“I felt as if I’d just been kicked in the stomach by a Tyrannosaurus rex.” BSC #95: Kristy + Bart = ? (1996)

This book is one big OH HELL YEAH! moment. I mean, let’s look at all the reasons.

1.    It’s an issue book, which always equals awesome.

2.    The title is a math problem, which means Stacey should like it.

3.    There’s making out!

4.    KRISTY is the one making out!

5.    Kristy also gets super-duper-mega grounded.

Come on, people! How does it get any better than that?

As for the plot: Do I really need to explain it? Or can you get it from that synopsis?

Interesting Tidbits

As I’ve mentioned before, the last regular-series book I owned as a child was #73. But it wasn’t the last book I read. About once a month, my mother would drop my sister and I off at the mall. I wasn’t really much of a shopper, so I used to always go to the bookstore and spend 90% of the time we were at the mall curled up in the Super Crown or Waldenbooks. In March of 1996, I was fifteen, and I spent almost two hours reading this piece of literary genius. I literally remembered two pieces about it later: one was the basic plot that Kristy was ambivalent about Bart and a real relationship. The other part, I’ll mention as it pops up. 

The cover: Kristy looks like she’s got a serious problem with Bart’s arm. Incredulous Kristy is back, and this time, she’s gonna take revenge…on an appendage!

Here’s #6 for our reasons this book rocks: Peter Lerangis wrote it.

I love it when Claudia uses vocabulary words no one else knows. I also love it when Abby makes fun of her by making words up.

I can’t understand Kristy’s obsession with Anna. She’s nice but not exactly friendly, and she seems to constantly blow Kristy off. Yet Kristy spends a lot of time trying to be good friends with her. Also, Anna is so one-dimensional at this point; she thinks only of music.

Nannie’s handwriting looks a lot like Kristy’s. I love the fact that she wrote her note in little snippets, as if she were giving quick directions before rushing out the door.

Apparently the Pink Clinker has more than 100K miles on it….like that’s some sort of accomplishment.

Haha! Charlie’s making out in the Junk Bucket, which Kristy insists is no big deal. Yet she gets all embarrassed and runs off before he can see her “spying” on him.

Kristy says that the rule that no girlfriends are allowed in the house when no one else is home is stupid. This is how you can tell she’s too young for a boyfriend (or girlfriend, if you subscribe to that logic), because she doesn’t have any clue why her mom’s rule is a good one…and pretty standard for most parents. I would have understood that rule at her age. Hell, I would have understood that rule at Karen’s age.

“Joke. Get it? Eye exam…Ralph?” No, I don’t get it. Does anyone get it? Care to explain it to me? Actually, better yet, don’t.

Leave it to Karen. Bart points out they can’t play softball yet because they’re still wearing down coats. Karen: “Mine’s not down. It’s Hollofil.” She’s so literal it’s annoying.

How do the Pikes not have a toilet plunger? Mrs. Pike calls the BSC and, in addition to asking for a sitter, she asks Mallory to borrow the Kishis’ plunger. Mal isn’t at all concerned about why the plunger is necessary…just the fact that she has to carry it down the street.

Oh, and there’s a bad pun: Abby volunteers to take the plunge and sit for the Pikes with Mal.

I’m with Kristy. When someone puts his arm around you and you sit in the same position for too long, it’s uncomfortable. Of course, Kristy’s really just having an issue with it because she doesn’t like Bart that way, but I happen to agree with her on that part of it.

Kristy suggests that the Pike neighbors must all use earplugs all day long to deal with how loud they are. I would think that if the houses are far enough apart, it would muffle the sound enough.

The Pikes actually make Abby cry! The subplot of the book is the various kids setting crazy records. (Vanessa wins a speed multiplication contest; Margo wears the most hats on her head, etc.) Claire and Vanessa start a bubble gum spit, and a wad (I love that word) ends up in Abby’s hair. When peanut butter and ice don’t work, Mal has to cut the gum free.

Bart suggests that Logan’s only in the BSC because Mary Anne is in it. It rubs Kristy the wrong way even though it’s actually true. Logan only tries to join the BSC because Mary Anne was a member. I have the feeling if she was in the glee club, he would have joined that instead. Or the cheerleaders….

Oh, and interestingly, Bart says Logan’s only in the BSC because ‘his girlfriend’ is in it as a way of dismissing Kristy’s idea that he should join the club. But…he called Kristy his girlfriend earlier and clearly wants the kind of relationship Logan and Mary Anne have, so why would he say that?

This is actually what’s interesting about this book: Kristy isn’t totally comfortable with Bart, and she doesn’t want a kissyface (her word) lovey-dovey relationship with him. She’d rather play softball than hold hands, and actually watch movies instead of making out in the back of the theater. Yet she’s jealous of Logan and Mary Anne and how easy and natural romance seems for them. Who didn’t feel that way at one point or another in their teens? Or at least know someone who felt that way? It’s a lot more realistic than many of the other book plot lines, even though Kristy’s all muddled. She’s acting like a normal teenager, blaming Bart for everything even though she’s as much at fault as he is.

