“I love it when you talk legalese.” BSC #98: Dawn and Too Many Sitters (1996)

So how many of these books feature ‘too many’ of something? Mary Anne gets that a couple times. There have been a few times that it’s been Teeki and Too Many BSC Books (2015), too.

It’s summer vacay, and the BSC is trying to raise money because SMS is sponsoring a trip to Hawaii. Most of the club members get permission to go, but they have to raise their own money to pay half the cost. As such, they’re fundraising through dubious methods and taking as many sitting jobs as possible. They decide to take on Jeff and the triplets as babysitters in training (BITs) after the boys express interest in starting their own club. The BITs all have their shortcomings as sitters, and the four of them eat all of Claudia’s junk food. Just as the club starts thinking of dumping them, the boys quit. All the sitters save enough money and get to go on the trip.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover: Dawn and Kristy’s expressions are priceless here.

Does it surprise anyone that I love this book? It’s got high doses of all my favorite sitting charges, and then some. Plus, as I pointed out in the last entry, it uses the word fart! I’m basically a ten year old boy sometimes myself, so I love that.

Dawn says that Jeff used to be normal, but not anymore. That’s the definition of a preteen boy, I’d say. (Oh, and Sunny knows how to get rid of Jeff when he’s being annoying: she suggests she knows a girl he should meet.)

Sunny’s trying to study by osmosis. This is funny to me because, in seventh grade, my science teacher had us sit with our textbook on our head for an entire class period and then leave our books overnight with him. The next day, we took a test over a chapter we hadn’t studied yet, to see if we’d learned anything by osmosis. (We didn’t.)

Jeff and Dawn start bickering, so Carol yells, “Yo, chill!” I can see why Dawn would find this cringeworthy. That’s the kind of thing I’d say as a joke when I was still working with teenagers instead of thieves.

Reading material for the trip to Stoneybrook? Jeff has The Kannibal Krew and Dawn, a Sierra Club magazine. But Dawn winds up falling asleep and dreaming that the BSC doesn’t want her back. They take a vote and everyone but Mary Anne votes for Abby instead of Dawn. I don’t know why she thinks it needs to be a competition. If it were an Abby story, I’d understand. She is the competitive type, but Dawn shouldn’t really know that.

I’ve always wondered about Dawn and Jeff’s route from CT to CA (or vice versa). It’s always seemed like they take direct flights. I could never figure out which airport they were going to; it could be a Connecticut airport, which would be small, or a New York airport, which would involve a long drive. In this one, they had a connection in an NYC airport to CT.

I love this: Jeff goes straight to the perfect audience for his god-awful jokes…Richard. Not only does he enjoy Jeff’s jokes…he knows a few equally bad jokes of his own. And he actually says something funny the next morning at breakfast!

Sharon-itis: barrette in the spinach salad or house key in Jell-O (hypothetical but still funny)

Ooh, and then Sharon gets to be funny: she says she ‘must attack the mall.’ I know that’s how I always feel about, say, Christmas shopping. It’s a feeding frenzy and the products are chum. (Gross, I know, but I refuse to enter indoor malls between Black Friday and New Year’s.)

I’m so sick of the way the BSC and Dawn’s California friends throw her parties and give her presents every time she leaves or comes back. I could maybe understand it the first time. But think of how much money these girls have spent on presents for someone they’re going to see again in a few months.

Claudia’s the one who first brings up the exciting news that SMS is sponsoring a trip for the students. She doesn’t tell anyone where they’re going, instead asking for suggestions. Which leads to…Mexico, Antarctica, Palo City, Downtown Stamford, and SMS summer school. Yeah, I definitely would want to pay to go to the last two, if I were them.

Shannon can’t go on the Hawaii trip because she’s going to camp starting the next week. (Logan: And I’m leaving for the Swiss Alps tomorrow. Mary Anne: You are? Logan: Nahhh. Sounds cool, though.) Both Mal and Kristy are also unable to go, Kristy because her family is going to Hawaii shortly after the trip ends and Mal because her parents can’t afford to pay half.

A big deal is made out of how expensive this $500 trip is. Now, I know it’s been nearly twenty years, but four of the teens I used to supervise went on a 10 day trip to Europe this summer, very similar to SS#15. All of those girls either agreed to pay the whole total for their trip, or half, same as the BSC. And theirs was $2400.

Sharon says she’d be willing to approve Dawn going on a sailing trip along Long Island Sound. Is she nuts? Not a good idea for Dawn, considering how it worked out last time she went sailing.

Jeff wants some of the ‘orange gloppy stuff,’ at dinner, which turns out to be sweet and sour pork. Or, as Dawn and I would call it, ‘sauce-drenched hunks of cooked dead pig.’ Yum?

Dawn actually questions Jeff’s grammar. I get it, though: he’s taken to calling the triplets JAB and referring to JAB in singular, but I think that she’s missing the point of the whole conversation. (Which is that Jeff and the triplets want to become babysitters, of course.)

The title is what Sharon says when Richard lays out the contract about the Hawaii trip to MA and Dawn.

Dawn keeps trying to insult Jeff’s jokes, but it doesn’t faze him. He thanks her after she calls his joke the worst joke in the history of the universe.

In keeping with my tedious over-chronicling of the Pike triplets, Byron is the one who comes up with the BIT idea. In addition to being described as more sensitive (and sometimes, by certain people, nicer) than his brothers, he’s routinely the logical triplet—the one who has the good ideas.

