“Right between the eyes! Did you see, Mary Anne?” BSC #86: Mary Anne and Camp BSC (1995)

There are three stories going on at the same time in this one. In the main plot, the BSC is holding a camp with a circus theme. About half the campers went to a professional circus camp before (as outlined in a Little Sister book). Karen leads those campers in being brats (big surprise there, huh?) and it leads to some tension between those campers and the ones from Stoneybrook Elementary, who didn’t go to that camp.

Meanwhile, Richard has to go out of town for two weeks and MA starts to feel all depressed while he’s gone, because she misses him so much and she feels like she can’t talk about it to Dawn and Sharon. The third story, which ties directly into this, involves Alicia Gianelli, who has never spent so much time away from her mom before and refuses to go on camp outings because she’s scared her mom won’t be able to find her. After MA sprains her ankle, Alicia decides she wants to go on those outings but MA, who was the only one who thought that Alicia should be allowed to continue sitting out every day, uses her as a security blanket or something. So when Alicia decides to join the group, MA realizes she’s been acting childish and turns herself around.

Interesting tidbits

Is it wrong that I’m looking at the cover and trying to figure out who all those kids are supposed to be? I know the blonde with the pink glasses is Karen, and the redhead on the left must be Jackie. The brown haired girl could be Margo, but then who is the brown haired boy? A lot of the characters it could be wear glasses—Nicky, Ricky (heh..that rhymes). I’m trying to account for all the children who would be at the cookout. Linny? That kid looks a lot younger than nine (actually, he looks about five). And Bobby appeared on the cover of a Little Sister book I saw at the thrift store recently and I don’t think that’s supposed to be him. Maybe it’s Chris, whom I don’t remember from any of the Little Sister books I actually read, but who goes to school with Karen?

 

Pow is apparently now known as Pow Barrett Pike. Even for someone who gives her cats middle names that seems a little silly.

The Pikes are so full of energy that Mallory suggests harnessing it for electricity, noting that Dawn would approve. Although, in this case, energy mostly seems to be loud noise.

Sharon’s housekeeping (I have a feeling there will be quite a bit of that to keep track of in MA books): books in the linen closet and cans of beans on the book shelf. That’s pretty tame for her.

MA mentions how Sharon and Dawn eat health food and don’t eat red meat. She says she thinks Jeff does sometimes. Does that sound consistent with what we know? I would think Jeff would eat whatever he’s told to eat at his age, but whatever.

Three cheese macaroni and garlic and onion toast sounds yummy, but not exactly healthy.

Didn’t Richard have his own law firm at one point? I swear I remember reading that in #9 when Granny and Pop-Pop were interrogating Richard. In this one, the firm he works for is merging with a larger one.

Why would Dawn, the health food fiend, want to eat fast food takeout every night? That’s a horrible diet, and even a thirteen year old knows that.

Here’s a similarity we don’t generally get to hear: Kristy and MA are both really stubborn. MA says that when they used to fight as children, it was because of this. It’s kinda true.

Stacey quit/was fired shortly before this book, so MA’s kinda mad at her. She says Dawn’s a good treasurer “even if she’s not the math whiz of the world.”

Haha: “Logan is stubborn and sometimes bossy.” I liked this because usually we just get to hear how wonderful Logan is, and not just in the Mary Anne books. But I’ve always thought Logan was a bit of a jerk. (Let me rephrase that: he was basically my dream boy when I was 10 or so. Adult me has always considered him a jerk.)

They have an almost-emergency meeting to discuss the concept of a summer camp, and even Logan has to attend. Umm, why? It’s not like they’ve never run a summer camp before. #7 comes to mind, as does SS#10.

Mary Anne apparently tries to reason with Tigger sometimes. Trust me; reasoning with cats does not work.

The BSC needs to have an adult who is home to be on call in case of emergency, so they call Mrs. Braddock and Mrs. Prezzioso. Not only does Mrs. Braddock agree, she signs Matt and Haley up for the camp. Two thoughts on that: Doesn’t Mrs. Braddock work? Isn’t that the reason that Jessi works with the Braddocks so much? And two, if she’s going to be home, why does she even need a camp for her kids? You’d think that the main reason someone would need a program like this is if they can’t afford a full-time nanny or daycare center and just need activities for their kids every day while they work.

MA thinks Logan looks handsome on a bicycle. I…do not get it.

