Hard.

I like this: Abby’s family pretty well fell apart after her father died. This was partly because he was all about routine and traditions, and her mother couldn’t stand to follow those routines because they hurt too much. They got back into routines a couple months after her father died, when Rachel Stevenson decided to pull herself together for the sake of her daughters. But it took them several years to figure out that they needed to start new traditions as a way to honor their father and become a family again.

Abby’s friends from Long Island? Elvia, Jennifer and Joyce. I go back to the idea I had last week that the writers just started using a random name generator at some point and didn’t stop to think how many people named Elvia or Joyce were born in 1984. (This book: 1997. Abby’s friends: 13.)

Oh, and apparently all/most of Abby’s LI friends were also Jewish.

It’s so much more obvious in the Abby books how all these characters are so one-dimensional. When the Stevensons decorate their Stoneybrook house, Anna picks out a four-poster bed and flowery, Laura Ashley-esque wallpaper—a match for the types of clothes she is usually portrayed wearing—and is mostly concerned about where she’ll put her stereo and CD collection. Abby picks a traditionally-masculine wallpaper with tan and blue stripes and is interested in a fold-out couch for her friends to sleep on. At their going away party, their friends give Anna violin CDs and Abby a bunch of balls. It’s obvious through all this that Anna is very introverted while Abby is—duh—the extrovert of the two, and then of course, one likes sports and the other likes music….

Actually, I think it would be a lot more interesting if Abby, the outgoing, smart-mouthed one, dressed like a future nun and played the violin, while Anna, the introverted, quiet one, were into sports and dressed like she had no fashion sense.

Anna says the title quote, followed by, “We have to go back to Old Woodbury.” (Their mother reiterates that Abby also ‘has allergic reactions when she’s under stress.’ So she’s suggesting that Abby’s allergic to her emotions?

Abby acknowledges that she and Kristy have a lot in common, commenting how odd it was that Kristy seemed to like Anna better when they first met. She does admit that she was telling her crappiest jokes at the Thomas’ house when they spent the night there, but otherwise seems confused as to why Kristy was so opposed to her in the first place.

When Abby makes a really bad rhyme-pun, Kristy compares her to Vanessa. This is both awesome and awful at the same time. I can’t decide who should be more insulted, Abby or Vanessa.

Abby gets an A-. Didn’t some of the other girls get two grades, one for content and one for mechanics? I know Claudia did, because she got a decent grade for content and a lousy grade for mechanics like spelling.

Outfits

Five year old Anna and Abby: white t-shirts, green cardigans, black jeans; overalls and a yellow shirt (Abby); flower-print dress (Anna)

Nine year old Abby: jeans, turtleneck, cowboy vest

Next: #107

“Hello Spier, this is Schafer.” Portrait Collection: Mary Anne’s Book (1996)

Mary Anne’s autobiography time!

From birth to six years: It’s only one chapter, with little snippets of memory

The tea party: In first grade, the teacher throws a Mother’s Day tea. Not having a mother, MA doesn’t know who to invite. She accidentally invites both her father and Mimi

Stage fright: Mary Anne takes ballet class and hates it. When she finds out there will be a recital, she gets so upset that her dad lets her skip the recital

E is for eyeglasses: Mary Anne’s new friend April wears glasses, so MA decides to flunk her eye test so that she’ll need some as well

Exploring my secret past: Following the events of Mystery #5, Mary Anne went to Iowa to visit her grandmother (which is covered in a series of letters in the last chapter of the aforementioned book). This chapter tells the story of what happened there

Interesting Tidbits

The Infamous Cover, in Which Mary Anne Clearly Wears a Wig

Also, what the hell is MA wearing? It looks like her shirt is off center and has a big keyhole over her cleavage….

“I opened a can of yummy chicken parts for Tigger and poured cereal for myself.” MA sounds more enthusiastic about Tigger’s cat fud than her own breakfast.

Mary Anne acknowledges that she and Abby have something in common, since they both lost a parent at a young age. I’ve always liked the fact that, when it’s just the two of them, Abby actually manages to get MA to do less conservative things, such as singing oldies at the top of her lungs.

Sweet: When MA tells her grandmother she’s working on her autobiography, grandma finds MA’s baby book, which her mother had started and grandma finished.

Sharonitis: ice cream in the vegetable bin and lettuce in the freezer. Can I admit I’ve done that before?

Mary Anne always complained about the way her dad was raising her, but a) he obviously did a pretty good job and b) he has some pretty good ideas. From the time she was little, he took her out to dinner every Sunday night to teach her how to behave in public. You can bet he never let her run around the restaurant screaming the way so many parents do these days.