Abby makes a really terrible joke and Dawn says she should meet Jeff. I knew my most recent-still-in-progress fanfiction had a source!

I like this: Kristy agrees to let Jeff and JAB be trainee sitters because she knows they won’t last at it. This is true specifically of this book, and also true in general of ten year old boys. She says they’ll last until the first diaper change, which is funny given what happens next.

Ahh, here we go. The ‘tooting’ scene, as my niece would say. This scene has been thoroughly analyzed, for one very specific reason. For those of you who haven’t read this book for a while (or aren’t as enthusiastic about bodily function humor as I am), Byron lets loose a silent-but-deadly, and all the boys make a huge scene about it, rolling around laughing and accusing each other of being the one who let one loose. The analysis all comes from one single line: right after the gas-passing, Byron shoots a look at Jeff. There are those who believe that he was embarrassed to fart in front of Jeff specifically; these are, of course, people who believe that Byron had a little crush on Jeff. Me? I just think he’d farted in front of Jeff before and knew it wouldn’t pass unnoticed. The girls could potentially ignore a horrible smell, but Jeff isn’t exactly the type to let that stand. \ bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbm/,. *

Here’s the real kicker on the poot smelled ‘round the world, though: Jeff, Adam and Jordan proceed to accuse each other of the act. Byron, meanwhile, is completely mortified and it shows. It should have been completely obvious to the others exactly who was responsible.

Ha ha! Jeff helps Jessi babysit for the Prezziosos. The whole point of the chapter is that, although he’s good with Jenny, he’s not so good with baby Andrea. The best part is that Jenny calls him a baby for being scared to change a diaper. You know you’re being a weenie when a four year old calls you a baby.

Dawn, Dawn, Dawn. *shakes head* She has a health-foods ‘bake’ sale, and is surprised when she barely sells any food.

So what else are the BITs doing? Jeff wore rubber gloves to his next sitting job. Adam didn’t like the sound of babies crying. Jordan enjoyed changing diapers (uh, no comment) but ruined Jamie Newton’s art work. Byron drank a bunch of formula (I know he’s supposed to like eating, but, seriously…WTF?) and then double booked himself. He almost left Mal alone to sit for his siblings by herself, but instead told his coach he had another commitment instead of staying at the Little League game.

There’s this on-going thing about how the BITs are too young—they aren’t responsible yet. Yet everyone seems to forget that they are only a year younger than Mal and Jessi. Of course, there are many scenes where the older BSC members mention how much younger Mal and Jessi are/act. I don’t know if this book is supposed to be funny/ironic in that respect…and also what happens in Adam’s next babysitting job.

Okay, let’s describe this aforementioned sitting job in detail—or at least in summary—before I explain the implications. Stacey takes Adam to sit for the Braddocks. Haley freaks out about the idea of Adam being her sitter, because he’s only a year older. So she starts acting like a little shithead, suggesting Adam is Stacey’s boyfriend. (He brought her flowers on Mal’s suggestion.) Adam proves he’s not ready to be a sitter by egging her on and making things worse. Being Haley, she’s ready to punch Adam. Stacey has to play referee during her whole job, making it much harder than it should have been.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s discuss what this means. First, it’s proof of what the sitters have been saying: Adam (and the rest of the boys) aren’t really ready to be sitters. A big part of me wants to say duh because they’re only ten years old and most people would agree that kids that age probably should have their own sitter rather than be the sitter, but okay. The other point is Haley’s idea that Adam can’t be her sitter because he’s just a kid like her. She says, “It’s like we’re the same age.” This is the same complaint the triplets occasionally make about Mal. Like I said, I can’t decide if this is supposed to be funny, or ironic, or if this kind of went over all the writers’ heads.

(Oh, and I can’t help but read this and think how much it sounds like Adam and Haley were flirting when they’re calling each other ugly dork and cootie breath and birdbrain. If they were a couple years older… Feel free to let that form all kind of opinions about me in your minds.)

I’d forgotten all about this! Remember how Mary Anne’s behavior in #88 was sort of left dangling? She was cold and distant to Dawn and told her she had to sort things out in her own way. Dawn took that to mean she was planning her own special goodbye, but it never happened. This is Dawn’s next book with Mary Anne (and her second-to-last book in the BSC, period), so it finally gets addressed. MA tells Dawn she thought she had done something to make Dawn leave. It’s so normal-teen and so Mary Anne, but it’s nice that she’s self-aware enough to know it and over it enough to tell Dawn.

Mary Anne actually tells Dawn that because Dawn’s been charged with firing Jeff as a BIT. Mal is supposed to do the same for the triplets. But the two of them wind up getting lucky because the BITs have decided to quit. It’s kind of a cop out, but I think it was another attempt at humor or irony. In the note to the reader, AMM says the boys decided they weren’t ready to sit, but that’s not really true. They decide that sitting is taking up too much time—in other words, they got bored with it.

I don’t know who Livi Becker is, but the book is dedicated to her, and she’s randomly mentioned in the middle of a scene.

In order to raise enough money to get to Hawaii (and not lose their parents’ deposits), the BSC put on a fair at the Fourth of July before the fireworks. It’s all pretty standard BSC fair, although this was funny. The BITs help out, with Adam and Byron as Kristy’s magician’s assistants. When one of the audience members realizes he has the same magic kit at home and knows how all the tricks work, Kristy says, “I shall now perform the magic trick of making Linny Papadakis disappear,” and motions for her assistants, who come at him like bodyguards. Linny pipes down.