Another really bad pun: The Brewer-Thomas kids were singing the longest version of The Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly. Karen sings the wrong line, about a yak swallowing a platypus when she should have said the yak swallowed the gnu. David Michael pipes up from his own room and shouts, “No gnus is good news!” Abby would be so proud.

Let’s back up here a minute. Remember the rule about no girlfriends when no one else is home? Remember how Kristy would have rather been watching the movie with Bart than kissing him? Okay. Bart shows up at Kristy’s house while she’s babysitting and everyone else is in bed. She lets him in to watch the game, and doesn’t even stop to consider that no girlfriends when no one else is home also means no boyfriends when no one else at home is awake. This is because a) she doesn’t consider Bart her boyfriend, really, and b) she is actually just thinking about watching the game, not making out. But of course Watson and her mother come home while they’re kissing. (It’s nothing too wild and crazy, of course: all their clothes are still on and all of their hands are still where they can be seen…)

“As if he’d just stumbled onto a murder scene, with the killer still there.” Kristy’s take on Watson’s expression when he finds her and Bart alone.

Ooh, you know Kristy’s mom is mad because she calls her Kristin Amanda. Heehee!

The title quote is Kristy’s reaction to having to have a long talk with her mother…which then doesn’t happen. She apologizes and her mom grounds her.

I’ve heard some other people complain about the way Kristy is grounded. She’s not allowed to leave her bedroom except to go to the bathroom. If Kristy were an only child, I’d agree that was cruel. But honestly, being punished by being stuck in your house when there are 9 other people running around isn’t really a punishment. So they have to lock her away.

Sorry, I had to take an hour long break to cry because I just finished watching the episode of Doctor Who in which the tenth doctor sacrifices himself to save the most awesome old man. “I’m still not ginger!” So much more heartbreaking than Kristy’s whininess about being grounded.

So what’s Kristy’s whine? She blames Bart for what happened that night, and for her getting caught. This is such a teenager thing and so realistic. Yes, Bart came over when she was sitting, but she didn’t have to let him in. Yes, he kissed her, but she let him…and kissed him back. She could have stopped it, but, as she says, “Kissing was much more fun.” So she’s as much to blame as he is, but her attitude is so typical.

Oh, and Kristy imagines that Abby can’t handle all the kids at the record-making event the two of them had scheduled. She seems to think Abby will have an allergic reaction to that many children. Not only is this really silly, but it verifies the fact that Kristy doesn’t completely trust Abby. (I’m sure Kristy thinks she could handle all the kids on her own, no problem.)

Although, Kristy keeps finding humorous ways to spend her incarceration, such as looking up prison-related words in the thesaurus. She decides she’s a political prisoner under house arrest.

When Kristy calls Abby, Abby almost hangs up on her because it feels like “minus one in the morning.” I’m guessing Abby is NOT a morning person.

My one really strong memory of this book was actually a little hazy. I thought that Kristy had Krushers practice during her grounding and kept yelling out the window to give Abby direction. It was actually that stupid record-setting-meeting that Kristy keeps yelling out the window about. And when her mom tells her she can’t talk, she pantomimes. And when her mom catches her at that, she throws paper airplanes. This is both so silly and so Kristy-resourceful.

I love Abby’s thoughts on Kristy’s weekend (paraphrased): “So, you guys are going to have to play tonsil hockey at Bart’s from now on, huh?” This is also accurate to teens. I know I had that one friend who thought/spoke like that in my teens.

Stacey actually wears a designer baseball cap…but brings along an old, dirty one in case it rains. Oh, Stacey. (You also know she’s in for a great sitting job when she’s greeted at the door by Haley screaming at the top of her lungs.)

Kristy’s trying to figure out her emotions. She doesn’t want to call Mary Anne, since she’s afraid she’ll sound like a baby in comparison to the whole long-term relationship thing MA’s got going, so she calls Jessi…who suggests she call MA. I can only imagine how MA feels when Kristy calls her—crying—and speaks so fast that Mary Anne has to respond, “Say it again, slowly, as if I’m just learning English.”

I like Mary Anne’s response. She points out how young Kristy was when she learned to walk, while MA was a late walker, and then reminds her how everyone grows and matures at their own rates. Even Kristy admits it’s not something she didn’t already know.

Claudia spelling! HOO-ray! Desided, somthing, gyes, realy, funy, evry, somtimes. She also uses no for know, write for right, two for too and grate for great. But best of all, she knows she has lousey speling.

Claudia solves a record-related problem by finding records the little kids—Jenny, Jamie, and Claire—could make without the older kids wanting to best them. (Haley had taught Jenny the potato throw during Stacey’s sitting job, but because she couldn’t throw as far, she threw a tantrum about it.)

Claudia’s signs for the record-setting talent show: Outrageous, Death-Defying, Stupendist, Hare-Raising, Sensational, Colossal and Phenominal.