I love that Mimi was such a big influence on MA. A motherless, grandparentless (she thought) child would need someone like Mimi in her life. I do wonder whether Mimi just knew Mary Anne would need a little bit of grandmothering, or if she saw the way Mary Anne reacted to her and went from there.

Mary Anne is fascinated by the way Janine can walk and read at the same time. I can do that too…and I’ll bet Mallory can as well.

“I’m going to talk to Alan Gray…with these.” (Kristy, holding up her fists.) Alan’s actually not that bad, other than being a loudmouth and immature. He laughed at Mary Anne when she said she was inviting her father to the Mother’s Day Tea, but later, when Kristy explains that MA’s mother is dead, he apologizes and promises not to laugh at her any more. And that’s him at age seven or so.

Wow, little Mary Anne is so ugly in the internal art in all these books. Also, even though Richard always puts her hair in braids, she’s rarely actually shown with braids.

Everyone’s actually really wonderful to MA at the tea. The teacher, who yells all the time and whom none of the kids likes, gets a second chair for MA’s second guest. After MA explains she didn’t think she was supposed to invite a man to the tea, the teacher says it was completely acceptable to invite her father to the Mother’s Day Tea, as her father is both mom and dad to her. Mimi expresses delight at being invited at all, and Richard is very understanding as to why Mary Anne invited Mimi (because she’s not a man!)

Kristy is commenting on all of Mary Anne’s babysitters, and then says that someday they’ll be babysitters, and they’ll be way better than MA’s babysitters. One of them used to drink beer while at work, while another expected Mary Anne to be her errand girl. Where was Richard finding all these lousy sitters?

This is interesting: Kristy, Claudia and MA are signed up for ballet, and Mimi takes them to be attired. The clerk states that the teacher is a stickler for specific dress code (see below.) Claudia and Mary Anne dream of sparkly pink tutus (which I can totally see, for different reasons), but there are no tutus in their uniform, which they find disappointing. I know everyone is thinking of Mme. Noelle and her dance class rules, but this is actually pretty accurate. I remember a friend of mine complaining because her daughter went to her first ballet class wearing a little dance skirt over her required leotard. Quite a few of the little girls were not in the prescribed attire, and she felt her daughter was being singled out because she was the only one forced to remove part of her wardrobe. (The other girls were wearing the wrong color, or one-piece outfits. and couldn’t remove their incorrect clothes.)

Mary Anne has a whole conversation with a sales clerk she doesn’t know without getting shy. Because she was wearing a pair of readers at the time, MA decides that getting herself glasses is her ticket to a more outgoing way of life. I don’t get it, but I’m not a nine year old, either.

HA! Mary Anne is such a nerd that she actually finagles how to fail her vision test without people catching on. She figures out that she needs to do things like say Es are Fs instead of saying Qs.

When she has to go to the optometrist, MA suddenly decides she hates the idea of having to wear glasses. Of course, because she now doesn’t want them, the doctor tells her she needs glasses for reading. It was mentioned in the early books that she wore reading glasses (as did Jessi) but they haven’t mentioned them in a while. I vaguely have memories of one of the books mentioning that MA got contacts, but how do you have contacts just for reading?

When Mary Anne visits her grandmother, grandma keeps expecting her to remember when she was in Iowa last. Um, if I remember correctly, she was about a year and a half old when she left Iowa. How would she remember her grandparents or anything else from that time frame?

Ooh, Mary Anne actually gets so mad at her grandmother that she snaps at her and tells her she’s sorry she came to visit.

There’s a picture of Alma, MA’s mom, sewing. And she’s wearing bell bottoms! I love it! (Also, they make a big point of how much MA looks like her mother, and the artist did do a good job of making them look alike in the drawings. Although her mom’s less uggo.)

Although, the next photo is of grandma and Mary Anne, and Mary Anne had short hair. That vacation to Iowa took place before she cut off her hair.

Leave it to Mary Anne to finish her autobiography early and get an A+.

The title quote is what Dawn says when she calls at the end of the book. It’s in response to MA answering the phone, “Spier-Schafer residence.” Although, I don’t get why it’s not just the Spier household these days. Sharon is Sharon Spier, because Dawn makes a whole big stink about wanting to keep her maiden name, unlike her mother.

Outfits

Kristy, Claudia and Mary Anne (in ballet class): black cap-sleeved leotard, pink tights and pink ballet shoes

April: red high tops, jeans, blue sweatshirt that reads ‘I swam with dolphins’

Coming next:  #96

“Well, let’s see, what shall we have for dinner tonight? Barbecued kitchen or broiled living room?” BSC Portrait Collection: Dawn’s Book (1995)

Time for another collection of random babbling about a specific sitter!

West coast Beginnings: Dawn is a baby and a bratty little kid.