So it looks like the BIT experience did some good for the Pikes. Mal and Jessi babysat, but barely had to do anything. Byron played with Claire, Jordan played with Nicky and Vanessa, and Adam made lunch. It’s suggested that, if the triplets are around, only one sitter will be necessary for the Pikes for the future. That lasts for all of, like, ten books or so, I think. We’ll see.

So that’s it. My final Dawn book. I’m actually kind of sad about that. Dawn may not have ever been my favorite sitter, but I’ve invested a lot of time (read: too much time) in this series and the idea of not getting a whole book of Dawn again is a little depressing.

The BSC just depressed me. Oh man, I need a life.

*Sorry. Scout (formerly the B3 kitten, now the B3 fat cat) decided to sit on the keyboard because I was ignooooooooring her. I didn’t notice she’d typed something until I posted this. But the letters in question are appropriate given the topic, so I decided to let it stand.

"Grr! I am vicious!" says Scout

Outfits

Kristy: big purple glasses, loud striped shirt, mismatched suspenders, a pair of antennae

What’s next? Of course! SS #13!

“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

“We wanted our beautiful faces to be the last things you see before taking off.” BSC #88: Farewell, Dawn (1995)

Before I reread this one, let’s discuss a little Dawn timeline.

#4: Dawn moves to CT from CA

#30: Mom gets married; she and MA (I’m all about the abbrev. today) become stepsisters

#67: Temporarily moves back to CA

SS #12 (between #80 and #81, I believe): Dad gets married; moves back to CT

#87: Finds out Sunny’s mom has cancer

#88: Moves back to CA (not really for good, since she narrates 2 more books and is in every SS for the rest of BSC-time.)

If Dawn’s visit to California was six months and 14ish books, then how long was she back in Connecticut before she turned around and moved back to California?

Anyhoo, people, obviously, Dawn decides she needs to permanently move back to California for two reasons. 1. She needs to be near Sunny while her mom’s dying. 2. Ann M. Martin decided she needed to write the California Diaries. (Yeah, I went there.) The most interesting part is that she doesn’t tell Mary Anne she’s leaving because she knows it would hurt her feelings; she procrastinates until MA finds out from someone else and is even more hurt.

In the B plot, James Hobart breaks his leg and the BSC throw him a Christmas party (in the middle of summer vacation) to cheer him up.

Interesting tidbits

Stop! Cover time! Is it just me, or is it really funny that Claudia and Kristy look so happy to see Dawn go? It’s more like “Good riddance!” than “Farewell!”

Hmm. Maybe #85 wasn’t a mistake when it had three separate pages stating the title. This one is the same way….

Oh look, there’s Norman. Let’s talk about his weight. *eye roll*

I love this: One phone call to Sunny and Dawn makes up her mind that she must move back to California.

Dawn says Stacey’s still changing, even with her return to the BSC. Teeki’s psychoanalysis? She seems to be having a crisis of self-esteem, not quite knowing who she is or where she stands. Very normal for a girl her age, if you ask me.

There’s one paragraph in chapter 2 that is indented further than the rest, and it’s extremely distracting.

This is actually nice and true about Mal: Dawn says she’s quick with a snappy retort. They do it subtly most of the time, but Mal is pretty sarcastic and quick witted.

Reactions to being told Dawn wants to move back to CA:

            Carol: Tells her to just come on back home (as if it’s that easy. Even Carol should know that it’s not.)

            Sharon: Says she hates it, but it’s Dawn’s choice and she respects it

            Richard: Waits for Sharon’s approval, then starts working on the legal aspects

            Kristy: ‘Oh no! I’m really going to miss you, but what is the BSC going to do?’ (my paraphrase)

            Mary Anne: feels betrayed because she hears it second hand (actually, sixth hand). She actually purposely smashes a mug on the floor

Nicky manages to get Margo to play football with him and the Hobart boys by imitating her and saying girls are horrible at the game. Most of the time he doesn’t want anything to do with the girls in his family, but it’s nice to see that he’s learned to read them so well. (Ben: “I’m not big on American football.” Mal: “That shows intelligence.”)

Aww, Claire is really sweet. Being the baby of the family, she doesn’t really get the chance to be comforting and supportive to others, but when James breaks his leg, Johnny starts crying. Claire gives him a hug and gets him to stop.

Mary Anne hears Dawn’s news from Logan, who heard it from Robert (who knew the two of them were friends?), who heard from Stacey, who heard from Claudia, who heard from Kristy. Dawn told Kristy not to tell anyone—she’d only informed her so that she could be aware as the BSC president. Who knew Kristy was such a gossip?

When MA finds out Dawn is leaving, they get into a fight and basically just call each other selfish (for only thinking about her own feelings, not the others). But Dawn gets mad and told MA she was glad she wasn’t her and didn’t feel the way MA did…because MA’s solution to problems is to sit there, worry and cry, while Dawn is more an action person. This is true, but not a nice thing to say, especially the way Dawn phrases it. I always forget how bitchy Dawn and Mary Anne get when they fight. I love it.