Jessi asks Mary Anne how to spell Ohdner. Why bother? The Ohdners never go to events like this, because they’re not insane like the rest of Stoneybrook.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Kristy says Zounds! That’s one of my favorite expressions, (as should be clear from a couple books ago) ever since I discovered King’s Quest VI and everyone’s least-favorite computer game character, Alexander of Daventry. I even dressed at Prince Alexander for Halloween one year.

It wouldn’t be a Peter Lerangis book if someone weren’t throwing food. Logan pretended to throw a roll at Bart earlier, and now Claudia throws a chocolate croissant at Kristy. I’m surprised Claudia didn’t eat the croissant instead. What a waste of something chocolaty.

I’m not sure Bart ever shows up in another book. I’m glad that the two of them worked out their differences, but the whole point is that they decide to just be friends…and then stop talking to each other. At some point, they even stop mentioning the Krushers altogether.

Outfits

Claudia: Bowling shirt with the name Ralph (‘get it?’) on it

Next: Mary Anne’s book

“Mary Anne? Is there a reason you want to wait for the bus in the middle of the road?” BSC Super Mystery #2: Babysitters Beware (1995)

I should, in theory, like this book. It’s the sort of book that rewards you for having read earlier books. I’ve always enjoyed that sort of thing on television, whether it was introducing a plot point and then letting it go for so long you forgot about it and then bringing it back up years later (hello, Angela’s real name), or silly self-referential comments (“Would both Alex Yankou and Pete Riley please report to the office?”)

That said, this book BITES! It’s convoluted and the parts that are supposed to be scary are silly and cheesy. The best way for me to lay it out is to literally just make a list of what happens and then tie it together…maybe. Some of it doesn’t tie really well.

1.    Abby and Kristy witness what appears to be an attempted robbery next the Rodowskys’ house, the Seger family

2.    Someone throws a brick through Kristy’s front window and spray paints “You’re next” on her door

3.    Mary Anne and Logan each get notes that look like they are in the other’s handwriting, that say weird things like “Stop crying” and “Why do you do the things you do?”

4.    A fire starts in Claudia’s back yard while she, Janine, MA and Stacey are in the house

5.    Claudia, Mary Anne, Kristy and Stacey all keep getting creepy phone calls—hang ups and someone whispering “You’re next”

6.    Abby finds a photocopy of a photo of the four who keep getting the calls and Dawn in the recycle bin next to the photocopier at the library

7.    Someone sticks a note on Tigger’s collar that says…you got it… “You’re next”

8.    Stacey nearly gets hit by a car with a Springfield Business Bureau sticker on it

9.    Then, at Shadow Lake for some skiing, Stacey gets stuck in the chair lift

10. A snowblower buries Kristy in a little mini-avalanche

11. Someone removes a Closed sign from a black-diamond trail and Claudia nearly falls into a ravine

12. Mary Anne catches someone breaking into the Seger house and the Segers’ son is arrested for it

13. After a blizzard starts at Shadow Lake, someone snaps Kristy’s monogrammed ski poles in half and then Stacey sees a woman from the ski lodge skulking around with a gun

14. Stacey’s insulin goes missing, and some other, less serious stuff occurs in the cabin while the sitters and Kristy’s brothers are in the other room

15. Mary Anne, Shannon and Logan all get locked in the house of their suspected stalker and don’t get in trouble; his wife just says, “You have to stop him!”

16. The Shadow Lakers get chased down the trail by a deranged lunatic, but the woman they saw lurking turns out to be a police officer. They think that’s the end of things, but it turns out the lunatic is really someone else, who attacks them and threatens to throw Stacey in the lake

So what the $^#! is going on here? Woodrow Tate, son of Karl Tate, the villain from the dog-napping mystery, is out to get revenge on the BSC members for what happened to his father. He’s responsible for the vast majority of the above weirdness, but Ol’ Karl himself joins him at Shadow Lake in an effort to stop his son. After Karl gets arrested, Woodie keeps after the BSC. The Seger storyline has nothing to do with the rest of it—it’s just coincidence—and you never do figure out what’s going on with the notes between Logan and Mary Anne.

Interesting tidbits

The cover. Ooh, Scary! But Andrew seems more interested in the snow than the deranged dude outside.

This book’s claim to infamy: It is the introduction of the mystery notebook and Mallory’s near-obsession with it. I think she likes that notebook more than she likes Ben Hobart…or even Misty of Chincoteague.

Books referenced in this flashback: #2, #81; Mysteries #7, #10, #11, #14, #16; Super Special #8 +

Kristy catches DM and Karen watching a really cheesy horror movie and tries to get them to turn it off…because it’s freaking her out. This is the response. Karen: “Don’t worry. He doesn’t eat her yet.” DM: “And it’s really fake-looking when he does.”

It’s insinuated that, even though it hasn’t been mentioned since SS #8, Kristy’s family spends a lot of time at the cabin on Shadow Lake. She always feels left out, so Watson let her bring some friends this time.

