LS #47, Karen's Kite

Note: I actually wrote this a long time ago for the BSC snark comm on LJ and forgot I had it, which is why the style is a little different. I lost the book I was working on, so this is kind of a last minute fill-in.

Okay, before we start this book, let's recap everything we already know about Natalie Springer. 1. She snorts when she cries. 2. Her socks always fall down and she has to pull them up all the time. These two things may not seem like a lot, but that is as many character traits as Karen's best friend Nancy (1. She is Jewish. 2. She wants to be an actress.) and two more than Karen's other best friend Hannie (1.[unknown at this time, possibly involves lasers]).

Now that we remember who Natalie is, we can begin! Chapter 1 is titled Flying. Ms. Colman the best teacher who ever lived or ever will live has drawn a bird, a bat, an airplane, a bee, a butterfly, and a kite on the board, and wants the children to guess what they all have in common. The students all think very hard. Hootie the class guinea pig makes guinea pig noises and Karen thinks that maybe he knows the answer. Karen is an idiot. However, she is the first student in the class to realize that all the things on the board can fly. Ms. Colman the best teacher who ever lived or ever will live tells the class that they are going to begin a unit on flight!!! And they will go on field trips!!! Ms. Colman doesn't know why she is cursed to teach second grade to the same students for endless years while none of them age, but she takes advantage of it to plan plenty of field trips.

Chapter 2 is titled Weekends, because this is one of the last books before Karen starts splitting time between her parents evenly. It should be titled Chapter 2. I do not read it.

Chapter 3 is titled Sassy. Sadly it is not about Karen shooting off her mouth. It is about Hank's pet canary, Sassy. Hank's father brings Sassy in and talks to the class about how Sassy flies. Natalie is afraid of Sassy. Karen tells Natalie, “It's okay. He won't hurt you.” Karen has clearly never seen the Alfred Hitchcock documentary The Birds. Also, this is one of the few times I have seen Karen say it's instead of it is. I am confused and a little unsettled.

It is time for the field trip to the airport. The day before, Ms. Colman reminds Karen that she has not turned in her permission slip. The next day, Karen walks in waving her permission slip in the air and yelling that she remembered her lunch money too. Ms. Colman manages to not look too disappointed. You know she wanted Karen to forget her permission slip and have to stay at school all day. Then Ms. Colman announces that everyone should pair up. Karen, Hannie, and Nancy are pissed because they all want to be partners, but then Addie (personality traits: 1. is in a wheelchair 2. sticks stickers on the wheelchair tray all the time) decides to be partners with Nancy. Natalie does not have a partner. Pamela, Leslie, and Jannie are all holding hands. Ms. Colman tells them that one of them will have to be partners with Natalie. They all make it very clear that they don't want to be Natalie's partner. Ms. Colman, the best teacher ever, lets them be total bitches and draw straws. Leslie gets the short straw and has to be partners with Natalie. She is a total bitch about it. Ms. Colman the best teacher ever appears not to care. Karen and Hannie pretend to be Lovely Ladies on the bus. I wonder how much longer this book is.

During the tour of the airport, Karen makes sure to tell us, “In case you did not know it, I flew on a plane once all by myself.” I knew that, actually. I didn't care, but I knew. The partners get to take turns sitting in the cockpit of a real airplane. Leslie is a bitch to Natalie some more. Karen thinks about sitting by Natalie at lunch, but Natalie takes a long time to pick her food, and in Karen's world, thinking about sitting by someone doesn't extend to actually saving them a seat. In case you did not know it, Karen is self-centered.

Back at school in between field trips, Ms. Colman informs the class that they will be studying kites, because why the hell not. She's stuck teaching second grade for eternity, and she's always wondered how exactly kites work. The art teacher, Mr. Mackey, brings in kites for the kids to look at. Then he announces that they will each get to make their own kite and they will stay after school on a Friday and have a kite flying competition and spend the night at the school. The kids are all very excited for this. Elementary school me would have been planning a sudden onset of vague stomach pains for that day. Then Mr. Mackey tells them that they will be taking a trip to the kite store before they begin making their kites. He is totally taking over Ms. Colman's job of making Surprising Announcements.