Smartly, the BSC pairs up the kids so everyone has a buddy. They even seem to do it by age on the first day, pairing Alicia (the youngest) with Vanessa (one of the oldest). But if Alicia is so afraid her mother will miss her, why don’t they adjust the pairings, at least at first, so that Alicia is paired with her brother?

Here’s my thought: by letting Alicia “stay behind this one time” they set a precedent that comes back to haunt them. Although, one of my memories from being Alicia’s age is when I was afraid of something at preschool and my teacher let me sit it out until I realized that I wanted to join it…

Mrs. Gianelli is really making things worse by not just dropping Alicia off and leaving right away.

There’s a division of the kids at camp between the SES and the Stoneybrook Academy kids. I’m assuming that Andrew and Alicia go to the SA side since they have older siblings there. That leaves Jamie…where does he fit in?

Karen is such a bitch in training. She decides the camp is stupid because it’s “not a real circus camp” and basically spends all her time convincing her schoolmates to complain about it.

I like how Dawn actually manipulates Linny into not being part of the whiners by saying she needs his muscles to help move things. Usually Dawn pisses me off at least once through a book, but she’s actually made me smile a few times in this one. (Earlier, when MA was admiring how hot Logan looked on a bike, Dawn punched him in the shoulder like he was an old buddy, and the two of them are working together with the “roustabout” kids and have a hay fight. (Hmmm…maybe MA better watch out??))

Richard is singing in this one. He’s way too happy to be leaving his wife and family behind….Wonder what he’s really doing when he’s “away on business.”

This is odd. There’s a moment when Richard is leaving and MA says she’s looking forward to spending two weeks “with Sharon and Dawn Schafer.” Why is their last name on there? Is there another Sharon and Dawn in the series I’ve forgotten?

Real movie time! MA, Dawn and Sharon have a bad movie night and choose Plan Nine from Outer Space, (Dawn) Girls, Girls, Girls (Sharon) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (MA).

Sharon, why would you pick an Elvis movie if you don’t like it when Elvis sings on screen? (She demonstrates this by throwing popcorn at the screen.)

Alicia staying behind on all the trips means that there’s an odd number of children and someone ends up without a buddy. When it’s Claire, she nearly throws a tantrum until Jessi agrees to be her buddy.

There’s this humorous bit where everyone starts listing animals that laugh because Mal averts a Karen-related meltdown by suggesting that all the hawks are laughing.

How come none of the babysitters ever needs to go to any appointments during the camp? Like why doesn’t Claudia have art class or Jessi go to ballet or somebody have a doctor’s appointment or something?

MA says she can like just about any vegetarian food, except sprouts, because they look like green hair and get stuck in your teeth. Which makes me laugh, partly because it’s true and partly because there are so many more disgusting (looking) vegetarian foods she could be grossed out by.

Heh. A roll of TP fell into the shower while MA was using it. That has happened to me on several occasions.

I’m seriously wondering where the Gianellis got a camel costume for Alicia.

Really? Sharon found a place that puts eggplant on pizza?

The camp includes a night-time cook out for all campers ages seven and up. Can you imagine the responses of Claire, Alicia and Andrew, who all have older sibs who get to go, but aren’t invited?

Wow, there’s actually someone who refuses to let Karen get out of control with ghost stories: Logan tells her flat out there are no ghosts at MA and Dawn’s to cut her off before she scares anyone. Usually, the BSC just lets her ramble until they get kicked out of places and/or everyone’s in a tizzy. Later, he tells her that “the Barn Ghost” she made up on the spot doesn’t come out until midnight and can’t follow her home. Logan may be a jerk, but he’s actually pretty smart this time.

When Logan tries to tell scary stories, the kids cut him off and say they know those ones already and want REAL scary stories. Heh.

So Mal tells a bloody and gruesome story that seems wildly inappropriate to tell a bunch of seven through nine year olds.

Mistake: Mary Anne tells a ghost cat story, and says it’s something that happened to Dawn. Although Dawn was in that story, it was really a Mallory story.

There’s actually a lot of Logan in this story. He helps the kids make s’mores and comes up with a bunch of creative ways to make them. Can he come to my house for a cookout sometime? (Matt Braddock wins though, with the idea of putting Reese’s Pieces in the s’mores.)