SS #12 marked the beginning of something important and realistic in the BSC-verse. The BSC was split up for that book, with half in California, and half in Connecticut. In SM #1, part of them are in Maine, part in Connecticut. Everyone but Mal and Kristy go to Hawaii in SS #13, and some go to Europe while some work a day camp in SS #15. That’s true in this book too, with Kristy, Stacey, Claudia and Abby at Shadow Lake and Mary Anne, Mal and Jessi back in Stoneybrook.

Kristy suggests that Shannon’s life is booked years in advance. I can picture adult Shannon pulling out her date book and telling her fiancé, “Sorry, we can’t get married for at least four years. I’m booked up until then.”

Bad pun alert! Mallory points out how much insulation is in her basement, and Abby says, “I see you’re warming to the subject.”

Stacey calls Abby One Tough Cookie because she’s willing to stand up to Kristy. I don’t think that makes someone a tough cookie, but I do see how that would be refreshing in the BSC.

Archibald. Heh. I love the name Archie, but I’d probably just name the kid Archie.

I love that Abby is still so new that people don’t know who she is yet. It’s not like the BSC would send around a flier with her name and photo on it when she joined the club. Mrs. Rodowsky only knows who she is because she’s wearing a nametag that says, “My name is Abby Stevenson, get out of my way.” Oh, Abby.

Oh, Abby, pt. 2: She thinks it’s ‘excellent’ that someone is casing the neighborhood to plan a robbery. Honestly, though, the rest of the BSC feels the same way about it—they just don’t say so in front of Sgt. Johnson.

Really bad pun #2: Abby thinks it would be a crime not to give everyone a clue about the attempted robbery.

The main thing Kristy and Abby relay about the robbery is that the guy they saw running away had “evil, ski-mask framed eyes.” I actually like that turn of phrase.

I love the BSC logic of “I don’t want to worry my parents, so I won’t tell them about all the freaky-deaky and illegal things that are happening around me. I’ll just solve it myself with my middle school friends, and maybe our favorite pedophile detective.” At least Kristy has an excuse for it this time: she’s afraid Watson will have another heart attack. (I never said it was a good excuse.)

Mary Anne’s dressing up for a big date with Logan…to celebrate football season ending. The most interesting part about it is actually the fact that he says he’s going to take her to a ‘real’ restaurant, as opposed to all those fake restaurants they usually go to.

The title quote is what Claudia says when MA stops in the middle of the street after thinking someone’s watching her.

YES! Claudia’s responsible for starting dinner, so she contemplates serving Twinkie casserole with Dream Whip topping. (In reality, she just has to make a salad and set the table.)

Claudia spelling! Smoak, beleieve, hapenned, purpos, firefigters. She also uses off for of.

You know this mystery is really getting to the BSC, because a) Kristy let a meeting run UNTIL 6:10 ONE NIGHT!* and b) they actually forget to answer the phone when it rings. It’s like they forgot they weren’t Scooby Doo in the mystery machine and that their real purpose for getting together is to, y’know, line up babysitting jobs.

(*You have to wonder why Charlie didn’t come ring the doorbell and ask where the #$*! Kristy and Abby were. I have my theories on this. One is the popular fan fiction idea that he likes driving Kristy to meetings so that he can spend time with Janine. Then there’s the boring suggestion that he was studying in the car while waiting. I actually prefer the theory that Charlie isn’t actually Kristy’s brother at all, but a robot in disguise as a teenager, a la Vicki on Small Wonder.)

Claudia worries about Stacey getting “killed dead” skiing on trails that are too hard for her. I wonder what happens if you don’t get killed dead? Zombie Stacey anyone?

Kristy’s the one who suggests having a mystery notebook, but Mal volunteers to go through the gigantic club notebook and find all the clues from previous cases and put them in one place. That must have taken her hours, so it’s no wonder she’s so obsessive about the notebook in later books.

Zounds! A Shannon chapter! She calls Kristy a PI and WOA—“Private Investigator and Woman of Action.”

Mallory’s on a stakeout. That sounds so much more fun than saying she’s sitting at the Rodowskys’.

Really Bad Pun #3: Someone calls Kristy Agatha Kristy. I heartily approve and endorse this pun. (Shannon wonders where Abby gets all her awful puns, but I just hope she doesn’t stop…at least for the rest of this book.)

Kristy describes Claudia as sneaky, devious and excellent…because she knows how to manipulate Janine into giving her information.

Once again, you know something horrible has happened…because Abby’s being deathly serious. The photo Abby finds while digging through the recycle bin is from “The Mallory Book” (Mystery #7). Mal and Jessi were on the ends of the photo and got cropped out…which is symbolic of this whole series to date. But it also explains why they (and Abby) aren’t getting the crank calls.

Mal says she’s not built for stakeouts…because she has red hair. She suggests it’s why she’s the first one called on in class, but I always pictured her being that kid who sits in the front row and looks like she knows what she’s doing. It’s not her hair, it’s the word NERD written across her forehead.