The New Girl on the Block: Dawn hates Sunny when she first meets her and thinks she’s a weirdo, but of course they become friends.

The Golden Anniversary: Granny and Pop-pop are having their 50^th wedding anniversary in San Francisco. Jack and Sharon keep pointing out how old they are, so they keep trying to give them rest breaks and take it easy, but the grandparents would rather do interesting stuff, the kinds of things Dawn and Jeff were suggesting. Dawn also worries about them because they aren’t glued together the way her parents are, holding hands and doing everything together.

Fire!: Dawn becomes obsessed with fire safety and then a fire starts and she has to come to the rescue.

A New Life on the East Coast: Dawn babysits for a little girl in Stoneybrook and accidentally tells her a secret. The mom’s so upset she stops using the BSC; Dawn never tells anyone what happened.

Interesting Tidbits

You know Dawn’s from California because there are seashells and the beach and San Francisco on the cover. Or, because, you know, she reminds you on page one, in the second line.

Apparently Jeff’s idea of showing Dawn he’s glad she’s back is to scare her with a Halloween mask.

Conveniently, Dawn’s school is also making all the eighth graders write autobiographies. I’d make fun of this, but two cousins and I all had to write autobiographies when we were in eighth grade…in three different states. (I also wrote one in fourth grade.)

Interesting. Dawn says Jill reminds her of Mary Anne, because they’re both serious and quiet. What’s intriguing about this is that Dawn, Sunny and Maggie outgrow Jill, leaving her behind in the California Diaries. What does that say about what will happen between Dawn and Mary Anne as they grow older?

Heh. Dawn was a week overdue. That’s pretty typical of first babies, though. She was born first thing in the morning, at dawn. I wonder if they named her that because of her birth time or if she just conveniently arrived at the same time as the name they’d chosen. (A friend of mine decided to name her firstborn August. He obliged by arriving two weeks early…on the last day of August.)

Chapter two makes me want to roll my eyes because Dawn took her first steps at the beach…and walked until she reached the water (rather than taking two or three steps and plopping down like normal babies do). Oh, and her first words included water and beach.

Dawn muses that Jeff learned at a very early age how to gain and keep adults’ attention. I think that’s a) a very ‘big sister’ thing to say—I say the same thing about my younger sister—and b) it’s probably very true, for both Jeff and my younger sister.

Little Dawn was a bit bratty though—between throwing playdoh in the chili and calling it sour cream and throwing things at baby Jeff—but she reaches the apex when she and her friend glue the blocks together at preschool because they’re tired of their tower getting knocked over.

Dawn says Jill and Maggie were her first friends at Vista, but I’m pretty sure she says she didn’t know them well before they joined the We Heart Kids Club.

Continuity: I know Dawn mentioned her parakeet before, though I can’t remember what book that was in. Was it the petsitting one?

It’s kind of funny that one of the things Dawn finds so weird about the Winslows when she first meets them is that they eat kelp soup for lunch. Sounds like something that would be right up her alley.

Sunny has a tie-dyed bedspread, and seven-year-old Dawn contemplates the fact that it doesn’t look as if it were made of dead ties.

Honestly, all the stuff that makes Sunny so ‘odd’ to Dawn when they first meet is the sort of thing that makes Dawn an individual when she’s older. The Winslows won’t give Sunny toys made of synthetic materials because it’s bad for the environment, and Sunny doesn’t like the fact that Jeff and his friend are playing with toy weapons.

Ooh, look. Neglectful parenting! Sharon and Betsy (Sunny’s mom) leave their seven-year-olds alone in the toy department and go to the other floor of the store.

When her mother gets stuck in an elevator, Dawn calls her dad and starts giving him instructions, such as the fact that he should call Mr. Winslow and the family Jeff is staying with. He tells her he’s proud of her for such good thinking, but it sounds so out of place. Sometimes these stories make the younger versions of the BSC members sound like miniature adults.

Math time! Like the last book, it involves Sharon’s age. She says her parents are celebrating their 50^th anniversary and are ‘almost eighty.’ Depending on what book timeline you go with, Sharon would be somewhere in the vicinity of forty at this point. (In the early books, she’s described as being 42 when Dawn is 12; Dawn is 10 at this point.) So Granny and Pop-pop married when they were approaching 30 and had Sharon when they were closer to 40. My father’s parents were married in the late 40s when she was in her mid-20s and he was three years older; she was considered to be an ‘old maid’ by the time of her wedding. Honestly, though, if Granny and Pop-pop spent years trying for a baby before Sharon was born, it would explain why they were so overly involved in her love life in her teens.

Granny and Pop-pop spend their whole vacation weekend sniping at each other. He calls her old lady and she makes fun of his interest in model boats.

