Baby-Sitter's Club

Say hello to your friends!

Recently I decided to do a re-read of this book series. I *was* a baby-sitter's club child. You have no idea. Every week going to the library, spinning the paperback racks in the children's section around, hunting down more baby-sitter's club to read. Checkout a stack, and when the circ desk library staff's eyes would go wide at how many books I had, proudly proclaim that I was probably going to finish most of these by the end of the afternoon.

I never read in order, just what the library had available, but scrolling through the list of books, it's hard to find ones I never read. Maybe some Mallory books, because I was never a big fan (no offense!), and some of the Abby because I was growing out of them by the time Abby was introduced. One book *might* be unread: Dawn's Big Date, because I found it right when my conservative Christian mother decided dating was a sin, reading about dating was a sin (it would give me ideas) and when I pulled it off the rack, told me no and made me put it back. (You, if you were a Baby-Sitter's Club fan, might be like "But Tor, isn't there a ton of dating in the books?? Doesn't Mary-Anne have a steady boyfriend?? Well, yes, but you see, my mother was bored by these books and rarely did the Responsible Parent Thing of read along with them like she did with other books I read. No 'date' in the title, no problem.) In any event, I say "might" not have read it, because it's possible I snuck it at one time or another.

There also might be some super specials or some mysteries I didn't read, just because I never found those in the library. I did read the 'Friends Forever' books even though I definitely felt a little too old at that point, but those came out just as I was finishing up junior high school myself, so the ending felt right. They finally were growing up right when I was.

I'm not going to make this some big extensive commentary or book reviews or anything, I just thought I'd add some scattered thoughts as I go through the books. I'm currently on book...eight? now, and they hold up in terms of fun, even if they are incredibly dated. (Did anyone even use "mother's helper" anymore when the books were *written*???)

Kristy's Big Idea

I forgot how quickly everything just starts in these books. I'm not sure when I read this one originally as a child, but it definitely wasn't the first BSC book I read. Not much to say about this one, it's literally just to establish everything.

Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls

So, my partner owns the original run of the graphic novels because they're a fan of the artist, so I was suprised when looking at them that this is *not* the second book in the graphic novels, but instead "Claudia and Mean Janine." I suspect the reason for this is that all these books are super dated, but this one *especially* is. For one, the plot barely holds together: the idea of a burgler that repeatedly calls before robbing a place seems not like a thing that would actually help them? How it would let them plan to know when you're not home long enough to show up and rob? Why wouldn't they just...stake out the place? And once it was known that this was happening, why wouldn't people immediately call the cops when they start getting weird phone calls, and then the cops would do a little hideout and catch them immediately? I don't think this would pass the believability check for kids today.

On top of that, how are kids going to relate to a plot relying heavily on landlands? On the very conceit of landlines? And then the entire framing of Fear of the Burgler is such a product of '80s and '90s culture, but I don't really know that that's true anymore.

This was still a fun read though. I know this is probably the nostagia talking, but I don't know, the plot still compels me, even if I did remember exactly how it ended.