Volume One of the Autobiography of Mallory Pike: Chaos and Catastrophe. I’m not surprised Mal would think she needs a multi-volume autobiography. Come to think of it, that’s probably the reason that she and Jessi didn’t get Portrait Collection books. Hmm…

A final Mal note before the chapter ends: Mal thinks her parents’ obsession with insulation has become unhealthy, because when she arrives home, her mother asks if she’s wearing enough layers. That’s actually funny, and more subtle than most of the jokes in this series.

In case you forgot Stacey was from NYC, she compares something to an express subway train.

“We’re part of his little phone terrorist circle.” Has anyone noticed how many of my favorite quotes in this book are either Claudia (like this one) or Abby? Why not share the love and let Stacey or Jessi say something awesome every now and then?

Speaking of Claudia: Stasey, proboly (that’s how I used to spell it when I was about six), acident, Abbey, polise, sombody, somthing. She also uses shuck for shook and too for to. I have to give her a little bit of credit though: she spelled Kristy correctly.

It's weird to have Abby refer to Watson as ‘Watson’ in one paragraph and then as ‘Mr. Brewer’ in the next. He’s Watson when he’s talking to Kristy and Mr. Brewer when he’s not. They need to be consistent about it. (I mean, when I was growing up I always referred to Tessie’s parents as ‘Greg and Mona’—not their real names, but you get the picture—and my friend Kelly’s parents as Mr. and Mrs. Kellysparents or later as Mama and Papa Kellysparents. But I didn’t just randomly decide to call Mr. Kellysdad Steve one day and see how that went over. I still think I couldn’t call him by his first name to this day.)

YES! Abby says that Karen is “…plugged into Mars. I’ve never met a kid like her.” That doesn’t sound like a compliment, which means I now officially love Abby. (BTW, Karen even annoys her own father on the way to Shadow Lake. He just doesn’t come out and say so.)

Jessi ponders Mal’s life philosophy, which I think is like pondering why Emo kids are so mopey. But she comes up with “Insulation equals Isolation.” I’m not sure what exactly it is that’s making Mal sulk all the time, but I suspect it has more to do with seasonal affective disorder (this is right before Christmas) than the actual insulation.

Actual (although ineffectual) foreshadowing of sorts: Becca had spotted a man with a blue tattoo on his face, much like the one she and Charlotte had seen while playing detective in M#10—the guy who ended up being the counterfeiter. So Mal and Jessi take the Pikes (and Becca) out for the day to look for blue tattoos. Vanessa suggests that the tattoo-faced guy could have broken out of prison to exact revenge on the BSC. Between that and all the references back to earlier mysteries, it should have been easy for first-time readers to see where this story was going…at least, that the suspect related to one of those earlier crimes.

They finally find the guy Becca has seen making salad at the pizza place. Mal’s so distracted that she tries to order a blue pizza.

Claudia has her priorities straight: when she and the other girls at Shadow Lake go skiing, she refuses to leave until she puts a Ring Ding in her pocket, for ‘nourishment.’

Whenever someone who writes in cursive (Kristy, Mary Anne) wants to put emphasis on something in a notebook entry, they switch to print. It’s odd, especially because they used the Dawn-handwriting font for Mary Anne’s printing.

When Mary Anne sees someone break into the Segers’ house—the same house they’d been staking out every time they sat for the Rodowskys’—she calls Sgt. Johnson, and then Logan. The Rodowskys come home before Logan gets there, but they’re not mad MA invited her boyfriend over, given the circumstances. A) I’m not sure I’d believe her if I were them. B) How the hell is Logan, with his 13-year-old boy skinny body, going to protect her from anyone? Honestly, not that he’d be much better in ‘protecting’ her, but she’d have been better off calling her dad.

CBC: Crime Busters Club. Don’t encourage them, Sgt. Johnson…even if they do your job better than you do.

An emergency meeting at Shannon’s house! That seems sort of odd, but I love it nonetheless. I always feel like, when they have emergency meetings at house with younger siblings, the sibs should be eavesdropping or being pesty.

If Logan really thought Mary Anne was sending him threatening notes, why did he agree to go ‘rescue’ her from burglars? Or show up at Shannon’s for the meeting?

Actually, the best part about the meeting at Shannon’s is the fact that she keeps whipping out the phone every time someone has an idea and just calling about it. When Kristy’s in charge at meetings, they seem to have to run everything by her first. Shannon seems to enjoy the freedom to just do whatever she’s thinking, without checking with the others first.

Watson and Elizabeth go to get supplies before the blizzard gets too bad and take the little kids with them. Sam tells them not to worry, because he’s there. He flexes his muscle. Stacey calls him a ‘nerd body builder.’ Later, the two of them talk, finishing a D-level plot about her worrying about him trying to get back together with her (since they first got together at Shadow Lake). He admits he’s just using her for flirting practice, which I love.