Pop-pop’s name is Charlie, and Granny’s is Rita. Jeff’s middle name is also Charles.

Dawn creates evacuation routes for every room in the house. Sharon asks her how she’d escape from the hallway. I can’t tell if she’s doing it to help her calm down about it and relax, or because she’s just kind of egging her on. (That’s what Jack seems to believe.)

Sharon makes the title quote as a joke. Even though she doesn’t find it funny, Dawn ends up laughing because Jeff proceeds to explain in detail why he does find the comment funny. Which should be even less funny than the joke itself.

When Dawn’s able to get Daffodil and Clover Austin to agree on one activity, their mother calls her a good negotiator and suggests she run for office. That’s not the only skill she’d need; I don’t think Dawn’s any good at being crooked and taking bribes, for example.

Part of the reason for Dawn’s obsession with fire is that it’s an easier, less painful fear than worrying about her parents’ marriage. That’s actually pretty realistic.

Mr. and Mrs. Austin are Ted and Jenny.

Dawn’s picture was in the paper along with another ‘community hero’—a woman who was the foster parent to 20 children, all of whom grew up to be successful college grads. The photo’s in the book, and the woman (Mrs. Hughes) looks just like Rue McClanahan from Golden Girls. Plus, Dawn’s smelling smoke and exiting the building with two little girls is nothing compared to a lifetime of foster kids.

Kristy goes over the basics of sitting with the club, and one of them is to make sure you have all necessary emergency numbers. Stacey suggests that one of them is the number of the nearest pizza place. Kristy doesn’t find that funny, but I do. Kristy knows the other sitters know these things; she’s just taking herself far too seriously.  (A few minute later, Claudia jokes about knowing about the kids’ séance preferences.)

The reason for this ‘review’ is that they discuss not snooping at the clients’ houses. Dawn breaks this rule almost right away when sitting for a new client, the Lazans. She reads a paper from the school that says that Sandra is getting held back a grade. Not knowing this information was not common knowledge, Dawn mentions it to Sandra…whose parents hadn’t told her she was being held back yet. Whoops.

You know I love seeing the BSC make mistakes, but this one is pretty horrible. I can’t imagine any circumstances when talking to a kid about something so massive would be appropriate…unless the parents had mentioned how bummed the kid was about it and then the kid brought it up.

Dawn gets an A- for content and a B for presentation.

Outfits

Seven-year-old Sunny: ankle length hippie dress, no shoes

New characters

Sandra Lazan (7)—27

Next: #91

“I guess that you’re shouting.” Claudia’s Book (1995)

Before I begin, let me state for the record: the ‘photos’ in these books are hilarious. I wish I could figure out how to upload them without a scanner for your enjoyment. Let’s just point out that in every photo except the one with her as an infant, she’s rocking a side pony.

The ‘plots’:

            Baby Days: exactly what it says. Not too interesting

            Happy birthday to me: Nobody shows up to Claudia’s sixth birthday except Kristy and Mary Anne

            The Truth about the Tooth Fairy: Claud thinks the tooth fairy will steal all her teeth, until she learns her mother is really the tooth fairy

            Boo for Fourth Grade: Claudia starts falling behind in school, so her parents send her to an alternative school. But she’s so miserable and depressed there that they let her go back to SES…even though she’s flunking out.

            The Sea Rose: Claudia goes to the beach with Kristy and her family. They lose David Michael and Claudia realizes how hard Kristy’s life can be.

Interesting tidbits

Woo! A whole book full of Claudia spelling! *insert high pitched excited scream*

Claudia says she sees the world as a big circle with her at the center. That sounds egocentric, but at the same time, on some small level, it’s accurate for a teenager. Kids are the center of their parents’ world, and while her friend group may not revolve around her exactly, it’s an understandable thing. It’s like those diagrams they make you make in thought modification class where you draw a dot that’s you, a circle of close friends and family, a larger circle of friends and coworkers and acquaintances, etc.

In this book, Claudia’s dad is a lawyer. Just like Mal’s dad and Mary Anne’s dad. I’m pretty sure he was an investment banker or something similar in an earlier work. Why can’t anyone ever be a garbage man or a construction worker? I once floated a theory that Abby’s dad wasn’t really dead…her mom just told her that because he was in prison for life without parole….

Ha ha! Claudia calls Stacey and just says, “Hi…math.” It’s like a Stacey code.

Although, Stacey does know Claudia very well. She tells her the autobiography assignment is a self-portrait…where the medium is words. Not only is this mighty poetic for Stacey, but it is also a very positive way to phrase things for Claudia.

