The Baby-Sitters Club: The Summer Before

So, gentle readers, I have finally done what any decent recapper would have done 5 years ago. I have read the BSC prequel published by Ann M. Martin back in 2010. I knew it was out there but I put it off, because really, did we need a prequel? Wasn’t Kristy’s Great Idea basically the prequel to BSC? Did we need more origin story?

The answer, after all, is yes. This was not a bad book! So as a special welcome back (to me) present, I’m recapping it for you. Along with offering a promise to get back into recapping regularly, 2009-style. I’ve moved, (yes, again) back home for good. I’m settled about 30 minutes from the Midwestern hometown I fled almost a decade and a half ago. I’m rebuilding relationships I thought were done for good. I’ve had a good run, in my beloved NYC, in other areas of the country for the last few years, and when circumstances, both good and bad, conspired to offer me the chance to try going home again, I felt I had to give it a chance. And so I find myself, 6 months later, feeling like Stacey returning to NYC or Dawn back to California, trying to navigate the old and new and reconcile the person I am now with the person I was then, and figure out where my home is and what my life will be in my new-old environment. So, I may as well recap the BSC while I do all this, no?

So let’s escape, back to Stoneybrook with a dash of NYC, to a more idyllic time. This book plays like a super-special, with different POV chapters and intertwining stories. There’s no Dawn (sad!), no Jessi (meh), and Mallory is limited to a fourth-grader no one cares about (yay!) Everybody’s dealing with change, and if I remember the summer after my sixth grade year correctly, a lot of it seems pretty plausible. There’s not a ton of action, but the good part is that this is old-school Ann M, none of that ghostwriter crap. There’s also CONSIDERABLE attention paid to continuity, and mad props for that!

Stacey has never been so wrong in her life!

ZJNP2HYWEN9E
The Baby-sitters Club #18: Stacey’s Mistake


Really, Stace? You’ve never been so wrong? Really? What about the time you thought you were going to run off to la-la-land with Scott Foley? What about the time you tried to set your mother up with appalling drama queen John Brooke? Let’s try to keep a bit of perspective here, ok?

I’m not going to lie, I LOVED re-reading this book. I believe that I have made clear in the past that Stacey’s life in NYC is pretty much the entire reason I chose to move from the Midwest to NYC when I was 23. And seriously, even though I am on the far side of my 20s these days, and Stace is 13, I totally identified with her SO MUCH in this book. Those parts will be made clear in the coming paragraphs through my squealing and digression into meaningless anecdotes from my own life. That is why you read, right?

So a bunch of the adults in Stacey’s (AWESOME, UPPER WEST SIDE, WHITE-GLOVE DOORMAN) building (seriously, what does Ed do for a living? I’ll marry him!) are planning to attend this big neighborhood meeting about homelessness (this is possibly the most bizarre premise ever, but I’m just going to run with it) and 5 different families ask Stacey to babysit. Rather than turn down 4 of them, Stace has the brilliant idea to invite the BSC (minus Jessi and Mallory, which right away shoots this book to the top of my LOVE list) to visit NYC and babysit all the kids.

Stacey's building a better parent trap...

The Baby-sitters Club #124: Stacey McGill-- Matchmaker?

I SWEAR I've not forgotten you all. Summer is a busy, busy time when you're as fabulously fun as I am. Oh, ok, fine. I'm not fabulously fun at all. In fact, I'm kind of a huge loser. But I really have been busy... well, if not busy, at least "away." See, I went back to the midwest for a vacation with my family, and we didn't have internet in the cabin by the lake, and then I stayed an extra week at my parents' house because the next Sunday was my great-grandma's 100th birthday party (Happy birthday, Baba Mary! That's a feisty old lady, people. I wouldn't be surprised if she outlives us all.) and I meant to use the time wisely by reading some of my old BSC books so I could recap them for you all, but then my mother found out about this blog and that opened a whole new can of worms regarding my life choices (Why am I writing a blog about the BSC? Instead of re-reading books I read in elementary school and then wasting my time on this foolishness, why don't I put some effort into actually getting myself published? Or, you know, married, as she would really prefer)and frankly, it was just easier to put the BSC books back in the closet she kept yelling at me to clean out and spend the week drinking with my cousin. Whew!

