I totally paused!

We have our first major BSC fight!  They all get suuuuuuuuper mad at each other for really no reason, but it all starts because Kristy takes a job babysitting the new Newton baby without offering it to all the girls.  Oh noes!

The whole book is kind of boring, actually.  The scene on the cover depicts Mary Anne realizing she can handle a disaster!  Really, it’s unimportant.

What this book does is set the stage for future things.  First, we meet Dawn, who has the longest blonde hair that Mary Anne has ever seen.  She’s not totally pretty, but she is pleasant, just in case you wondered.  This is before Dawn starts getting all above everyone else as far as her food choices and where she’s from.

Also, in case you forgot, Stacey is from New York and she is wicked glamorous!  She wears the coolest clothes and she’s so sophisticated.  She can even get perms, y’all!

The second important thing is that we are introduced to Richard Spier and Sharon Shauffer’s romance, which we all know leads to their marriage and the merging of their families.

There weren’t even any good outfit descriptions in this one, so blah.  We do, however, get a letter from Ann M. Martin in which she lets us know that we should know ahead of time if we can call 911 for help in our community.  And that if we decide to become babysitters, it’s a really good idea to take a course in babysitting.  Definitely not as entertaining as a Sweet Valley reader of the month, if you ask me.

Aww, good old Stacey McGill. I don’t recall the description of the outfit on this cover, but the event on the cover did happen. Except in my mind I did not picture Stacey smiling about it. Instead, I figured she’d be moping about how she can’t have anything in the candy store and OMG SHE ALMOST BOUGHT SOMETHING! This is foreshadowing to that future book where she starts cheating on her diet and gets sick. You bet your ass I remember that!

That outfit, btw, ugh. However, if those sunglasses were in a different color I’d totally want them. In fact, I think I have some in black. And maybe also in hot pink. I’m not afraid to admit if Stacey has one good fashion idea!

Also, I really think she looks funny. She looks different on later covers and as much as I don’t want to say it, better. Although I still have a hard time telling the difference between her and Dawn on covers where they are both present. Sometimes it’s obvs because Stacey has a perm and Dawn does not, but sometimes Stacey’s permed hair looks remarkably straight.

I had totally forgotten about the whole Baby-Sitters Agency thing. I remembered Stacey making up with Laine and issues with doctors, but the BSA took me by surprise. And in reading about them, they are totally the kind of baby-sitter I was. See, I wanted to be a good baby-sitter, but I just didn’t have it in me. I did not let the kids play outside by the street, but I was also much more interested in watching Devon Sawa movies than the actual child care aspect. Hey – to the 14 year old me, he was hot! Okay, I imdb’d him and he actually still is hot, so I rest my case!

Also I think it is hilarious that we get an emergency BSC meeting eight pages into the book, in the middle of a regular BSC meeting. Classic! I LOLed when someone other than Kristy called an emergency meeting also…that bossy bitch can’t handle anyone else calling emergency meetings!

For some reason, I thought this was the book where Stacey’s parents decided to divorce. But then I remembered that she moves back to New York for like 2 seconds before they do that. Of the older sitters, Stacey was always my least favorite, she’s always felt so snobby and above it all to me. I remember being sad each month or whatever when the next BSC book came out and it was a Stacey book. I read it anyway, but I was disappointed.

My favorite part of this book was the BSC girls confronting the BSA girls and asking questions about the kids. Umm, I baby-sat my own siblings a ton and I couldn’t tell you what their favorite foods were. Guess I would never have been accepted into the BSC!

One would think this story was driven by my recent reading choices.  However, I’d be deluding myself if I said that, because the truth is, the BSC just lives with me and probably always will.

Boyfriend and I were sitting in a drivethru, waiting for food, and we have the following conversation:

Him: Ephraim Mallery befriended me on Facebook.

Me: Who the fuck is Ephraim Mallery?

Him: I went to high school with him, but I thought you went to school with some of the Mallery girls, they were your age.

***

This is the part where the Baby-Sitters Club infiltrates my real life.  Because I honestly was two seconds away from saying “I knew a Mallory Pike when I was in school, that’s about as close as I get.”

The truth is that no, I did not know a Mallory Pike, because she is a fictional character!  Furthermore, if she were real, I would so NOT want to know her.  But my brain is stupid and nearly missed this little fact.

On the positive side, he has no idea who Mallory Pike is, so this would have been a normal progression of conversation and he would have never known the difference.  I, on the other hand, will live with the idea that I briefly thought Mallory Pike was a real person that I was acquainted with.

I am Jack’s amused and embarrassed sense of reality.

Is it just me, or did Claudia get way different looking on later covers. And also even more stupid as the books went on. In these early books, she just seems like a bad student. Later on, you could argue that she could benefit from an entirely different education system.

I remembered whodunit basically as soon as the calls started – Alan Grey and Trevor Sandborn. And I remembered that the reason they were able to get the info was cuz Kristy started taking the appointment book to school with her. What puzzled me is that early in the book, before she did that, Claudia got a “hang up” call – the call that prompted the panic which caused the book going to school. We never get an explanation for that call, which disappoints me because WHO DID IT!?!?!?!?!

This amused me: right after Claud tells about her first phantom phone call, as all four girls are sitting in Kristy’s front yard, Kristy announces an emergency meeting of the BSC. Umm, y’all are already all together, do you have to go to Claudia’s room instead of just talking about it right there? Also, what is the point of calling an emergency meeting? I think Kristy just likes being bossy so much that she will call an emergency meeting just cuz she can.

There weren’t really any outrageous outfits in this one, although one girl at lunch is wearing her older sisters mohair sweater. Maybe it’s just me, but how come? I’m allergic to mohair so the idea of wearing it repulses me (alpaca, however, is a totally different story). But aside from my personal health and preferences, do 12 year olds really wear mohair? And really, do their older sisters? It seems a bit bizarre and over the top…plus isn’t mohair shaggy?