Sharon-itis: Christmas cards in with the cookie sheets. I actually understand this one…I lost my camera once and found it in my Christmas decorations nearly a year later. Last time I’d used it was at a Christmas party.

My favorite sitting client moment of the book is this ongoing rivalry between Jenny Prezzioso and Archie Rodowsky. He sprays her with faux snow and then the two of them fight over which of their macaroni ornaments looks better. (Who cares? It’s still macaroni.)

The Christmas in Summer idea for James was created simply because Christmas is the happiest time of the year and James was miserable. But it worked out better than they expected because Christmas occurs in summer in Australia. He felt like he was back home. Shannon sort of narrates that chapter, which works out pretty well. She makes a mention of being glad that she’d gotten more involved in the BSC, which makes Dawn sort of regret her choice to leave.

Heh. At Dawn’s going away party, there are two tables of food, Healthy Food and Dawn’s Yucky Food.

Stacey’s being all existential about her identity crisis. She tells Dawn that you have to follow your instincts or you won’t be happy in life, which gives Dawn more confidence about her decision.

The title quote is Claudia’s explanation about why the BSC came to the airport to say goodbye to Dawn.

Just a weird little nitpicky thing. (I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have one of these!) Dawn’s flight is the “flight to California.” There are a LOT of airports in California. Even saying it’s the flight to LA wouldn’t probably be enough information.

I actually liked the BSC goodbyes. Some of them were boring, with people promising to write back and forth. But Shannon says she’ll write asking for advice, such as “How do I do a million things at once?” That’s mostly interesting because Shannon is always overbooked anyway. She doesn’t need Dawn’s advice on that.

Mary Anne, after she got over her fight with Dawn, was acting distant and cold and fake-polite. She told Dawn she had to deal with the move in her own way, which is fair enough. Finally, she gets all upset because she and Dawn won’t be sharing a bathroom at night to brush their teeth anymore. When Dawn was temporarily gone, Mary Anne imagined she was still there. But now that will be harder, so the two of them agree to each take a picture of herself brushing her teeth and send it to the other, to put in the bathroom.

The final chapter is all letters back and forth. There are a few highlights, such as Dawn acknowledging the fact that school starts back up earlier in CA than in CT. Jessi says she looks up to Dawn and wants her to know what their friendship has meant. James thanks Dawn for Christmas and says he too understands what it’s like to be homesick, which is really sweet. MA doesn’t want anyone to see the picture of her brushing her teeth ‘except parents’, but I have a feeling Jeff will see it, too, unless Dawn has her own private bathroom. And Mrs. Bruen will definitely see it when she cleans.

Oh, and of course Claudia writes a letter as well. The funniest part (aside from the spelling) is that she gets chocolate on the postcard but sends it anyway. Spelling: Weve, alredy, starded, buzy, amound, choclit, wile. She signs it luv, Claudia, but I can’t tell if that’s a spelling error or if Stacey’s rubbed off on her.

I only have two more Dawn books to read, #98 and her autobiography. I’m actually a little sad about that.

Outfits

Mary Anne: blue and white plaid shorts, blue t-shirt

Dawn: white shirt, flowered blouse; gauzy blue sun dress with white buttons

Mr. and Mrs. Hill: jogging suits (whee!)

Claudia: oversized white cotton jumpsuit with jungle scene painted on one leg, pink sleeveless tee with purple sleeveless tee, safety pin and bead belt, parrot earrings; red shorts, green vest, white t-shirt, sandals with red and green ribbons

Next: Claudia and the Recipe for Danger. Sounds awesome!

“Bring a bigger house.” BSC #84: Dawn and the School Spirit War (1995)

Hey y’all. I sat down to read this one last night, but wound up drinking and watching Dr. Who instead. Maybe I’ll have better luck tonight? We’ll see!

SMS is having a whole school spirit month to support the baseball team in their ‘big game.’ Dawn is so anti-competitive and feels that the spirit element is out of control. The whole school divides in half, for and against the spirit month. Some kids take it way too far, doing things such as gluing lockers shut and ruining school spirit murals. Dawn, Mary Anne and Mallory are anti-spirit, while Kristy, Claudia and Jessi are pro-spirit. It’s as exciting as it sounds.

The B plot is too stupid for words. I’ll let you know if I come across a bit of it worth mentioning.

Interesting Tidbits

I love Dawn’s face on this cover. That used to be me during spirit events.

Speaking of, did anyone have a school spirit month in school? We used to have spirit week, but only maybe a third of the school actually participated in any one theme day. No one shamed you if you didn’t take part, either.

That said, I’m not surprised that Dawn is all about athletic activity but not about competition. I know a lot of families who won’t let their kids play competitive sports—they can’t join a football or volleyball team—but instead encourage cooperative or individual sports and activities, such as ballet, rock climbing or yoga.

They’re discussing Stacey leaving the club, as they do in every book when she’s gone. It’s interesting, because I have #84 and #85 right in front of me. #85 has the original cover style, where they listed the BSC members on the back. It says that Dawn is the treasurer and Shannon is the alternate officer. That book came out when it wasn’t sure if Stacey would rejoin the club or not. This one has the redone cover with the faces along the side, which didn’t originate until after Stacey had rejoined the club…so it still has Stacey’s face in the margin. It would have been better and less of a spoiler if they’d taken her out, whether or not they put Shannon in.