I’m trying to place the first time someone refers to a Pike-family station wagon as a Pike-mobile. I thought I’d coined that one, but Shannon uses it in this book and I’m thinking it’s happened a few other times throughout the series.

OH! I knew there was a book where Logan, Shannon and Mary Anne were in a bad guy’s house together. I just didn’t remember it was this one. Shannon’s dog Astrid chases a cat into Karl Tate’s house. They have to get her back out and she refuses to come when called, so they open an unlocked door and walk in. Trespassers! (Logan even makes the argument that they’re not breaking and entering, since the door wasn’t locked.) Somehow, they get locked into his former office…with the dog.

Spelling! Waching, scarry, readding, becaus, madeup, traped, maneiac. She also uses moor for more.

Claudia keeps getting freaked out during the blizzard, pointing out how horror-movie-esque everything is. To be fair, it’s more because of the woman outside with a gun than the snow, but she refuses to let anyone split off from the six that are locked into the house (four babysitters, plus Charlie and Sam).

Mistake! During the Claudia chapter, someone rips open her pillow and spills her red nail polish in the mess. But it says Claudia’s red nail polish instead of my red nail polish

Shannon should get a job as a mediator. She solves the Logan/Mary Anne fight by making them talk about it.

I love this notebook entry: “Did I ask for this? When I joined the BSC, I wanted a job, some friends. By friends, I did not mean acquaintances in low places. You know, like maniacs. And convicted felons…”

Abby pelts a chunk of frozen snow at Karl Tate, and the police officer they’d seen with a gun earlier, Kris Renn, compliments her aim. (She manages to knock him out.) Because she’s Abby, she decides to enter the Olympics in ice hurling competition.

Horribly awful pun: The BSC solves mysteries with flare.

Is it awful that when Woodie Tate threatens to toss Stacey in the lake, I really wanted him to follow through?

Woodie asks, “My father. Karl Tate? Remember him?” Um, yes. Even if we didn’t remember back when he was kidnapping dogs, much to Mallory and Dawn’s horror, he was literally arrested (again) two chapters ago.

Abby goes to throw something at Woodie, but instead Stacey just elbows him so he’s the one who falls into the lake. I almost wish she’d elbowed him in the groin instead of the stomach, but there you are. I’m clearly just a horrible person by this point.

Ooh, that’s it. Even though they don’t really mention Christmas in this book, I’ll quote the TV episode I was binge watching when I started this sucker: “Happy holidays, broomhead!”

Outfits

Claudia: purple leggings under black bike shorts (NOOOOOOO!), t-shirt that says “This might be art”, suit jacket, Doc Martens with red socks

Stacey: black leggings, turtleneck sweater, cowboy boots, black suede vest

Mary Anne: thin, lace edged sweater, skirt, belt, patterned stockings

Next: We start 1996 with #93. I’d say I’d cry, but y’know. It’s a BSC book. If I were going to cry, it wouldn’t be because someone died, but because there was too much Karen in it.

“Jake didn’t seem to mind being compared to a dish of ice cream.” BSC #91: Claudia and the First Thanksgiving (1995)

Happy Turkey Day! It’s a little early, but since many stores are setting Christmas already, I guess we’re not that far off. Let’s go on.

You know I ‘love’ when the BSC addresses an issue, but does it in a mild, preteen-friendly kind of way. This book surrounds issues of censorship. Claudia’s drama class (another one of those short takes classes) writes a Thanksgiving play to put on with the SES third graders. The trouble is, they research the holiday and then write up a play comparing and contrasting the way things were, then and now. For example, the main character is shocked that Pilgrim women are considered the property of men, and she mentions that these days some Native American tribes protest Thanksgiving and consider it a day of mourning. Parents and some of the teachers read the play and protest; many of them feel that the Pilgrims should be applauded for coming to America and ‘taming the savage natives.’ The class decides to censor their play for the third graders and another group of students put on the original play using a middle school cast.

Meanwhile, everyone’s Thanksgiving plans mysteriously fall through, so the BSC families all get together as Kristy’s for the holiday.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: Claudia looks like she’s wearing a snood, with a matching vest.

Oh, Claudia. She starts the book making a pun, but then she ruins it by explaining it’s a pun. It’s like a book I once read where one of the characters made really horrible jokes all the time, but made them even worse by saying, ‘Get it?’ afterward. This pun isn’t even good enough for the ‘really bad pun’ tag.

Now she’s color-coordinating her breakfast with her outfit. That’s okay, because it seems like the rest of her family color coordinated too.

Chapter one is chock-full of outfits! I love it! Although, I can understand it when Jessi shows up at a BSC meeting with her leotard under her clothes (since she runs straight from ballet class), but why does she wear them under her clothes a large chunk of the time?

Ah, math jokes. Stacey loved the Math for Real Life short takes class, but Claudia would have rather had a Learning to Hire an Accountant class.