MA’s accident sounds pretty spectacular. I’d like to see it animated. She hits a pothole and while she’s trying to regain control of the bike, she hits a tree and then up onto the sidewalk with the bike on top of her.

You know, if I didn’t relate to the plotline of MA being depressed, this book would have been wicket boring.

Claudia spelling: bowlling, excelently, especialy, expectting, allie. That’s actually not that bad; autocorrect fixed all of those except the last.

On the way to bowling, they sing all kinds of cheesy songs: Bowl, Bowl, Bowl your boat; Hi ho, Hi ho, it’s off to bowl we go; Take me out to the bowl game…

Mr. Braddock appears in this story more than he usually does; first he just happens to be driving by when MA has her accident; later, he apparently doesn’t have to work on a Monday because he drives some of the campers to the bowling alley.

Mary Anne…*shakes head* Alicia clearly wants to go bowling; she asks if it’s fun and follows after everyone when they go to leave. Yet MA doesn’t suggest she go along and have fun.

Heh. Out of the twenty one kids, only two make strikes: Linny (one of the oldest) and Jamie (one of the youngest.)

Chapter 13 and so far, no babysitter outfits. LAAAAAAAME!

When Natalie makes a sassy comment about the clown make up running (which, while we don’t know her too well, seems a little out of character), David Michael dumps a bucket of oatmeal on her head. While this is humorous, why does he have a bucket of oatmeal and where did it come from? (Apparently the oatmeal is actually part of the clown act, but it seems unnecessarily messy to me.)

Karen refused to let anyone know what type of circus trick she was putting together, so no one gets to see it until the dress rehearsal. She wants to saw Nancy in half, but a) she tries to use a real saw, which the BSC quickly vetoes and b) Nancy’s “legs” sticking out of the far end of the box are stockings filled with toilet paper and one of them falls off during the trick.

Mary Anne is shocked when her dad tells her she needs to loosen up. She says it’s the last thing she’d ever thought she’d hear him say. But Richard and Sharon really are good parents, and it’s actually good advice.

Outfits

Alicia: navy, lavender and white striped shirt, navy shorts with lavender stripe, white sneakers, white socks with lavender trim (sounds adorable; think they have it in my size?)

Vanessa: white jeans, rain boots, black jacket, t-shirt that says Ring Master, top hat

Nicky: t-shirt that says “Because I’m the boss, that’s why” (sounds like something Kristy would wear), blue sweatpants

Marilyn: t-shirt that says “I break for chocolate” (sounds like something Claudia would wear), blue sweatpants

Next week: Shall I do a mystery? Why, yes! I just haven’t decided which one yet.

“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.

“Do I have enough to buy a tree?” BSC #100: Kristy’s Worst Idea (1996)

Okay people, you owe me. I could be out, “enjoying” the 100 degree heat at Santa-Cali-Gon, but I sacrificed in order to try to bring you at least one more Kristy before the month ends. (Okay, you won’t get to read it until September, but I am actually writing it in August.)

I picked this one because it picks up the Sunday before Labor Day. Kristy’s returned from Hawaii and feels like the club has gone to pot while Abby was president and no one’s taking it seriously. After Jackie R has an accident while she’s sitting him, she and the BSC get into a big fight and disband. Everyone takes individual sitting jobs except Kristy. Later, Jackie has a much worse accident while trying to bring Kristy a note and Mallory accidentally hurts Claire during another sitting job, and Kristy realizes that the incident wasn’t really her fault. Everyone misses the BSC, so they reform with a probationary period.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover cracks me up. First, Claudia’s room is way too clean. Second, Claudia is arguing the MA, and Kristy is arguing with Stacey, while Abby’s just yelling at the room in general. Third, for some reason, Stacey has bent down in front of Kristy and is waggling a finger at her. Plus, it’s shiny.
 

It bugs me more than a little that all these books mention the BSC on the first couple pages and then say (more about that later.) If you’re reading book 100, then a) you know exactly what is coming up in chapter 2 and b) you already know all about the club anyway.

This says exactly what I was thinking at the time: “Don’t think I’m a rich snob or anything. I’m casual, down to earth, and friendly as can be. (Modest, too. Heh heh.)”

Kristy brings everyone gifts, even the people who went to Hawaii earlier in the summer. But she gives the crappiest gift to Mallory, who didn’t get to go at all: clip on earrings. Those things hurt like a mofo, and anyway, Mallory’s ears are pierced.