And my last favorite part is this…

One false move and I’ll punch your lights out. That goes for all of you. Do you hear me?

I’m relatively certain that even in the 80’s, a babysitter was not supposed to threaten to punch kids ages 8 and younger. Really any age, actually. In todays world of child abuse being called for all kinds of things, this would so get Kristy Thomas in juvenile court! Oh well, we can still fantasize.

I guess I never remembered that at the start of the series, the girls were 12 and in 7th grade. I swear that they go from 7th to 8th grade pretty fast, especially consider that they are in 8th grade for fucking ever!

My first impression, if anyone wondered, is that the BSC books are better written than the SVT. I think this is why I liked the BSC better overall. And aren’t you loving Claudia’s side ponytail? One of her signature styles!

For the record, I always had a hard time telling Dawn and Stacey apart on the covers. Obviously since Dawn is not around yet, the blond is Stacey, but in later covers I can promise it can be hard. Stacey’s style is supposed to be so unique and it just isn’t. I mean, a red shirt and then burgundy bottoms? That’s not fashion, Stacey dear, it’s called getting dressed in the dark. But enough with the cover analysis, let’s get into some awesome outfit descriptions…

Stacey had on a pink sweat shirt with sequins and a large purple parrot on the front; short, tight-fitting jeans with zippers on the outsides of the legs, and pink plastic shoes.

God kill me if I ever find any evidence, in my brain or otherwise, that I wore jeans with zippers on the outsides of the legs. Gym attire, sure, no problem. Jeans? That’s a totally other story. Also, pink, purple parrot, and sequins? Oy. I am not entirely sure what the pink plastic shoes thing is either. Are we talking jelly shoes? I know what those are, wore some myself, but they weren’t exactly plastic, more rubbery.

The plot of this book is that Kristy gets the idea to form the BSC and wow, it is such a great idea! Also her mom is dating some dude called Watson who Kristy hates, until the end when she accepts him. I don’t think it’s ever described how much money Watson has, but he’s rich. He buys Kristy’s family chinese food all the time! Kristy LOOOOOOOVES chinese food! At the end of the book, Kristy’s mom and Watson get engaged.

Reading this book also recalled to me how much I hated that the entries in the BSC notebook were always in actual handwriting of the individual girls. Also, I think this book was before they really established how bad Claudia was with spelling, because in reading her notebook entry, I only spotted one spelling error. Granted I was skimming, but I think they made her more of an idiot as time went on. Must have been the fumes from all her outfit creations.

I’m embarrassed to say this, but this description launched an obsession with nightshirts for me – Stacey had a really spectacular nightshirt with gold glitter and the skyline of New York City across the front. Now I think of it and gold glitter on your shirt means gold glitter in your bed, which doesn’t sound like fun. But back then, I totally wanted that night shirt.

We also learned in the last chapter that Stacey has diabetes. For some reason, I thought we didn’t learn this until book 3, The Truth About Stacey, but I guess I was wrong. Anyway, I remember that shortly after starting this series when I was in elementary school, one of my friends was diagnosed with diabetes. We all felt bad for her, but the silver lining was that at least she was a little like Stacey McGill!

I was shopping at Costco today and saw buckets of copies of Twilight by Stephanie Meyer sitting there, for less than $7.00, so I caved and bought it.  It seems like everyone is reading or has read this book, so I’ve sort of been waiting, but it was such a good price how could I not!  There were two other books in the series there as well, but I figure I’ll see if I like this one enough to purchase the rest.

And in less happy news, my book fetchin sister told me today she cannot find my old Baby-Sitters Club books, she thinks my parents got rid of them.  How dare they!  My youngest sister just barely turned 16, what if she had wanted to read those!  Really she probably wants to read Gossip Girl but I can entertain my fantasies about why they should have kept the books.  Sister is going to check in the attic more thoroughly, but it’s looking like I’m going to have to mass purchase these things on eBay as well, or see what kind of collection the library has.

I know there are plenty of BSC blogs out there already, and in no way am I trying to compete with them.  I’m interested in seeing if these can spark memories of why I liked them, I was seriously addicted to them.  Couldn’t wait for the next installment to come out.  I lived the BSC, as some recounting below will detail.

I intend to read them in order, I’m a sucker for order, and write as I finish each book.  And def. throw in a Mystery or Super Special every now and then.

When I was growing up, I always had my favorite characters in a book/series, and had the ones I totally wished I was like but knew I wasn’t.  In my defense, I was a pre-teen when reading these so the 13 year olds were wicked cool at the time.  I always hated Mal and Jesse (Mallory especially), but those other girls were just the best to me.  It’s embarrassing to admit, but I so wanted to be Claudia and Stacey.  I knew, however, that I so wasn’t either of them.  At the time, I considered myself a mix of Kristy and Dawn.

I also credit these books for giving me a false sense of what I should have been.  I had an expectation for myself that I should belong to an exclusive clique (way to reinforce being an individual, Ann M. Martin!).  I also pretended to be way into babysitting, cuz I thought it was the right thing to do, when in reality I just hated babysitting.  I never understood why it was so easy for these girls.

Oh, and to add to the embarrassment, my friends and I even formed our own BSC – but not a club for babysitting, a group where we all pretended to be a girl from the BSC.  Awesome, early role-playing!  I got to be Kristy cuz I was short (and a little bossy), one girl was Stacey cuz she had the diabetes, another Dawn on account of her blonde hair, one Shannon since we didn’t hang with her much (I think her real name might have been Shannon too, not sure though).  We were wicked original! 

And in true BSC fashion, the others got pissed at me for forming new friendships.