“An Artists Life by Claudia Kishi.” So far, six words and only one mistake. But there’s more: Connectticut, anouncement, stoneybrook, gazett, bussiness.

Good continuity points for whoever remembered that Claudia’s birth announcement was in the newspaper that had since gone out of business.

It’s a couple days after Claud’s birthday right now (July 11), but I’d like to point out that she shares it with my childhood best friend and also my nephew (the “Bubbler.”)

Claudia says she doesn’t remember being born. Is this supposed to be a surprise?

Four-year-old Claudia muses on the potential taste and texture of concrete. Yum? She said she was interested in junk food even then, but it sounds more like teeth-breaking food.

More spelling: tramatic, hapened, beatiful, kindergarden, elementery.

Not surprised Claudia is very good at jigsaw puzzles. She says that she liked to match colors, but it’s more that she has very good spatial awareness. (I have no spatial awareness. This is why I suck at puzzles and run into doors and stuff.)

Claudia says she had two pigtails and a flowered blouse in her picture in kindergarten, but the artwork shows a solid shirt and (as I mentioned earlier) a side pony. The label on the picture: “Me, Kristy and Mary Ann in kindergardin. Prakticaly grown up!” (BTW, kindergarten Mary Anne has no neck. Hee hee!)

So the Kishis solve the ‘no one shows up to Claudia’s birthday party’ problem by moving the party into the Spiers’ backyard and having the entire Thomas and Spier families join them. I’ll buy that; it’s nice for Charlie and Sam to be there, as well as Elizabeth. But does anyone buy that either Richard or Patrick (Kristy’s dad, who is still around at this point) would let Mr. Kishi paint their faces like a clown?

This I like: Janine’s present to Claudia was her very first mystery book, which got her hooked on reading mysteries.

More spelling: strate, truble, atention, wurst, wurld, secund. Also, grate for great.

The section about the tooth fairy reminded me of how my first grade teacher tried to teach us about graphs by making a tooth loss graph and adding to it every time someone lost another tooth. There were twenty four of us, and my name was at the end (because I had moved in during the school year). And everyone had between one and six teeth lost…except me. (Like Claudia, I didn’t lose my first tooth…it was pulled. And that wasn’t until I was nine. I HATED that graph.)

Various people who get mentioned during Claudia’s younger days: Alan, Pete, Rick, Emily, Cokie

Second grade Claudia also has snacks stored in her bedroom. Must be nice to get an allowance big enough to allow that.

Claudia calls the tooth fairy the t.f. and makes stupid tooth fairy traps for her. They’re dumb when seven year old Claudia makes them, and even stupider when the 13 year old sitters make them.

Claudia got a Susan B. Anthony dollar for her tooth. Her mother had said that she got a special prize because pulled teeth were worth more. Teeth seem to be worth $20 these days, which is ludicrous. And what about that woman who allegedly gave her daughter $600?

Claudia finds out the truth about the t.f. and isn’t upset…she’s relieved. Most kids seem to feel a little ripped off when they find out.

Spelling! Discuvery, realy, favorit, tho, wasnt, promis, terible. She also uses forth for fourth and tim for time.

Claudia’s fourth grade teacher sounds pretty nice. She knows Claudia is struggling, so she lets her do things like do some of her book reports orally with illustrations because the important thing is the reading comprehension and not the written presentation. (Sometimes, that is the focus, which is why Claud did have to write some of them.) It’s like I said when poor Shea was having trouble with his science homework: if the facts are the important part, then he/other struggling students should be allowed to do things like dictate their work or draw pictures or what have you.

I also like that when the Kishis determine that Claudia doesn’t want to go to the Stamford Alternative Academy, they let her sulk and throw tantrums for a few days before sitting her down and telling her to knock it off. They let her have her feelings, but don’t let them dictate their behavior—they think they are making the best choice for her. That’s the problem with too many parents these days: if the kid throws a big enough of a tantrum, they get their way.

I kinda love the teachers at Stamford Alternative Academy. When Claudia doesn’t do her homework, they have ‘conferences’ with her as to what’s holding her back from doing her homework, asking for her input on to how they can better help her. Then they ask her whether she’ll be able to uphold her end of the contract (ie, do her homework) without them having to contact her parents. All while looking like she’s wounded them.

Claudia’s parents deny her request to go back to SES…until she stops doing art projects, refuses an ice cream sundae and doesn’t want to shop. Then she starts sleeping all the time. Quite obviously, she’s depressed by that point.

More spelling: autobiograffey, altho, sumer, vacashun, relize, somone.

The title quote is Claudia’s response when Kristy shouts, “Guess what!” at her.

Eleven year old Claudia packs almost as much as thirteen year old Claudia does. The only reason she has less in her suitcase was because her mom was helping her.