If I were Abby, I’d be insulted: Kristy says Abby and Anna are nothing alike, and then calls Anna sweet, kind and thoughtful. Of course, Kristy’s kind of down on Abby in this book anyway, because she’s apparently jealous that Abby got to be president while she was in Hawaii.

Speaking of that, I’ve always wondered what the point of the vice president is if Claudia doesn’t take over at meetings. Wouldn’t it make more sense for the VP to act as the P? Claudia’s position seems to be mostly ceremonial, while everyone else actually works.

This is different than what we usually read. Kristy says Claudia has “the world’s oddest way of looking at life.”

Ouch. It’s not just Abby on Kristy’s shit list. She refers to the We <3 Kids Club as a “sloppy, unprofessional” version of the BSC, but then adds how nice they are. It’s kinda like the Southerners who add “Bless her heart,” after being vicious to someone.

Heh. When Kristy says she doesn’t feel like the club is taking things serious, she says they’ve been “Abbified.” I actually don’t mind a little Abby in these later books because she’s the only one who doesn’t take the club over-the-top seriously. She lightens things up a bit.

Claudia and MA babysit for the DeWitt/Barrett clan and they’re, uh, violent. Marnie wants Jessi to baby-sit, and Madeleine tells her Jessi’s dead. Later, Buddy says he’s going to poison his teacher and blow up the school. MA manages to get them all to settle down when Claudia barges in and tries to force them into an art project. The two of them end up sniping at each other. You can always tell that MA is really mad because she actually acts bitchy and middle-schooly to her friends.

Wow, Stacey actually misses something because she’s in New York with her dad!

Kristy refers to “Picasso’s Theory of Relativity.” Jessi corrects her by saying “Einstein,” and Kristy corrects herself: “Picasso’s Theory of Einstein.”

Kristy keeps trying to push everyone into a Fall Festival and no one’s into it. Even funnier is when she explains what she’s doing to the Papadakises and Kormans and they all think it’s stupid.

Cokie doing literary analysis using accurate terms is very, very wrong.

When did Kristy turn into one of those characters who gets famous people’s names wrong and pronounces everything wrong? She also calls Mary Anne Miss Congealiality. Which sounds like an awesome award to win.

Abby and Stacey determine that the hot lunch sandwiches are made out of recycled footballs. Would Dawn approve of that? It’s not meat, after all…

How does Jackie know what a googolplex is?

Watson makes a joke. This is almost as funny as if Richard were doing it. (Actually, I read #98 last night for fun because I’d just gotten a copy before and never read it, and Richard was telling jokes with Jeff.)

Kristy brothers take bets on how long the BSC being disbanded will last. I wonder who wins?

This made me laugh. Kristy’s all worked up about the end of the BSC so when MA is upset at school, she assumes that’s the cause. Really, Mary Anne is just freaking out because the school lunch that day is something disgusting.

Heh. Mr. Papadakis actually offers the BSC a retainer to get back together. I don’t know why—he’s got Kristy, Abby and Shannon all living on his street and he can call them directly. But Claudia imagines he means an orthodontic retainer.

Claudia spelling: metablism, oxyjin, elmints, efect, blode, ventricals, somting. She also uses to for too, hart for heart, blew for blue and their for there. She refers to the parts of the ‘hart’ as ‘ventricals and auricals’. But my real favorite is that, for the date, she wrote Thurz.

Later, she tells Kristy she’s D-E-D dead and spells Mary Anne’s last name wrong.

The kids in Kristy’s neighborhood keep asking her to babysit for them. Abby asks, “What about me?” to which Scott Hsu replies that she’s too old for Kristy to babysit.

I didn’t notice it until I started reading these later books through a second time, but you don’t hear much about the Krushers after #95, probably because, with Bart out of the picture, there was no one for the Krushers to play.

When Jackie gets hurt a second time, the whole BSC rushes to the ER to be by his side. Which is pretty stupid, because I can’t imagine the ER wanting a bunch of non-relatives hanging out in his cubicle.

Archie, Jackie and Shea are playing madlibs, and Shea tells Archie that adverbs are “verbs from ads” and pronouns are “names of professional teams." Jackie catches a case of the Kristies (the ghostwriter really likes the messing up words thing, as Claudia does it a few times also) and Shea keeps correcting him. Jackie says he had a combustion (concussion) and he was unconscience. Shea corrects the latter by saying “scious” and Abby replies, “Gesundheit.”