In chapter 7, it is finally the day of the trip to the kite store! Stoneybrook has the most useless stores. Mrs. Moody, who runs the kite shop, announces that the winner of their kite flying competition will get a $25 gift certificate to spend at the kite store. Ms. Colman is going to have to work harder if she wants to regain her supremacy at making Surprising Announcements. Karen is already picking out what she will win with her prize money. Nobody will ever accuse Karen of having low self-esteem.

Chapter 8 is called Natalie's Bad News. As Karen and Andrew return home from a weekend at the Big House, Seth is getting off the phone with Natalie's parents. Apparently Natalie's grandfather has died, and her parents are traveling to his funeral. Normally they would dump Natalie on her relatives, but they are going to the funeral too, so Natalie is going to stay with Karen's family. I guess just taking Natalie with them was never really an option. It makes shit take so much longer at the airport when you have to stop every fifteen feet for your kid to pull up her socks. Plus she'd totally disrupt Grandpa's funeral by snorting while she cried. And really, isn't staying with Karen Brewer the best way to learn about death? Oh, wait, no, that's actually the best way to learn about wishing you were dead, my mistake.

Before Natalie comes over, Lisa has a chat with Karen about being nice to her guest. When Natalie's parents drop her off, Karen informs us that their socks are droopy and their glasses are sliding down their noses. They are all sloppy. Karen is kind of a snot. I am busy trying to figure out how two adults can be wearing socks that droop so obviously that a 7-year old notices. Do they buy all their socks at the odd-lot sock emporium, which is probably located near the kite shop and the steno notebook shop? Anyway, Karen feels pity for Natalie and decides she will do whatever Natalie wants while she's visiting.

At school, all the kids are being nice to Natalie while they work on their kites. Karen makes sure to tell us how great her own kite is, then gives us a couple of bitchy paragraphs about Natalie's. It is the color of a dirty nickel and has old rags for a tail. Karen wonders if Natalie's kite will fly or if it will be too embarrassed to be seen in the sky. At least she doesn't wonder out loud, I guess.

After school Nancy comes over to play, but Natalie takes forever making and eating her snack so they don't actually play. Then Karen complains because Natalie doesn't want to play with Karen's rat and she drips some water on the floor when they're washing up for supper. Not only that, the bitch has the nerve to take the chicken wing Karen wanted and they watch the tv show Natalie likes instead of the one Andrew likes. I don't see why Lisa doesn't toss her out of the house then and there.

The next day, Hannie and Nancy come over to play, and Karen suggests they make little kites and try to fly them, but Natalie wants to try to fly instead. They make cardboard wings and try jumping off the porch, but it's not high enough. Unfortunately Lisa catches them as they are pulling the trash cans over to climb on the roof of the shed. She yells at Karen, who is pissed that Natalie doesn't speak up to say it was her idea.

At school, Karen is pissed that the other kids have the nerve to be nice to Natalie, who is down one grandfather and has to stay with Karen, instead of complimenting Karen's obviously superior kite. Jerks.

After school, Natalie wants to put on swimming suits, fill up the bathtub, and play in it. My friend Jennifer and my sister and I used to do that. But we were apparently smarter than Natalie, because while Karen is digging out bathing suits for the two of them, Natalie is getting into Lisa's “special face cream” and I don't know about you but I wouldn't touch any jar of any cream in Lisa and Seth's house. Anyway by the time Karen gets in there Natalie has let the bathtub overflow and Lisa and Seth have to help them mop up the mess with towels and then Karen gets in trouble for making a mess. Natalie again doesn't mention that it was her fault. What a surprise, stuck in this house for an indeterminate period of time, she doesn't want to piss off the resident adults who she barely knows. Karen bitches at Natalie who informs Karen that it was Karen's fault because she shouldn't have left Natalie alone so long.