The Thomases actually have a rear-facing seat in their station wagon that folds down. The few times I’ve ever rode in one, the rear seats were sideways, one on each side of the trunk.

Claudia gets the first experiences of real sibling rivalry when she spends time with the Thomases, between Charlie teasing the girls, Sam and Kristy slipping ice into each other’s clothes, and Kristy threatening to strap David Michael to the roof.

In a photo of the Thomases and Claudia at the beach, Kristy’s face looks incredibly flat. Also, she’s taller than Claudia.

At one point Claudia says David Michael is five. One chapter later, Kristy says he is four; he says he’s four and a half. If it’s two years prior to this story (Claudia = 11), then he should be five, or even five and a half.

The lifeguard runs into the ocean to save someone. Since DM is missing at this point, Claudia assumes that a shark must have eaten him. (DM kept asking the same lifeguard about sharks earlier.) Way to be dramatic, Claud.

Interesting. Claudia’s parents actually offered to get her a computer as well, and she’d turned them down. I’d always thought it was unfair to buy a computer for one child and not the other. (On the other hand, they do things like set up adarkroom in the bathroom for Claud, so maybe not so uneven.)

Claud gets a B-; A+ for content, but she still needs to work on things like organization, grammar. Oh yeah, and spelling her lifelong friends’ names correctly.

Outfits:

Six year old Claudia: lion tamer outfit of black tights, black rain boots, red jacket with no pants (oooh!)

Nine year old Janine: Laura Ashley dress

Five year old Mary Anne: pink flowered dress, pink tights, Mary Janes

Five year old Kristy: navy shorts and shirt and her best sneakers

Next: Mystery #20

“So, I thought, breathing’s going to be the big activity around here.” Stacey’s Book (1994)

Just like Kristy’s book, this is a collection of random memories designed to act as Stacey’s autobiography. I’ve broken the story down the way Stacey does.

The early years: Just a bunch of small memories; not anything too important or special

When I was five: Stacey becomes obsessed with Cinderella and, amazingly, her mother is able to get her on the Cinderella float during the Macy’s parade. She’s excited to appear on television, but she winds up leaning off screen to save Cinderella’s crown, missing her big shot. But she gets to keep the crown.

When I was eight: Stacey and Laine’s parents enroll them in ballroom dancing class. Since the class looks boring (and is full of kids they don’t like), they skip it and trek around town alone, something they’re not allowed to do. They are really late getting back to the dance studio and get grounded from seeing each other.

When I was ten: The McGills take a summer vacation on a small island in Maine where there is nothing to do. The only other girl Stacey’s age rubs her the wrong way at first,

but when Stacey’s dad breaks his ankle, the girl is able to safely get him to the hospital on the mainland and becomes Stacey’s friend.

When I was twelve: Claudia comes to visit Stacey while she’s in NYC before her parents get divorced. Claudia’s acting depressed the whole time, and Stacey can’t understand why. Eventually she gets Claud to admit that seeing all the places Stacey loves just reminds her that she and Stacey live so far apart. They end up having a great time.

Interesting Tidbits

They don’t often mention that Stacey is tall, just that she’s rail-thin from the diabetes.

Ha! After describing what she’s wearing, Stacey describes what her room is wearing.

LUV. UGH!

Stacey says she was born at 1:30 in the morning. In #3, she was born at 2:26 a.m. This has me getting out all the other character’s books to compare birth times….

·         Kristy was born at 4 a.m. even after her mother went into labor at a Yankees/Red Sox game (interestingly, Kristy is a Mets fan….) which matches #3.

·         Claudia’s book doesn’t mention a time of birth, although I just noticed that she shares a birthday with both my childhood best friend and my youngest nephew. In #3, she was born at 4:36.

·         Mary Anne’s book doesn’t mention her birth either. It skips straight to her mother’s death and the time she lived with her grandparents…understandably. The closest she gets to her time of birth is Mimi remembering that her parents left for the hospital shortly after dinner and that she may have been born around 11 p.m.

Awww. Stacey took her first steps (at ten months) into her father’s arms. That’s kinda sweet.

Her first childhood memory? Packing to move at age three. She thought all of her toys were gone forever.

Isn’t Stacey special? When she has her fourth birthday at the Palm Court restaurant in the Plaza, everyone sings to her…including Pavarotti.

Stacey sees Cinderella in the theater because it was re-released. According to Wikipedia, this occurred in 1957, 1965, 1973, 1981 and 1987. (Before home videos were common, Disney did a lot of that. I remember seeing Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Song of the South—which has never been released on video or DVD in the U.S.—and others in the theaters.) This is plausible…in 1987, I was six, and at the time this book was released, I was the same age as Stacey.