Jackie’s spelling is on par with Claudia’s. I won’t give you all the errors, but he uses my favorite Claudia-spelling and says babby siters.

When the BSC members get together to discuss reforming the club, they all have reasons for wanting to reform. The only one that gets through to Stacey—who, for some reason, is the most stubborn about rejoining—is money.

It think it’s hilarious that Shannon cracks up at the idea of running the BSC by “the net”, but ten years later, that’s exactly how a club like this one would have run.

When Mary Anne and Claudia finally make up, they air their sitting issues (MA feels like she’s dull compared to Claud; Claud feels like MA talks down to her when they sit together) and Logan pretends he’s going to cry from the drama of it all.

Outfits:

Claudia: bracelet made of dyed shoelaces, Captain Hook shirt, man’s pinstriped pants with a bungee cord belt

I’m hoping that by next week I’ll have one more Kristy and a Mary Anne ready to go. But don’t hold your breath…

“All those plant things look the same to me.” BSC Mystery #19: Kristy and the Missing Fortune (1995)

Guess what, BSC fans! I’m once again sitting in an airport. This time, I got bumped from one flight to another. But it means that you get another BSC book, so there you are! I know I am ridiculously behind, and I apologize. I’m going to see how quickly I can catch up, but we’re in the midst of bridezilla-rama right now, so be patient.

This one is totally full of ludicrousity. (I’m aware that’s not a word, and I don’t care!)

There are two mysteries that combine into one at the end. First, Kristy discovers that a girl with almost her same name, Christina Thomas, disappeared in 1863 and took a fortune with her. Kristy decides they must be related because their names are so similar. Meanwhile, the BSC is helping to fix up the arboretum, which is at threat of closing unless some wealthy lady decides to buy it. It turns out the arboretum is on the grounds of Christina’s old family estate, and Kristy and company don’t find the treasure, but they do find the deed to the house with a note leaving it to the city, so the arboretum is saved.

Interesting tidbits

Emily Michelle is mini-Claudia. Not only are her academic skills on par with Claudia’s (ouch!), but she’s also Asian and a baby fashionista. Her new favorite word is ‘tylis,’ which means stylish.

Kristy makes fun of the fact that Andrew has a goldfish named Goldfishie. A) I totally remember reading the Little Sister book when Karen and Andrew got goldfish and B) I had two goldfish when I was much older than Andrew, and they were named Chris the Fish and Fisher. She has no place to make fun.

If Kristy knows that Boo-boo bites, why does she even bother petting him?

Heh. Kristy feels the need to explain that it’s okay to act like a kid, you shouldn’t throw tantrums. Good sitting advice?

Karen drops EM on the ground (hard, on purpose) and only gets a time out that lasts about a minute. I’m not for corporal punishment, but I’ll make an exception for Karen.

Kristy gets mad because she suggests 1000 activities for her sibs to keep them busy and they automatically veto all of them. Then Karen gets a lame-o idea and all the kids decide to do exactly what she suggests. Shut up, Kristy. At least they’re quiet and found something to do that doesn’t involve killing each other. Plus, it helps you find a mystery!

I love how Charlotte skipped a grade, yet she’s the same age as Becca and they’re in the same grade. (The same is true of Karen, but at least in her case, we got to see her have an extra birthday, so it makes a little bit more sense.)

Ew. Kristy chews pencils when she’s agitated. When MA points it out, Kristy says she sounds just like her third grade teachers.

Claudia lies to her mom about the nature of why she, Kristy and MA are researching things at the library.

I’m always amused by the names they use for old-timey characters in these series. Christina’s brothers are Edward (which works) and Devon (which is a little odd.) Even funnier is the fact that Devon had a single son, Devon II, who had a single son, Devon III, who had a single son, Devon IV. Meanwhile, Edward had a son named Scott. In the 1870s, not the 1970s.

Poor Watson. Kristy takes Karen and DM to the arboretum, and Watson has to go back home and watch Barney. I bet he would have loved to change places with Kristy.

How has Mrs. Abbott, Christina’s great-grandniece, heard of the BSC? Forget that, why would she invite a complete stranger to her house, even a thirteen year old girl? For all she knows, Kristy might have been planning to rob and murder her.