I love it when they describe Mallory and put in subtle digs to her looks. Like Dawn says that since Mal is so nice, when you see her you see a nice person so she looks good to you. Um, thanks? I’d be insulted if someone said that about me.

I love that the most horrible event in spirit day is pajama day. We used to LOVE pajama day back in elementary and middle school. It was a good excuse to wear those cute matching jammies and be comfy all day. Wait until these girls get to college when every day is pajama day.

This is what actually got to me about it. Dawn says she doesn’t wear pjs—she wears sweats or night shirts…which is what she should wear if she wants to get into the spirit. They don’t have to be an actual set of pajamas. (Some of the teachers would come in robes and curlers.) Mary Anne, meanwhile, says that you have to wear your real pajamas when Claudia says she wants to silk screen stuff on a pair of pajamas. Does that make Claud’s silk screened pjs fake?

I agree with Dawn: mandatory attendance at pep rallies is stupid. I don’t agree that cheerleading is stupid, though. If girls just had cheerleading for a choice and didn’t have their own sports teams, I’d be with her. But cheerleading is hard work and as much an athletic activity as a baseball game.

Mal and Jessi are cleaning the second story windows during clean your school day, but the fact that they’re talking to Dawn, who is outside, made me think that they were also outside. Which made me picture them manning one of those skyscraper window cleaning rigs, which is hilarious.

Claudia spelling! Tru, Barett, choyse, hous, forsed, togither, cud. She also says the Barretts and DeWitts ‘half groan close.’ Ha!

The eighth grade color for color day is yellow. Look down below to see what everyone was wearing. (Back in my day, a lot of kids would have done a yellow scrunchie or earrings and called it good.)

So the B plot is that the DeWitt-Barretts moved into too small of a house…something we already knew. The title quote is Claudia’s suggestion to Mary Anne on how to deal with a sitting job for them.

After Dawn and MA start a petition to end spirit month, someone writes Go back to California you weirdo on Dawn’s locker. Think that’s maybe why she goes back in four books? I mean, that’s all it took for Mal to decide to leave Stoneybrook….

Ha! Alan, who’s mad at Dawn for her anti-spirit-month petition, dumps spaghetti and meat sauce in her lap. Claudia (who’s pro-spirit but still a loyal friend) is the only one sitting with Dawn for reasons too stupid to explain. She actually throws a pudding at Alan (which is a waste of a perfectly good pudding, dammit!)…which starts a food fight.

What I do like about this story is that it’s typical of what happens when people have very strong opinions. It reminded me so much of when there was a debate in my college over whether or not student health should hand out condoms. Both sides were adamant they were right, there was a lot of campaigning, and there was even some mild violence. Of course, that’s actually an issue that some people think is actually important, as opposed to whether or not the school should force frivolity.

Lindsey DeWitt is prone to my style of exaggeration: “She was just mad because Buddy stayed in the shower for five years.”

Double ha! Buddy suggests picketing because it worked for the Pikes when Mallory wrote that play about them.

Triple ha! The anti-spirit kids put together a protest in the cafeteria during the spirit activity. The principal looks in, rolls his eyes and looks away. Honestly, it’s hilarious, and probably pretty accurate to what he’s feeling at this point.

Also, Dawn calls it an anti-pep pep rally.

So a whole meeting is called with parents, students and teachers involved, and it quickly devolves into a shouting match. Sharon suggests that the reason is that some people believe that they’re entitled to control their own destinies while others feel that that leads to the fall of civilization and that people should just follow the rules. This is both kinda deep for her and surprisingly accurate.

Richard wasn’t able to make the meeting, but he has this to say to Sharon (who stood up for Mary Anne and Dawn during the meeting): “You nearly set off a riot. I’m impressed.” This is interesting; you’d think Richard would be closer to the side of following the rules than setting your own path. (He’s actually kidding.)

Interestingly, the mother of one of the girls’ classmates (who shouts about them at the meeting) is an old frenemy of Sharon’s from school. She was apparently Cindy Sherwood in high school and still is Cindy Sherwood, and her daughter has that last name. Either she was married in high school or she’s a single mother…hmmm….

The Barrett-DeWitts solve their own problem by deciding to add an addition onto their house. (If they can afford that, why couldn’t they afford a bigger house in the first place?!?) Suzi suggests they need to include a ‘bazillion’ bathrooms in the addition so that everyone can go at the same time.

Mary Anne sums up the spirit month debacle: “Logan, I care about anything that concerns you. I just didn’t think I should have to wear pajamas to school if I didn’t want to. That’s how it started, and somehow the whole thing blew up in to something bigger than it should have been.” She then says that everyone should be allowed to express their school spirit as they see fit.

Outfits

Claudia: purple rain hat and slicker covered in designs, with a matching umbrella

Mrs. DeWitt: sweatshirt and jeans, with her hair unbrushed; black velvet pantsuit

Dawn: jeans, blue workshirt, yellow socks

Mary Anne: yellow sweatshirt dress (WANT), yellow leggings, black flats

Grace: yellow slicker, yellow pants, yellow high tops, daisy earrings

Alan: yellow balloons, yellow plaid pants; Batman pajamas

Bruce: yellow football jersey

Kristy: bunny pajamas and bunny slipper

Next (aka tomorrow; the BF is out of town, so I have more time to read and write): #85

“His room is decorated in what Jessi likes to call ‘Early American Ninja Turtle.’” BSC Mystery #17: Dawn and the Halloween Mystery (1994)

Why are the books going Claudia, Dawn, Claudia, Dawn? Luckily, for the rest of the month we have Mary Anne, then Stacey, then a super special.