Stacey’s mom asks if she wants to be in the Macy’s parade. Stacey’s dad: “What a great idea. We’ll make a Stacey balloon. The Stacey McGill balloon floating down Central Park West.” (Laine would rather see a Madonna balloon.)

Stacey has an aunt, uncle and cousins having Thanksgiving dinner with her family…who will never be seen or mentioned again.

Eight year old Stacey’s idea of a good time? Watching music videos on MTV while playing with a Victorian dollhouse.

Stacey and Laine logic: They want to get their own apartment—a studio, because less space equals less cleaning and less furniture to buy. They make a list of what they need: a convertible couch, two bean bag chairs, two bowls, two forks, two spoons, two plates, two knives, a gumball machine, a decorative giant crayon…and a bunch of takeout menus. Reminds me of the brides who register for two place settings of dishes and then can’t figure out why they need more than that.

Even funnier: Laine later determines that they also need a TV, a VCR and a phone. Stacey points out that the only people they call are each other and Laine replies: “Stacey. We need a phone to order takeout!”

Instead of taking ballroom dancing, Stacey wants to learn how to moonwalk. She’s definitely a child of the eighties.

Heh. One of Laine and Stacey’s classmates—Randal Peterson the Third—goes around bragging that he’s going to be a senator someday. That’s the kind of thing that a kid who introduces himself as Randal Peterson the Third instead of Randal Peterson or Randal or Randy would do.

We actually get a map of where Stacey and Laine went when they ditched dance class.

Mrs. Cummings is named Peg.

You know Stacey’s dad is mad because he calls her Anastasia.

Consistency: Stacey mentions her family went to Ireland and Scotland, something she mentions in SS#15. (Although, if you were going to those two countries, wouldn’t you go to England while you were there?)

Ten year old Stacey can eat with chopsticks.

Laine explains to Stacey how to cook lobster by boiling them alive. That’s a nice thing to tell someone whose parents just pointed out how much lobster they plan to eat on vacation.

The title quote is Stacey’s reaction to her father pointing out how fresh the air is in Maine. Stacey thinks it smells like ‘bathroom deodorant.’

When Stacey complains about how the cabin’s neighbors make their living by catching lobsters and her opinion that eating lobsters is barbaric, her mom replies by asking how she thinks burgers are made. Heh.

Stacey and the girl who lives on the island, Mara, spend a lot of time putting each other down while arguing about rural v. urban living. Not only is it slightly comical, it’s actually pretty realistic. Mara calls Stacey a snob (true) and Stacey calls Mara a hick (also true.)

Wait a minute. The last section of the book is called “When I was Twelve,” but it takes place in the time between book #13 and book #28, when Stacey was living back in NYC after living in Stoneybrook. Stacey moved back to New York when she was in eighth grade. Given that she was born in April, she’d be thirteen by then already.

Here’s what’s interesting about those chapters, though. Stacey says her parents think they’re keeping their unhappiness from her, but she knows that they’ve been fighting. Yet in book #28, she seems surprised by the divorce. I guess when things slowly get progressively worse (her parents were even fighting when she was 10), you don’t see that things have progressed to divorce-style fights. (Heck, she says at the end of the book that they even saw a marriage counselor who…told them to get divorced.)

I like this: Stacey buys a bunch of junk food for Claudia’s visit and, to make Claud feel more at home, hides it all over her bedroom.

FAIL. Stacey tries to get Claudia to tell her something by saying she’ll ‘go crazy mad out of her mind.’ She says that’s something one of their sitting charges says and she thinks that will make Claudia smile, which it does. But the problem is that it’s Marilyn Arnold…who first shows up in book #21 and whom Stacey has never met at this point. The same thing happens in the next chapter when she says Matt Braddock loves penguins. Again, he shows up in book #16. Stacey may have met him if this takes place after #24 (she goes back to the Brook for the Mother’s Day Surprise and he’s there) but chances are she didn’t get to have enough of a conversation with him—in sign language, which she doesn’t speak at this point—to know what his favorite animal is.

Of course, Stacey gets an A.

Outfits

Stacey: black tights, pink/black oversized sweatshirt, pink hightops (no pants? ooh, scandalous!); at age eight: pink shift dress with lace collar, white tights, black patent leather shoes, giant sweater; at age ten: jeans, red hightops, long-sleeved blue polo shirt, straw hat

Laine: at age eight: plaid silk dress, giant sweater.

Claudia: purple jacket, black tights, red cowboy boots (clown colors!)

Next week: I’m having surgery next week and, if I’m able to see well enough around my broken nose, I’m hoping to do both Super Special #12 and Mystery #18. I’ll be continuing June with #82 and #83. The former needs a vlog…which will follow as soon as I no longer look like Marcia Brady (“Ow, my nose!”) And then if I stay on track, we’ll finish off with Claudia’s book.