Kristy gets a letter from Mrs. Abbott that was the last communication Christina ever made. It basically just says, “If I never see you again, look in our special place” but MA actually cries because she thinks it’s so romantic.

When Cokie first shows up in the story, Kristy says Cokie tried to steal Logan from MA. But that’s not true. When Cokie made a play for Logan, he and MA werebroken up. It was Grace who wanted Logan while he was dating Mary Anne.

When the girls all discuss what they’d do with the fortune if it were theirs, Dawn says she’d buy a private jet. Sounds like a stupid choice for someone who complains about how bad RVs are for the environment.

Claudia spelling: statchew.

The BSC decide the treasure must be in the rose garden, and they completely “f” it up in the name of finding the treasure. And get into trouble with the arboretum’s curator.

Kristy gets into 1863 gossip about why the baker’s wife left him.

They discover that the circle drawn on Christina’s letter means the full moon, which conveniently, is two days away and on a Friday. Any time the BSC needs to sneak out of the house or hang out at night, it’s a weekend.

Add to that, why is Charlie always so cool with dropping the BSC members in the middle of nowhere late at night?

Kristy: “This is a stakeout, not a fashion show.”

While the BSC is on their “stakeout” waiting for the full moon, someone sneezes. MA blesses them before she realizes it’s not one of her friends.

Cokie has been following the BSC around for like six chapters before the BSC finds out that she’s Mildred Abbott’s granddaughter.

When the BSC and Cokie finally find the “treasure,” it’s a letter to Christina’s fiancé, Henry, a locket and the deed to the house.

Ahh, Cokie is the voice of reason for once: she suggests that a lawyer will need to look over the documents to make sure they’re legitimate.

Apparently, Mal and Jessi like being hired help.

For some reason, Mrs. Abbott gives the locket to Kristy, rather than Cokie.

Outfits (there are tons of outfits in this one! sweet!)

Claudia: blue and green tight stretchy shirt; huge overalls, green floppy hat. (Sounds exactly like what I was wearing back then. Well, minus the hat); black jeans, black cowboy boots, black suede jacket with fringe (She’s wearing the jacket on the cover, only with a pair of wellie boots that make her look like a pirate.); tuxedo

Stacey: baby doll dress, with really high cork soled platforms (She’s straight out of Clueless); black leggings, black high tops, dark green sweater and matching hat; black dress

Jessi: black leotard, jeans, red leg warmers

Mal: jeans, purple sweater, button that says “I read banned books”

Kristy: white button down shirt, blue sweater, panty hose, green corduroy skirt, brown loafers; black velvet dress with high neckline

Dawn: green, “floaty” dress

MA: flowered dress with lacy collar (yes, but is it a Laura Ashley?)

I hope to have another book done by the end of Friday but we’ll see how that works out. The next book is #53, Kristy for President.

"Other days I just want to crawl into my shell like a teenage, mutant, injured turtle." BSC #71: Claudia and the Perfect Boy (1994)

Sorry this has been so late in coming. I am still having trouble with vertigo, and then my six week old nephew passed away. I am looking at the BSC, even this god-awful story, as an escape. So here I am again.

In this simple plot, Claudia gets a job on the school newspaper, writing a personals column. She decides to help herself to some of the eligible bachelors, but none of them is quite what she’s imagining. So instead, Stacey makes up a man and lures Claud in with it. It’s really as pathetic as it sounds.

In the subplot, Marnie Barrett is revealed to allergic to Pow the dog, so the Pikes, who don’t have enough critters in their home, take him in.

Interesting tidbits

Before I even begin. A) There is no such thing as a perfect boy. B) Claudia is thirteen! Kids at that age go out with people for two weeks, two months, not life. She needs to get over the idea of trying to find a perfect boy and just be happy with herself.

Mary Anne and Logan are apparently Claudia’s romance role models. They are so sappy they make me want to barf, so this makes me even more nauseous.

Claudia’s requirements for a perfect boy (her spelling intact): hansome, mussels (not too many, not to few), taller then me, funny (extreamly), atheletic, sensative, easy to talk to (a good lisner), intresting (lots to say), artistic, good dreser, good spellar (willing to corect mine), not criticul, crazey about me. Auto correct meant I had to go back and fix several of those to the bad spelling.

