"It's 10:00--you can see Andrew is still human." #7 Claudia and Mean Janine (1987)

AKA Claudia and Her Sister Are Jealous of Each Other

In the fourth graphic novel, Claudia and the BSC are holding a day camp for their sitting charges. Just before it begins, Mimi suffers a stroke and is hospitalized. When the family agrees to each spend a couple hours a day giving her "stimulation," Claudia takes the morning shift, skipping play group. She accuses Janine of not being involved, and Janine accuses the family of leaving her out. They come to an agreement about Janine helping out more and Claudia giving her more of a chance.

Interesting tidbits

The first page of the book shows each of the girls, so that you recognize them as they first appear in the book. Kristy has a backwards ball cap on; MA has braids and is reading A Wrinkle in Time; Claudia has an artist palette and Stacey has a shopping bag. This is my first view of Dawn as she appears in the graphic novels. She has actual waist-length hair (which the cover shows to be white-blonde), freckles and two pairs of earrings and is holding a sapling.

Because the antagonism between Claudia and Janine starts in #2 (and no graphic novel was made of that), the beginning of the book is actually out of that book: Janine is helping Claudia with her homework during a thunderstorm and they get into a fight. In order to lead into summer vacation, it is the last week of school and Claudia is preparing for final exams. Later on, one of the subplots is Kristy being jealous of Dawn. Because the graphic novels skip from #4 to here, it would be natural for that to not have been dealt with yet. After the first day of camp, Dawn invites Kristy over for a scene straight out of #5.

When Janine is babbling on at Claudia, the book literally shows the words going in one ear and out the other.

Mistake! They take a phone call from Mrs. Johanssen. We all know it's Dr. Johanssen.

There's a cute drawing of Claudia's closet where she's labeled everything inside by hand. She has lots of "supplys" along with some Nancy Drews, candy "barrs" and "cookys."

Mallory is super cute in here! A few times, you can't see her eyes behind her glasses. The club asks her to be their assistant at the day camp because she's too old to be a babysittee and too young to be a babysitter. Guess that magical jump from 10 to 11 makes her old enough to sit.

When Claudia, Mimi and Janine are home alone, Janine wants to play "the trivia game." I'm wondering if this is Trivial Pursuit in the original books. (Just checked. It's not.) Of course, Claudia accuses Janine of cheating.

Heh heh heh. When Janine tells Claudia she won't tattle about Claud having "Nancy Drew serials" in her room, Claud pictures a box and bowl of cereal.

When Mimi has her stroke and is taken away by ambulance, Claudia tries to call her parents' cell phones. That is so...wrong. I'm picturing a Zack Morris phone from Saved by the Bell.

When Jenny P. shows up at the day camp she's overdressed as usual. When Claudia tries to get her to take her shoes and socks off, there's an arrow pointing to the shoes from the word FANCY. That made me laugh.

A couple of the BSC clients in the day camp appear to be black. I guess since the artist wasn't going to get to any Jessi books, it was okay to have some African-Americans in town.

Damn, the rope in Dawn's barn is not at all as I imagined it. No wonder Kristy is scared to swing on it the first time.

Karen sucks hard in this one. She goes around telling the other kids that Morbidda Destiny put a spell on Andrew and he's going to turn into a monster. I fully expected Andrew to start crying over this, as he's usually so shy and sensitive, and most of the kids in the playgroup are strangers to him. But he seems to enjoy it, and the BSC takes full advantage of the fact that Jenny is scared of Andrew.

Janine's taking a computer class and she mentions learning html and php. Trippy.

At day camp, Kristy decides Louie the collie needs a bath and gets all the kids to help. Of course, he runs all over Stacey's yard, requiring all the kids to chase him. There's a really cute picture of David Michael squirting Louie with the hose to rinse him off--and hitting all the other kids in the process.

Jamie nearly dumps a whole bowl of punch on Lucy's head at her christening. (I seriously wondered how he lifted that heavy bowl.) Later, Claudia said she understands how Jamie feels--she frequently wants to pour punch on Janine, too.

As the book ends, summer is nearly over. The BSC decide to ask Mallory to join the club, now that she's going to be in middle school.

Outfits

It's harder to document outfits in the graphic novels. I'll note a few things.

Claudia

At one point, she is wearing four ponytails. When she was described as doing this in the books, I could never figure out how she did it. Here, she wears two up high on her head and two directly below them, at the base of her hairline.

Later, she has her hair done up in tons of little braids.

She's wearing what looks like rain boots at one point.

Stacey

She has cut her hair from midway down her back to above her shoulders. She's also wearing a tube top (although, what's keeping it up, I don't know.)

Dawn

She usually has sandals and board shorts or capris. She's taller than the rest of the girls.

Mary Anne

Still dresses more conservatively/"babyish" than the rest in skirt and blouses.
Kristy

Strictly t-shirts and shorts, with sandals or sneakers.

New charges

Marcus (no last name or age in the graphic novel)