So what better way to kick it back off than a story about your favorite and mine, that paragon of fashion and style, that hair-perming, Hard Rock Cafe-loving, math-whizzing delight, ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Ms. Stacey McGill... and her mother Maureen!

She's home for good!

The Baby-sitters Club #28: Welcome Back, Stacey!

Stacey's back! Stacey's back! Stacey's back! And the peasants rejoice! Or at least, I do.

I know it's a little weird, because this is actually a really sad, depressing book, but I remember loving it as a kid. I think there are a couple reasons for this. One, I was obsessed with New York, and I loved any book that was set there. I loved reading about Stacey (and Laine's) doorman apartment buildings, all the things that Stacey would miss if she moved, things like Bloomingdale's and Central Park and the Hard Rock Cafe, things that I had barely even ever heard of, much less seen, and I was sad that Stacey left because we wouldn't get to hear about them as much. Also, and let me just preface this by saying that I know I'm going to hell, but I was deeply intrigued by the divorce. Divorce really wasn't common in my hometown, at least not amongst my friends' parents or my parents' friends, the people I knew. I was fascinated by it. I spent a really long time agonizing over which parent I would live with if my own split up, despite the fact that I can barely even remember them ever fighting when I was young. (Conclusion: probably my dad. Sorry, Mom, but I figured the others would probably stick with you, and I couldn't leave Dad alone. I've always been a daddy's girl.)

So Stacey's baby-sitting for Henry and Grace, and when she gets home she can hear her parents fighting from outside the door. Stacey, at least, unlike her parents, has the good grace to be ashamed of what the neighbors might think. Good lord, I won't even watch my TV at a high volume for fear of my neighbors hearing it, I can't imagine having a screaming match. Of course, this might be primarily due to embarrassment over my entertainment choices. I'd really hate to have my neighbors figure out exactly how many "Full House" reruns I watch.

Who needs baby-sitting when there are boys around?

The Baby-sitters Club #8: Boy-Crazy Stacey

So, when I first read this book (and don't ask why I remember this, but it was the summer after 2nd grade, I was 8 years old, and I thought I was the shiz-nit because I had gone by myself to visit my Aunt Jenni and Uncle John in Indiana) but anyway, when I first read this book, I couldn't understand the term boy-crazy, with the hyphen. I had never heard this term before, and I pondered for some time before deciding that the hyphen must work like a comma, leading the title to be something like, "Boy, Crazy Stacey" as in "Dude, Stacey is NUTS" said in a condescending tone while people shake their heads at her. Which, to be fair, could also be a fairly accurate description of the book.

Stacey and Mary Anne are mother's helpers (ahem. Excuse me, according to Stacey, they are parent's helpers, as they will be helping Mr. Pike as much as Mrs, although it doesn't really seem like either Pike parent wants to spend much time with their children on this vacation. But then, who could blame them?) for two weeks in Sea City, NJ. Mainly this involves taking the kids to the beach every day, where Stacey falls in LUV with a lifeguard named Scott, which basically means that she hangs out at the foot of the lifeguard stand all day while Scott (who is eighteen and going off to Princeton that fall, despite the fact that the Scott drawn on the book cover is clearly at least 35 years old) calls her "cutie" and "love" and asks her to fix him sandwiches and get him sodas, which she takes from the Pikes' refrigerator, which I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Pike would LUV, if they were paying any attention to their children or their 13-year-old baby-sitters.

Stacey's different... and it's harder on her than anyone knows.

The Baby-sitters Club #3: The Truth About Stacey

So I think we all know the truth about Stacey. There are 2 fundamental truths, and we hold these truths to be self-evident, that Stacey McGill is diabetic, and that Stacey McGill is AWESOME.

Background: Okay, seriously, this is probably as good a time as any to make clear my obsession with one Ms. Anastasia Elizabeth McGill. So sophisticated. So cool. I thought if I moved to New York City I’d be just like her. So even though I was 23 years old before I got the chance, I moved here anyway. Yes, that’s right. I made a vital and irrevocable life decision because of Stacey McGill. Ashamed, me? Never.