Ooh, this one has Kristy wearing a sweatshirt instead of a turtleneck! Madness!!!

Mary Anne actually thinks that Mrs. Barrett could have forgotten that Marnie is allergic to chocolate.

Heh. Claudia finds the idea of a mother with a boyfriend—even a single/divorced woman like Mrs. Barrett—weird. Especially because she’s scatterbrained (okay, I’ll buy that and old—because she’s “over thirty”. I’m offended on the behalf of all single people over that age, including me.

Claudia suggests that a woman using the personals ad has the personality of Homer Simpson. D’oh!

Okay, let’s talk about a personals column in a middle school paper. We weren’t allowed to have a personals column in my high school paper for legal reasons, and we were a Tinker school, meaning it was in our paper charter that we could not be censored by the school administration. No way would most schools do anything that could lead to a law suit. They especially wouldn’t print the students’ home addresses the way Claudia does.

Buddy, describing the Dewitts: “They’re not a s big toadheads as I first thought.”

Oh, lordy. After Mrs. Barrett tells the kids Pow has to find a new home, they all cry. Then she starts crying, so of course, Mary Anne starts crying too.

Claudia and Stacey think spell check will fix all her spelling problems. Riiiiiiight….

How can the (weekly) middle school paper get by with one computer? My (monthly) high school paper had three, and even that wasn’t enough.

Suzi says her room looks like a prison cell, and she knows that because Shredder had one on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Claudia replies to an ad with many of her requirements. Here’s her spelling errors: skool, gess, fashun, peepul, mystury. She also uses no for know (twice), hare for hair, and grate for great (twice). She makes a second try with the following spelling: pashionate, laffter, freinds, sumone, nuthing, sincerly. She also uses mite for might.

Claudia’s first choice for a date turns out to be Alan Gray, which is funny after last week’s book.

Ahh. The newspaper staff actually cuts and pastes the newspaper. Just a couple years after this, (1997), we did everything with the words by computer. By 1998, we even had exclusively digital photos.

Gag. MA writes a personal letter to Logan that’s too saccharine for me to even repeat. Trust me. If I post it, you (and I) will be in a diabetic coma. Humorously, her “call me” line gets switched with an ad stating the girl wants to dump her dud boyfriend, so Logan stops talking to MA for a while.

You all are quite lucky: my flight was just delayed for the third time, so I will probably get the whole thing posted before I ever get on the plane that was supposed to leave over an hour ago.

Kristy tries to give Claudia fashion advice for her date. Yup.

Claudia’s second date attempt, a guy who calls himself Rock, says he didn’t know Claudia was a “Japanese chick.” How does he know she’s Japanese as opposed to another Asian background?

Rock’s real first name is Richard, as is his fathers. Yet he has an older brother named Russ. Don’t most families with juniors name the first son after the dad? (I actually have an aunt who named her younger son after both of his grandfathers, which means he has the same first name as his grandfather and father.)

More Claudia spelling: wunder and hapening. She also uses new for knew.

The fake guy Stacey creates for Claudia allegedly looks like Jason Priestly.

Outfits

Claudia: pink socks, gold stretch pants (horrors!), gold turtleneck, pink sweater (Replace stretch pants with jeans and she sounds like Kristy), blue jewelry; brown suede pants, yellow button down, Native American earrings, silver jewelry, bangles, brown and yellow vest

Next week: We’ll actually start August two weeks late. I think I will probably start with a Kristy mystery.

I have created a monster...

...and its name is By and Hay's Excellent Adventure.

It's the story to read if you like...
*Road trips!
*The Pike Triplets!
*Crappy singing!
*Stupid jokes!
*Lots of swearing!
*Bisexuality!
*Maine!
*Or any number of other things you could end with an exclamation point!

“Who knew Alan could be such a wimp?” BSC Forever Friends #12: Claudia and the Disaster Date (2000)

I have a confession to make. Of the 14 Forever Friends books, I've read 9: both super specials, 3 Kristys and 3 Mary Annes. I've never read any of the Staceys and I thought I hadn't read any Claudias, but three chapters in, I suddenly had a flashback to a scene with Claudia and Erica Blumberg that happens during her fight with Stacey. I think that's FF#4, which I also own.