Wow, this one is really dumb. Dawn witnesses a convenience store robbery, seeing the clown-masked robber and her getaway car. She and the We Heart Kids Club decide to try to track down the robber by identifying the mask. Meanwhile, Dawn has been sitting for a boy named Timmy Ford with the DeWitt boys. Timmy’s parents are separated and he’s been missing his mother, who doesn’t make enough money to support him. Mrs. Ford is actually the robber; she was trying to get money so Timmy could come back to live with her. Dawn catches her digging up the money and turns her in.

Back in Stoneybrook, the Barrett-DeWitt family has found a house a couple towns over that has enough bedrooms to hold their whole family. Unfortunately, the kids are unhappy about moving, so they find a much smaller house in Stoneybrook and decide to renovate it.

Interesting tidbits

Dawn thinks Carol is cooler than she (Dawn) is. Of course, she says that in a kind of insulting way, as if adults aren’t supposed to be cool. Part of the reason she’s cool (which seems to be Dawn’s only adjective in chapter one) is that she watches MTV music videos. There’s a dated reference.

I think this is around the time that the BSC books started appearing in the same month that the story takes place. For example, there were several summer books (#76, #77, mystery #16), then school is back in session in #78. This one takes place in October, of course.

I’ve always hated reading books that have mistakes in the way they were put together. You know when you get a book and there’s a fold in the paper so it sticks out of the bottom of the book? This one has two pages at the beginning of chapter two that are shorter than the rest of the pages. My sense of OCD is making it really hard to concentrate on these pages.

Claudia should be in the Guinness Book of World Records for ‘Most Chee-toes Consumed.’ Hilarious.

Winona Ryder gave Maggie a guacamole recipe. Somehow, I’ve never thought of most celebrities as doing much cooking (and definitely not sharing recipes with the kids of their producers).

Dawn thinks adults shouldn’t sing along with the radio. She’s obviously never met my mother, whom I’m pretty sure is an adult.

“A mixture of cologne, Band-aids, jelly beans, and suntan lotion.” I guess I never noticed that drug stores have a distinctive smell.

Dawn only got a brief look at the robber, but it was enough to identify her shoes.

Richard drives a Chevy Cavalier….same as the robber.

I love that the town thinks of ‘cancelling’ Halloween…simply because a convenience store got robbed. What do they think happens in high-crime areas? My neighborhood has its share of crime and we still have trick-or-treating. Those who don’t want their kids out alone either escort them or take them trunk-or-treating in the mall parking lot. You can’t cancel a holiday. Imagine if they tried to cancel Christmas or something.

Maggie recalls a Halloween when she had chicken pox and couldn’t go out with her friends. That happened to Tessie one year, and she still talks about it. Although most of that actually had to do with the fact that she was still sick on her birthday a few days later and had to sit out her birthday party.

Dawn actually suggests trying to hunt down an armed robber. Genius, that one.

Do you think that one week prior to Halloween is enough time to plan and enact a party for all the elementary school kids? Me neither.

Dawn acknowledges the California DeWitt/Stoneybrook DeWitt situation, saying she doesn’t think they’re related.

Hey, I just realized that after Mrs. Barrett becomes Mrs. DeWitt, both Mrs. DeWitts are gorgeous. Mrs. Barrett ‘could be a model,’ remember, while the other Mrs. DeWitt is an actress.

The title quote refers to Buddy Barrett's bedroom. Although by 1994, I don’t think kids were into Turtles anymore….

Shouldn’t the Barrett-DeWitt clan buy a van? Renting one every time all nine of them go somewhere would probably be more expensive over time.

HA! Jessi puts out a giant sigh after getting into the van with the extended family. Hey, she’s getting paid to be there, so she shouldn’t worry so much about the kids fighting (especially because they worked it out among themselves.)

Dawn is a really, really bad liar.

The suspect pool is narrowed down to three people who bought the hideous clown mask: a Palo City high school track team member; a driver for Hank’s Flower Basket and a ‘tall blonde woman.’

Hey, wait a minute. How tall is Dawn supposed to be? If she weren’t a witness, she might be a suspect herself. *shifty eyes*

Halloween costumes: Jeff: monster; Erick: roll of Life Savers; Ryan: Elvis; Timmy: Martian; Marnie: jack-o-lantern; Suzi: Princess Jasmine; Buddy: magician; Sunny: Mrs. Claus; Maggie: Pink Panther; Jill: Marge Simpson; Stephie: ballerina; Daffodil: good witch; Clover: bunny; Dawn: Pippi Longstocking

Dawn and Sunny rule out the flower driver who bought the costume for his daughter (although honestly he could have used the mask to perform the robbery and then given it to his daughter) and the track-team-boy. The boy is one giant nice-guy cliché: he even helps a little old lady cross the street. The girls call him Saint Tom.

Sunny has an overactive imagination. She tells a woman (behind the counter at the hot dog place mentioned on the bumper sticker on the getaway car) that they’re looking for the robber—without saying that—by giving an extremely vague description. Sunny’s then convinced that the woman is staring at them the rest of the time…because she’s an undercover police officer. (She actually is staring, but for a whole different reason.)

