Mary Anne's on her own. Can she take charge?

The Baby-sitters Club #4: Mary Anne Saves the Day

And we're back! New year, same old Stoneybrook. Thank God we have Mary Anne to save the freakin' day.

The BSC is inordinately attached to the Newton family. Now I like the Newtons. I've said before that I like to think Mrs. Newton was probably a pretty hip, cool mom, and all the girls seem really comfortable with her (unfortunately, as we'll see later on, that means they feel really comfortable acting like jerks in front of her), but their obsession with the Newton family, and especially baby Lucy, is getting kind of creepy at the point. Of course, that said, my co-worker brought her 6-month-old into the office today, and I got super-excited and probably spent half an hour making funny faces at her and could have gone on much longer except the baby had to go home. On the other hand, you have to factor in my absolute lack of desire to do anything resembling my actual job, so... where was I?

Oh yes, the BSC is creepily fixated on Lucy Newton and really, that is the crux of this whole shitshow of a book. Mrs. Newton calls the club and wants a baby-sitter for both Jamie and Lucy (remember that Mrs. Newton really doesn't trust these 12 year-olds with her infant. And with good reason-- they lose kids.) Kristy takes the job without offering it to any of the others (and FYI, in case anyone doesn't buy my "Mrs. Newton is awesome" theory, please note that the Newton's need a sitter because they are throwing a classic cocktail party from 6-8 pm on a Friday night. This is one of those awesome things that I fully intend to do once I a) have an apartment that is not someone's 300 square foot basement, and b) can afford to fully stock a bar. I will probably need to get married to achieve either of these goals. That's what Mrs. Newton did.) ANYWAY, Kristy taking this job without offering it around (club rule!) sparks this WAY out of proportion fight that sounds remarkably like all their other fights. Kristy is job-hog, MA is a baby, Stacey is a snob, Claudia is stuck up (I don't really see this one, but oh well. When you're 12 and yelling insults at each other, they don't always have to make sense. That is one thing I very vividly recall about 7th grade.) So suddenly, the very fabric of the BSC is threatened.

Stacey has never been so wrong in her life!

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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.

Why can't everyone live like this?

The Baby-sitters Club #39: Poor Mallory!
Ah, yes, another ridiculous Mallory book about labor relations. Except this time, she deals with lay-offs and poor money management, instead of going on freaking strike because her parents expect her to help out around the house.

We open with Mallory giving like a 3 page discourse on use of the word “dibble” which is obviously the dumbest word ever. It’s like “Stop trying to make “fetch” happen, Karen” (tm Regina George). Dibble this, Mallory.

So Mr. Pike, the corporate lawyer, gets laid off. I’m just calling it like it is. This whole book they make a huge deal about him being “fired” so I’m just going to state here and now that he is NOT fired. He is laid off. He gets a pink-slip. It’s cutbacks. He’s let go. Fired would be if he f-ed up a big account then told his boss to f-off (which is something I personally dream about on a daily basis. I mean for me, not for Mr. P.) His company is downsizing. They let a ton of people go all in one day. THAT’S NOT FIRING. God, Ann M. Get it together. Given how many people I know these days who’ve been both fired and laid off, I think I know the difference.

Anyway, the Pikes, all 10 of them, pretty flip their shit at this development. I mean, it’s not great news or anything, but come on. It’s not the end of the world, unless the Pikes are as irresponsible with their money as they are with their parenting. They do seem to spend and awful lot of money on vacations and multiple baby-sitters. That first night, after Mr. P. makes the announcement, the Pike parents enumerate the austerity measures they will be implementing (unlike students in London, the Pike children do not riot) including no extras, no new clothes, no junk food, no allowances. One of the kids is like “Should we even be eating dinner?” Geez Oh freakin’ Pete, way to scare the shit out of your kids, Pike parents. How about take it down a few notches, okay geniuses?

The Pike kids form the “Pike Club” to discuss their family’s situation. The Pike Club is full of idiots.

There's trouble for everyone when a TV Star comes to town!

The Baby-sitters Club #27: Jessi and the Superbrat

Yes, it’s true. I’m alive and I continue to voraciously re-read the Baby-sitters Club. Well, that’s not entirely true. I have returned to voraciously re-reading the Baby-sitters Club. Why did I get sidetracked? Well, there’s my day job, which is lame. There’s grad school, which is also pretty lame. There’s also volunteer work, travel, friends, and valiant attempts to have some sort of romantic life, since I’m hitting the wrong side of my 20s to still be living the Sex and the City single life in New York (those women were just sad. If I’m still single when I’m that old, someone just put me out of my misery.)

But alas, I cannot let all of 2010 go by without a few nods to the BSC. I love this blog, I love my readers, and most importantly I love those crazy broads from the ‘Brook.

So we’re jumping back in with Jessi and the Superbrat, #27. I don’t recall reading this as a young’n, but the more I read the more familiar it became. So either I did actually read it and somehow forgot (it was pretty boring, so that’s not entirely unlikely) or every Jessi book is just so similar that they all run together.

So this kid called Derek Masters hails from Stoneybrook and is now the star of some TGIF style sitcom, after his making his mark in the (apparently large?) Stamford, CT kiddie-model market. Because of course one goes from starring Connecticut-based toilet paper commercials to L.A. based super stardom with nothing in between. Oh, BSC-world. I’ve forgotten how magical you are.

How could Mallory ever get tired of baby-sitting?

The Baby-sitters Club #47: Mallory on Strike

Oh yes, poor, sad, put-upon Mallory. I'm pretty sure I tried to pull this strike BS when I was a kid and my dad was all "Bee-otch, please. You go on strike, I go on strike. And if I go on strike, you lose food and shelter. Shut up and do your chores." Well, I might be paraphrasing, as my upstanding, conservative, Trip-Man-ish father has never, to my knowledge, used the word "Bee-otch" in his life... but it was implied.

So SMS is hosting a "Young Authors Day" featuring a writing competition and Mal wants to win "Best overall fiction" in the sixth grade. Ok, FINE. That is totally something I would have wanted to do, too. She only has a couple of weeks to write her story (which is going to be about a girl named Tess (why do people always name their characters "Tess"? Has anyone ever even met a "Tess" in real life? I haven't.) who feels taken for granted in her family. Geez, Mal, you're really taking that whole "write what you know" adage to heart. I sincerely hope Tess is not as annoying as you though), so she knows she'll need to really work hard.