So there are three plotlines in this one. The title refers to Claudia secretly dating Alan Gray. She's embarrassed for Kristy to find out they're together. Alan knows how she feels and has been acting very fake, because he's afraid she'll dump him if he acts like himself. She eventually confronts him and tells him that who he is going to keep changing as he ages, but he should always just be himself.

Meanwhile, Claudia and Erica are working at the library in the kids' room. While that's exhausting in and of itself, Claudia gets into a fight with her mom because Claud wants to redo the dated children's mural. They eventually talk it over and get past it, and Claudia learns that her mom's actually jealous of her art skills.

Erica, who had previously learned she was adopted, decides to find out the names of her biological parents. She and Claudia break into her parents' safe and learn the names of her bio 'rents, but she then confesses to her parents, who decide she's old enough to decide for herself if she wants to hunt them down. Erica's honesty with her parents is what leads Claudia to be honest with her mom and Alan. See how that works?

Interesting tidbits

The final sentence on the back cover: "Will Claudia find luv?" I don't know if that's the middle school version of lust, or a bad Claudia misspelling.

Heh. I think I need to list all the annoying things Alan is listed as having done: burping "Row, row, row your boat;" putting M&Ms on his eyes at Mary Anne's birthday party (#10); getting suspended for throwing a cherry bomb in the bathroom; getting a fireball stuck up his nose in second grade; sticking crayons in his mouth as fangs; wearing underwear on his head.

Claudia refers to Alan's past as "besmirched", which I found really amusing.

Apparently, Stacey once got a lump of gum stuck in her ear. I'm always glad when they don't write her as all mature and sophisticated. (Of course, she was a little kid when that happened, but that still counts.)

Real books: Jack and the Beanstalk, Black Beauty, A Baby Sister for Frances, Fell, Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye (I like this because Claudia mentions it to Erica as a story of someone who looks for her birth parents, which is how it came up the first time); Harold and the Purple Crayon.

I like this: Claudia has realized that Janine talks the way she does, not because she's a genius, but because it throws people off their strides.

When Claudia tells Kristy she's been out with Alan, she thinks Kristy's head might explode.

Mistake! Stacey points out that Kristy once went out with Alan, to a dance (true.) Kristy says she learned her lesson and never went out with him again. She went with him to a dance in #2 and mentions she had been to the school end dance with him in #6 also.

When Claudia tells everyone she went out with Alan, Kristy goes apoplectic. Stacey (who knew) says, "Good for you." MA does what she always does and tries to smooth things over. And Dawn just thinks the whole thing is hilarious.

Claudia's mural goes to hell when Ms. Feld (the children's librarian) decides to let all the kids "help" without asking Claudia. The result is a complete disaster.

Claudia and Alan invite their respective friends to go out for mini golf. I had to laugh when Alan brought Cary and Pete, because in my adult-BSC verse, each of those two is married to a babysitter. (I'll let that sit. See if you can figure out who is who, but it's not who you'd expect based upon this story.)

Oh, shut up, Dawn. You're going mini golfing, so we don't need to hear about how real golf courses pollute the environment.

Cary maneuvers the game play so that all the people are paired: He and MA, Stacey and Pete, Claudia and Dawn, and Kristy with Alan. Claudia pictures Kristy's head exploding, which I think was Cary's point.

Way back during the original painting scene, I thought to myself, "Why don't they just have each of the kids do the same thing, like a handprint?" And of course that's exactly what they end up doing. All the kids put a hand and their name on the wall, and Claudia gets to do her planned mural at the top.

Oh my gosh. Claudia throws a party with the BSC (current members and old members), Alan, Pete, Cary and Erica. Charlie gives Kristy and Abby a ride and...decides to stick around and grill for everyone. The poor young man really has no life. *shakes head sadly*

I'm more than a little amused by a crash that occurs when Pete, catching a flying bag of chips, runs over Mary Anne and a bowl of pickles.

Leave it Abby to laugh at corny jokes about Alan "putting Pete and Mary Anne in this pickle," and "Goodbye, Mr. Chips."

Outfits:

Claudia: red, blue and purple tie-dyed t-shirt, beige linen shorts, earrings made from bottle caps, purple high tops

I'm on vacation the next two weekends (Midwest Dariacon 2013 and my sister's bachelorette party) so I'm hoping to get all my school work done before I go. I've had a nasty case of vertigo the last week or so, but I have to read one more Claudia book for July. Once school is out in another two weeks, I’ll be able to catch up.