The next day Karen is not speaking to Natalie, and she tells the story to all their classmates, then is shocked when they think she should be nice to Natalie and let this one go. I don't know why she's surprised, since “everyone in Karen's class is mad at her” is a pretty common theme in these books, but she is. But the day after THAT is the sleepover at the school, so Karen is too excited to care that everyone hates her.

All the kids get their kites in the air, although Natalie's has to be helped by all the adults. Then they tie the kites to hooks in the ground and whatever kite stays up longest will be the winner of the $25 gift certificate to the kite store! After fifteen minutes, a gust of wind knocks Karen's kite into Natalie's kite, and Natalie's kite falls down. Karen's kite of course regains its footing. Her classmates are all pissed off at her for making Natalie lose. Karen tries to explain that she wasn't even touching the kite because it was anchored to the hook in the ground but nobody cares because Natalie is so upset. The kids watch the kites for a while then have a sleepover at the school. Luckily it is not described in much detail.

In the morning, only two kites are still flying, Karen's and Hank's. We are all surprised as can be when Hank's kite drops and Karen wins the gift certificate. She makes a little speech announcing that she has decided to split the prize with Natalie, because if her kite hadn't knocked Natalie's down, Natalie might have won. She does make sure to give us a couple of sentences assuring us that no fucking way was Natalie's kite going to beat hers, in case we were misled by her speech. Her classmates decide to stop being mad at her, at least until the next book.

The end of the book is wrapped up quickly. We get about a sentence each for Natalie and Karen making up, Natalie's parents coming back, Natalie getting a caterpillar kite with her half of the prize, and Karen deciding to spend her prize on a kite for Andrew, since she has her gigundoly beautiful fish kite that she made all by herself.

LS #114, Karen's Chicken Pox

It's almost Halloween when this book starts, and Karen is sitting in school coloring a picture of a jack-o-lantern. Ms. Colman has purchased a pumpkin that she will carve for the class, and everyone gets to submit one entry and she will pull one out of a hat and carve the jack-o-lantern as shown. I doubt any of you will be surprised to learn that Karen's drawing is the one chosen. Ms. Colman also sends around a sign-up sheet for goodies for the class Halloween party. Karen signs up to bring both a drink and cupcakes. There are eighteen kids in Karen's class. I really hope that each kid is not bringing two treats to the party. Karen tells us that she is bringing "bat cakes" and "witches' brew" and then explains that bat cakes are cupcakes and witches' brew is soda or juice, but later in the book, it's explicitly stated that Elizabeth buys soda to take to the party. Also I don't know why Ms. Colman is having the kids sign up for what they want to bring. Isn't this what room mothers are for, so that they can call around and the parents can volunteer for what they want to bring instead of having their kid sign them up for something they have neither the time nor desire to make?

Karen, Hannie, and Nancy talk about Halloween at recess and want to have coordinating costumes, but they don't decide what to be. So after school, Karen goes to Hannie's house and talks to her and they call Nancy with costume ideas. Then Karen goes home where Nannie has set out a snack for her, but she thinks of more ideas and wants to call Nancy, but Sam is on the phone, so she goes back over to Hannie's house and they call Nancy together. Then she goes back home and eats her snack and wants to call Hannie, but Sam is still on the phone so she goes back over to Hannie's house and they call Nancy again. Then she finally goes home and stays there. This would drive me up the wall if I were Hannie's parent, but none of the adults act annoyed at all. In the end, the girls decide to be farm animals. Karen is going to be a chicken, Hannie a cow, and Nancy a sheep.

It turns out that Sam's been on the phone a ton because he is trying to organize a bake sale because he is the sophomore class president (my reaction: What? Was this mentioned anywhere else EVER?) and they are trying to raise funds to go on a class trip over spring break (my reaction: Isn't  it usually seniors that go on a class trip? Oh well, they've been in the tenth grade for 12 years, let them have their fun.). He's having a really hard time finding people to volunteer to bake, though. Karen asks if it matters who does the baking. She and Nannie are going to make the cupcakes for her class party, and she suggests that the family could help Sam with his bake sale, which everyone else agrees to. Sam is really grateful for the family's help.