They keep referring to the Barrett-DeWitt clan as the Brady Bunch, and I’ve been putting together that whole family thing: The parents in the middle, Buddy and Lindsey in the top corners, Ryan and Marnie in the bottom corners, with Taylor, Suzi and Madeleine in the middle.

Cheese! The house the Barrett-DeWitts decide upon isn’t one on a list they were working off of. It’s actually one Marnie just sees at the side of the house and points at.

Carol apparently has a lot of experience putting together haunted houses. When and where, it does not say.

Umm, why would you set out food stuff for a haunted house the day before? They might go bad in advance. Not to mention the fact that they’re blocking the elementary school gym for 24 full hours.

Sharon would be that mom who hands out apples and raisins to the trick-or-treaters. Although when I was growing up, that usually that was the mom whose kids weren’t allowed to celebrate the holiday for whatever reason.

Dawn says her dad taught her how to whistle with two fingers in her mouth. Of course, Kristy can also whistle that way.

Outfits

Carol: ripped jeans, MTV t-shirt, orange sunglasses

Cynthia DeWitt (Ryan and Erick’s mom): tacky daffodil print housedress, clunky brown grandmother shoes, turquoise cats-eye glasses (I used to have a pair like that, and I miss them so much), yellow cardigan

Sunny: black leggings and white shirt

New characters:

Timmy Ford (8)—29

Next week: #79

“Jeff powered through the kitchen on his way to his next rendezvous with chaos.” BSC #77: Dawn and Whitney, Friends Forever (1994)

Ooh, boy, there might be griping on this one.

I applaud AMM and the ghostwriters for their efforts to bring knowledge to the general preteen girl population. And clearly some research goes into some of these books. But I am a former special education teacher who would love to someday adopt a child with Down syndrome, and I’m also a pedant. Be warned.

Dawn has a special new sitting job for 12-year-old Whitney Cater, who has Down syndrome. She’s supposed to be more of a companion than a sitter, and her parents tell Whitney that Dawn is there to be her friend, not her sitter. This basically leads to two things: Dawn spends the whole book noticing how many people stare at Whitney and being offended by it, and eventually, the whole sitter-truth comes out. Whitney, to prove she’s old and responsible enough to not need a sitter, coaxes some sitting clients out without permission and makes Dawn chase them and sort things out.

Meanwhile, there are two interrelated B plots (leading up to SS #12). Mrs. Barrett has gotten engaged to Franklin DeWitt, and the kids are unhappy about it. Mr. Schafer has been going on a bunch of dates with various women and his kids, trying to find a fit. Every date goes badly…until he gets back together with Carol and the two of them get engaged again as well.

Interesting Tidbits

Hahaha! Dawn’s describing her dad’s dating habits and says, “Dad is doing what Granny calls ‘playing the field.’” I can’t explain why, but it’s so much funnier that Granny says that. I guess it just sounds so slangy. Besides, when Granny was talking about it, it probably referred to when Sharon was dating, before she married Richard, and that just makes me think of…the Trip-Man.

The title quote is on page five, and I just really liked the way it sounded.

Things Dawn is not allowed to say, part 1: Mondo, as in “My father has a mondo phone bill. That’s someone’s pathetic attempt to try to make her sound young and California.

“Someday my frog princess will come.” Dawn’s dad is far funnier than Jeff, and he’s not even trying to be a comedian.

Maggie’s hair is always different, so today she’s got “purple raccoon streaks above the ears” and purple ribbon in her hair tail.

Jill is apparently a ‘seriously good’ surfer, despite the fact that in the last Dawn book, only Sunny and Dawn were into surfing and Maggie and Jill were not. Maybe the ghostwriter just took it as Jill didn’t need any more lessons?

Okay, here we go. It is Down syndrome, people, not Down’s syndrome. It was named after the person who first started studying it, a Dr. Down, not after someone who had the disorder. Therefore, no apostrophe. This is going to drive me NUTS all book long.

Also, I know that back in 1994 people sometimes still used the word retarded, but its constant use in this book sets my teeth on edge, especially this bit from Whitney’s father: “Practically speaking, it means that Whitney is retarded. She’s not very retarded.” Oy. OY. OY. I would be a lot less annoyed by this if they used the term mildly retarded (as Mrs. Cater does later) but that phrasing is just so offensive to me. In these days of political correctness (I know PC can go waaaaaay to far but a little bit is good), we would say that Whitney has a mild mental impairment. Mental impairment sounds better than retarded, and by phrasing it that way, you’re not saying what the child IS, but what she HAS. “Whitney IS retarded” is more offensive to me than “Whitney HAS mental retardation.” Kids with Down syndrome are people, not a condition. Catch my meaning? /end rant…for now

There’s this whole thing about how Dawn thinks Whitney’s face looks funny when she first meets her, but then as she gets to know her, she sees more similarities than differences. As an adult this made me roll my eyes (and be slightly offended…but I think that was mostly holdover offense) but then I realized that the 10-year-olds reading this book probably actually need to hear stuff like that.

What I DO like about this book: Whitney is your average 12-year-old. She interested in teen magazines and which boys are cute (including Keanu Reeves…say no more.) One of my favorite students when I was teaching was a girl a lot like Whitney who was—in 2005—obsessed with “Ryan from The OC” and wanted to marry him.

Clover Austin “lives at the top of her lungs.” Dawn says this also applies to Karen. I…like that phrasing. This book’s got some interesting language in it, once you get past the whole Down’s syndrome/retarded mess.