Some of these short takes classes do sound pretty interesting. The one the eighth graders are finishing is called Learning to Read and it’s about learning how to interpret what you read in the newspaper, such as reading different sources and determining how they slant the news. I learned all of that in journalism class in high school: where an article is placed, how prominently, how the headline is phrased and how things are reported, etc. (For example, there’s an old story that I’m not sure is true about the Soviets back in the day reporting that they came in second in a race and the Americans came in second to last. They didn’t mention that there were only two contestants, the Americans and the Soviets.)

Claudia points out that all the holidays are at the same time, right as the weather gets bad. She suggests moving them to the spring, but I kind of think that there’s a conspiracy involved here. They put all the holidays in the bad weather so that (most) people don’t get depressed as the days get shorter and the weather gets terrible.

Betsy Sobak gets reintroduced in the beginning of chapter two, where it’s insinuated that the BSC has been babysitting for her ever since #19, even though she hasn’t been mentioned in more than sixty books.

Thanksgiving is Claudia’s favorite holiday. I would think it would be Halloween or Easter, just because of all the junk food potential.

The kids in Claudia’s drama class: Stacey, Abby, Erica Blumberg, Rick Chow, and ten others who don’t get mentioned.

Abby gives the movie version of The Incredible Journey four barks, which Stacey follows up with four meows. The BSC comedy team? I give them half a star.

Stacey calls Thanksgiving the Thanksgiving of Doom, but she seems to think it’s funny, because she keeps snickering about it. I’m mostly amused because it’s the second time the Pike family have been invited to sit in the seats for the Macy’s parade but haven’t been able to go.

Kristy asks how many people it would be if you combine all the BSC families that will be in town over Thanksgiving—everyone but Shannon and Logan—and Stacey instantly gives her a number. How does she know? There are variables. For example, will Karen and Andrew be there? What about Jeff and Dawn? Maybe Nannie is going to visit her other daughters, who will be together for the holiday….

Kristy’s idea of a good conversation starter: “Listen, you know Thanksgiving?” That’s a set up for a smart-ass reply if I ever heard one.

I love how Charlotte was in second grade in the early books, they always mention her skipping a grade and yet here she is…in third grade.

I love the fact that the eighth graders don’t give a copy of the play to the third grade teacher, the elementary school principal or ANYONE outside their class and teacher until the roles have already been cast. This story would have gone very differently if they had. It’s like all the stories of school newspaper censorship. Legally, schools have the right to censor their students on some levels, although they cannot punish them just for having opinions and voicing them. It’s all very complicated, with several court cases involved. My high school newspaper had what’s called a Tinker Clause in our constitution, promising that the school could not censor our work at any time, but most schools don’t have such things, meaning that the administration is allowed to censor the writing of the students for the ‘greater good’ of the student body.

The title quote comes after Laurel calls Jake’s acting ‘super-duper extra-special,’ which is the name of a frozen treat at the ice cream parlor.

When the BSC asks the Brewers to host Thanksgiving dinner, Kristy says, “It’s only thirty-six people.” There’s nothing funnier than Nannie snorting back laughter and trying to hide it by taking a drink of coffee.

By the way, that thirty-six people doesn’t include Karen, Andrew, Dawn, Jeff, or the ghost of Ben Brewer. But as we all know, he only eats ghost pate and other delicacies in the attic, anyway.

“I wondered what Susie’s mom thought we were painting. Naked Pilgrims?” This made me laugh because I started picturing Adam and Eve wearing fig leaves in the background of the play.

I like how Jessi sums up the A-plot of the story: “They’re scared. It’s easier to believe fiction than fact.” Honestly, the problem isn’t that it’s easier to believe fiction. It’s that the parents and teachers who are upset at the portrayal of the first Thanksgiving grew up being taught one narrow point of view, and like Claudia said in her commentary on newspaper articles, how a source feels about something slants how they report is. (She reflects on this herself after the whole event is over.) Americans have always grown up reading the WASP male point of view, and now that other people want to portray a different view—female, Native American, African American, Muslim, atheist, gay, transgender, or whatever—other people get offended and yes, scared. It’s hard to accept that you haven’t been taught the whole truth your whole life.

I’m also not surprised by the roles our principals play in the fight that breaks out. Stacey’s back stage at the time, so she stays out of it and tries to distract the kids. Jessi’s there for Charlotte and Becca, so she does the same with those two. Claudia goes outside and worries about the outcome. I’m sure NO ONE is surprised that Abby, who was onstage directing, is in the middle of it. Not only is she a loud mouth (ha!), but she’s also sort of a feminist. She’s got that ‘I’m a minority and no one’s going to put me in my place’ thing going that I’m surprised they didn’t play up more with Dawn. I guess they couldn’t think of Dawn as minority too much, although Abby points as much to sexism as she does discrimination of the Jews.

Ooh, I like this too. Claudia points out that the story of Thanksgiving they teach kids isn’t made up; it’s just ‘polished’ to present a prettier picture.

Ms. Garcia uses one of my favorite quotes: “I don’t agree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.” She says she doesn’t recall whom she’s quoting, but it’s most certainly Voltaire.