“What if we have to stay in here forever?” BSC: Kristy’s Book (1996)

So these “autobiographies” don’t have one plot. They’re similar to the memorysuper special in that they’re a series of stories from the past, divided in to time frames. Obviously, this book is all about Kristy growing up. So, here’re the major highlights:

·         She was nearly born at a baseball game because her dad didn’t want to leave.

·         Kristy’s first “great idea” involved making snowmen for profit when she was five.

·         Kristy basically ran away from home to watch a movie with Charlie and Sam.

·         After Mr. Thomas left and Elizabeth got a job, Charlie, Sam and Kristy basically turn the Thomas house into party central and eat junk food for a while before Elizabeth realizes she needs to lay down the law.

·         Kristy gets a scholarship to softball camp, makes an enemy and eventually, a friend, while learning a lesson about teamwork.

·         In a plot taken straight out of the BSC movie, her father comes back into her life but wants her to keep it a secret.

Interesting tidbits

Sam takes DM to Krushers’ practice, yet Karen is still around, annoying the shit out of Kristy (and me.) Shouldn’t she be at practice, too, and who’s running the practice, anyway?

Kristy’s mom comes in to ask her to babysit and ends up lying on her bed for a while. This kinda cracked me up. She says Kristy’s bed is just so comfortable.

I think it funny that Kristy was almost born at a Yankees/Red Sox game when she’s a Mets fan.

Of course, Kristy didn’t walk her first steps; she ran them to pick up a dropped ball.

I always wonder why little Kristy always tells Mary Anne her plans to break the rules when she knows little MA can’t lie to adults.

When Mr. Thomas left, Charlie got mad at his dad, while Sam got mad at his mom…for making his dad want to leave. Not only does this sound realistic, but it is consistent with the Forever Friends book when their dad gets married again.

Kristy, meanwhile, embodied the stereotype of the kid thinking the divorce was her fault.

How does six year old Claudia have junk food? I can understand teenaged Claud using her babysitting earnings to buy snacks, but most six year olds don’t have enough allowance to buy that sort of thing, and how is Claudia able to get to a place to buy snack food on her own?

I can understand most of the photos in the book, but at one point, the Thomas kids, MA and Claudia get locked into the bathroom with Louie after he gets sprayed by a skunk. There’s a picture of this in the book. How? Who took it and why? When Elizabeth lets them out, she’s all pissed and makes the girls go home and everyone else get changed.

I’m not even going to relate most of the stupidness with Kristy at Camp Topnotch. Rent any summer camp movie and you’ll see it all.

Ten year old Mary Anne has the same handwriting and spelling as twelve year old Mary Anne.

In the picture of Kristy at camp, she looks as if she has no nose.

Ahh, an explanation to a question I’d had for a while. When the series first begin, Kristy says her dad is married and living somewhere in California. Later, in FF, he gets married again. This one explains that his marriage in FF was his third marriage; when Patrick runs into Kristy, he tells her he and his second wife split up.

As I mentioned at the top, the plot line with Kristy’s dad showing up is straight out of the BSC movie. I hadn’t seen it when it was first out because I had just quit reading the books the year before and didn’t want to get sucked back in. I watched it for the first time as an adult (circa 2004) and thought it was really lame. I’ve seen it a few more times since then, and my opinion hasn’t really changed, though I do quote a couple scenes here and there….

(Icon courtesy of this awesome livejournal.)

 

Mistake? Kristy ran into her dad “last spring,” possibly meaning seventh grade. Yet she tells him about the Krushers, which she started in eighth grade. Maybe it’s just part of the Time Warp Stoneybrook is suffering.

I kept reading. It’s part of the Time Warp Syndrome, because Elizabeth is already married to Watson.

Real question about Patrick coming to town: He makes Kristy keep his visit a secret. Why would he want to just visit Kristy and not Charlie, Sam and David Michael also? I can almost understand the DM thing: he wasn’t ever there for DM, so he doesn’t even consider DM his kid. At least in the movie, I don’t think they ever mention Charlie or Sam, so maybe Kristy and DM are supposed to be the only kids in the family.

The ending to the Patrick story is actually pretty sweet: After Patrick gives Kristy a “gift” of a hand-me-down baseball mitt—it’s a righty and Kristy’s a lefty—and skips town, she realizes how awesome Watson is because he buys her a proper ball glove.

Kristy gets a B+ on her autobiography, in case you care.

We’re officially starting September this weekend with a switch to Mary Anne. I’m thinking well begin with #86 Mary Anne and Camp BSC.