Oooh, I’ve never liked the “one person cuts it and the other person gets to choose the piece,” way of sharing. My sister figured out that I never could find the middle, so she always made me cut and always ended up with 2/3 or more. It’s actually not fairer that way.

Yay! We get Claudia spelling! Turth, Barettes, Dewits (can you tell who THIS job was for?) they’are.

This is kind of interesting. They always refer to Franklin DeWitt as Franklin in the text, but when Stacey addresses him, she calls him Mr. DeWitt. I guess it’s like how Aunt Cecelia is always called Aunt Cecelia, but she probably wouldn’t appreciate it if one of the non-Ramsey BSC members greeted her that way.

Interesting typo: I had to think a couple times about this one. The DeWitt and Barrett kids are grabbing things out of the fridge for a ‘smorgaspic’ (smorgasbord picnic, which seems like a horribly bad idea.) Lindsey warns Buddy to “watch it” and then it says that Bryan grabbed something out of the fridge. I thought at first they meant Buddy until I remembered that the littlest DeWitt is named Ryan. But then it becomes clear again that Buddy is actually the one who being referred to, because he’s the one standing in front of the fridge, handing things to Lindsey.

Barrett/DeWitt sandwich combinations: tuna and Oreo, peanut butter and potato chip, cole slaw and baloney, jelly and cheese. Have they been hanging out at the Pikes too much?

Okay, I changed my mind about Dawn’s dad being funny. The rest of his jokes are as bad as Jeff’s.

Dawn uses the word ‘ornery’ to describe Jeff. Not only is that one of my favorite words, it’s actually pretty accurate when Jeff starts acting up. He’s being a total shithead on a “family date” at the carnival because he doesn’t like his dad’s date.

The next date calls Dawn’s dad Richard. His name is Jack. (Obviously, ghostwriter got her dad mixed up with her stepdad.)

So the third date is the worst yet. Whitney joins them at a picnic and concert in the park, and the woman is openly disgusted by Whitney and extremely hateful toward her. Before that, Dawn had liked her.

Mary Anne goes for her sitting job and finds the Barretts watching Celebrity Mud Wrestling. She then asks the Barretts if they find the mud wrestling more interesting than she is. No offense, Mary Anne, but *I* would probably find Celebrity Mud Wrestling more interesting than her.

Oh look. Buddy and Suzi decide to set DeWitt traps, just like Claudia set mafia traps in the last book. Seriously, it’s time for a new shtick, people. Although I do have to laugh because they Vaseline-up the doorknob to the bathroom, and I’m currently reading Paper Towns, where they do the same thing in a more-convoluted revenge plan.

Also, why does Mary Anne let them get away with that? She also lets them put up mean signs, which harkens back to #76. Mary Anne needs to get more of a backbone with these upset kids.

Actually, the worst part is that the parents are so involved in their romance that they don’t even notice that the kids are fighting again or that Lindsey’s covered in baby powder and Madeleine in Vaseline.

While taking a Les Mis break (love that live, no matter how many times I see it), I figured out what was bothering me about this book—beside what I’d already griped about. Dawn seems to think EVERYONE is staring at Whitney and hating the way that her dad’s date did. For example, the two of them go to the Chanel counter and the woman is cold to them when they want to sample the perfume. Dawn assumes it has everything to do with the Down syndrome, but really. They’re twelve and thirteen and they probably don’t have Chanel money. The clerk probably would have behaved the same way if it were Dawn and Sunny at the counter, and now as an adult, I don’t blame her.

Dawn’s last family date involves a woman who has a daughter at Dawn’s school. Dawn kind of hates her, and worries that it’s the same Alana because Alana is such an unusual name. But wasn’t one of the surfer chicks in SS#5 named Alana as well? I’m not at home to be able to check. Maybe that’s just someone’s idea of a ‘California name’, whatever that means. Dawn actually muses that Alana is the new Jennifer: the name that everyone and their brother named their kid.

Oh, and Alana is apparently pronounced a-lay-nah, to rhyme with Paina (Alana the Paina), not a-lahn-nah, the way I imagined. (And every Alana I’ve ever known has pronounced it.)

Apparently, Dawn’s school has a ‘caf’. The only people I know who call cafeterias that are Canadian, which has me wondering about the ghostwriter.

And Alana is a lot more obvious about her contempt for the family date than Dawn is. Dawn is at least actually trying. Although she does get snippy that Alana calls her dad Jack…despite the fact that she’s calling Alana’s mom Kayla.

The one intelligent thing in the Barrett-DeWitt drama: the parents figured out that they had to buy a new house together, because then one set of kids didn’t see the other set of kids as intruding into their territory.

Dawn gets dehydrated while watching the Austins play with the hose, so she calls a water break. Daffodil thinks this is hilarious because they are already soaking wet.

Tofu-turkey-dog casserole. Even Jeff won’t eat it…

And Mr. Schafer and Carol are engaged again. Even Jeff falling out of his chair can’t ruin it this time. Although maybe if Dawn stole her dad’s credit card again….

Outfits

Maggie: black cropped tank top, leopard leggings, black boots, leather jacket

Dawn: jeans and cotton sweater

New characters:

Whitney Cater (12)—33

Next week: #78, when I will be vlogging Claudia. Be prepared!