Betsy, who had played Alice, the girl who learns how women and minorities were treated in the original play, had to be given a new part, so she plays the governor. She doesn’t care that her part is smaller…because her costume now includes a mustache she can twirl. You have to love how easily kids are reconciled to some losses.

This I love. During the middle school production of the uncensored play, protestors for ‘family values’ and ‘free speech’ are siding off against each other as they do in real life all the time, both outside the school and inside. When they start drowning out the actors and actresses, the principal actually comes on stage and yells at them to stop! He says they’re entitled to their free speech, but by agreeing to come inside and watch the play, they agree to follow the rules of common courtesy.

Claudia: “I wondered…whether the people who censored our play and tried to prevent us from exercising our freedom of speech realized that the only reason they could protest at all was because of the same right to freedom of speech.” I wonder this all the time. I hear people complaining frequently that their First Amendment rights are being restricted because they’re not allowed to take other people’s First Amendment rights away. (Kim Davis, anyone?)

There was no Claudia spelling in this book until chapter 14! Atenshun, clints (clients), parteis, Thankgiving (I have been trying to type it that way all through this entry!) and peple.

I’m trying to do some math here again. (Oh, please shut up. I can hear you groaning across time and space.) All the sitters and all the siblings of the BSC come together at the Pikes while all the adults go to Kristy’s to cook. Let’s stop and think about logistics for a moment: It’s a potluck, so each family brings a dish or two. This is who is at Kristy’s house:

Elizabeth, Watson, Nannie, Mrs. Stevenson, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey, Aunt Cecelia, Richard, Sharon, Mr. and Mrs. Kishi, Ms. McGill, Mr. and Mrs. Pike. That’s 14 adults in one kitchen using one stove and one oven. Madness! Some of them should go over to the Stevensons’ since they live right there and all.

Meanwhile, here’s who is over at the Pikes’, being sat for:

The triplets, Vanessa, Nicky, Margo, Claire, DM, EM, Becca, Squirt. That’s only eleven kids…with the following sitters:

The BSC, Anna, Charlie, Sam, Janine. That’s a great ratio of 1:1…that’s made even better when Dawn shows up part way through. (Although, why is Dawn there and not Jeff? C’mon, people! I need more Jeff in my life.)

Honestly, the babysitting’s not really babysitting for the most part. Abby and Anna are baking with a few kids, while Mary Anne’s helping make decorations with a few others. Charlie, Sam and Janine are pitching in quite a bit. Sam even helps Vanessa with her poems.

Sam sets up a turkey hunt for the triplets, who have to clean their room. This cracks me up…he tapes the turkey origami to the broom, knowing that sweeping’s the last thing they’ll do after they’ve fully cleaned. (Actually, they probably wouldn’t have gotten it at all, except Mal forces them to finish up by dusting and sweeping.)

Come to think of it, why wasn’t Nicky cleaning too? After all, he shares a room with his brothers. Maybe he’d already made his bed and put away his toys.

Dawn comes in the middle of events and Claudia doesn’t even notice at first; she just hands Squirt to her. (Based upon the language, he peed all over Claudia right before that.) She shrieks so loud that everyone comes running and gives her a giant hug. Abby comes up behind them and, in my favorite line of the book, says, “You’re not Dawn, are you?”

Janine points out that some vegetarians won’t eat ‘anything with a face’ and then wonders whether oysters have faces or not. Oh, and then she tries to explain to Claire how to set the table, only to be thrown when Claire asks her ‘why’ the knife blades go in toward the plate. (I don’t know either, other than to guess that it’s safer if the knives are sharp.) Janine finally just says, “Because, that’s why.” Sounds like my mom.

Yes! A moment later, Claudia observes the adults setting an adult table as well, and overhears Watson tell Sharon the same thing about knives. (She does not, however, ask him why.)

I think the dining is a little haphazard at this dinner: instead of the BSC sitting together and various kids arranged age appropriately (Becca, Vanessa, DM and Nicky at one table, for example), Claudia ends up at a table with DM, Sam and Margo.

Ha! In the reader letter at the end, AMM says that her oven once caught on fire on Thanksgiving and the fire department had to come put it out. I wonder if she was cooking or if that was when she was growing up. I bought a copy of her biography but have only skimmed it so far.

Outfits

Claudia: baggy yellow pants, red Doc Martens with yellow and orange laces, leaf-pattern shirt over red and yellow tie dyed waffle weave shirt, yellow and white scarf in her hair, and pumpkin earrings

Mrs. Kishi: navy dress and pearl earrings

Mr. Kishi: navy pinstripe suit

Janine: navy skirt, navy sweater and pink shirt

Stacey: blue turtleneck, black cropped wool jacket, black jeans, black boots

Mal: jeans, red plaid flannel, sweatshirt

Jessi: purple leotard, jeans, lavender sweater

Next: It’s super, and it’s a mystery! Other than that, I’m leaving it dangling.

“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