There is a super cute chapter where Charlie, Sam, and Karen go to the grocery store to buy ingredients for baking. After they get the basics, the boys want to leave, but Karen thinks the cupcakes will sell better if they look a little more special, so she picks out coconut, chocolate chips, and a couple of other things to decorate the cupcakes with. Sam sees a rack of bandannas and asks Karen if she wants to get one to wear with her chicken costume. After much deliberation she picks a red one.

While Karen, Charlie, and Sam were at the store, Elizabeth had been at the doctor's office with Emily. It turns out that she has the chicken pox. Karen is surprised because she knows that Emily has been vaccinated against chicken pox, as has Karen herself, but Daddy explains that you can still get the disease sometimes anyway. Also it is stated that David Michael, Kristy, and Andrew have all already had chicken pox. I am a little confused as to why Andrew has had the chicken pox but Karen was vaccinated. This book was published in 1999, when the vaccine was still newish (wikipedia tells me it's been available in the U.S. since 1995). So maybe Andrew had the chicken pox while he was living with his mom and stepdad in Chicago and Karen got the vaccine at the same time while living in Stoneybrook? It would be a lot less confusing if the vaccine were just never mentioned but I guess then kids who were reading it these days would just think "Why didn't they get the shot?"

Karen realizes that if Emily got the chicken pox despite the shot, Karen could too, so she asks Daddy if she can go live with Mommy for a while. Daddy says no. Karen decides that her best bet to stay healthy is to stay the hell away from Emily. (Emily, by the way, is absolutely adorable in the illustrations in this book.) It's a little hard for Karen to stay away from Emily because her family keeps asking her to help Emily. They want her to read to Emily, play a game with Emily, read a story to Emily, Daddy even asks her to help give Emily a bath. Seriously, family? Why keep pestering the one person who's not had chicken pox to play with Emily? I'm sure that Emily is cranky anyway and would rather have her parents care for her instead of her big sister. Karen spends the day in her room and pretends to be doing homework, and in the evening she cleans her room and organizes her closet to get out of helping with Emily. She says that her family is a little annoyed with her, but I'm a little annoyed with her family, so it evens out.

On Monday at school Hannie suggests that Karen eat grapefruit with lemon juice on it because "sour stuff kills germs" and Nancy tells Karen to say a magic spell to keep from getting the chicken pox. Karen tries both of their ideas, but she feels sick on Tuesday, and on Wednesday she wakes up with spots.

I would probably be more surprised by this if the title and the cover picture didn't totally give it away. (It might be hard to see in the small size but Karen has pox on her hands and face in the picture.)

Karen is PISSED. Halloween is coming up and she had a ton of shit to do and now she's going to miss it all because of the chicken pox. Also she says that it is humiliating to have a baby disease like chicken pox. Really? Do the kids in Stoneybrook taunt you for getting the wrong diseases now? "Ha ha, you have chicken pox, that's a baby disease!" "Ha ha, you have shingles, that's an old person disease!" "Otto, you have lupus!"

Karen is mad at everyone. She's mad at Emily for getting her sick. She's mad at Hannie and Nancy because the grapefruit and magic spell didn't work. She's mad at Daddy for not letting her go to her mom's until Emily was no longer contagious. Daddy suggests that Karen and Emily can decorate the house for Halloween. When he leaves the room, Karen sticks her tongue out at Emily, but Emily doesn't know Karen is being mean. She tries to scare Emily with a rubber spider, but Emily just laughs. Then Karen spots some candy. She eats some while Emily watches and then puts the bowl up where Emily can't reach it. Finally Karen succeeds in making Emily cry. Daddy scolds her and she goes back in her room and gets back in bed. She stays in bed and feels sorry for herself for the rest of the day. Her family tries to be nice to her but she doesn't want to be cheered up. The icing on the cake (sorry) is that evening, when the family bakes the cupcakes for Sam's bake sale and Karen can't help because she's germy. She can hear them all laughing and having a great time. Poor Karen. Yes, her anger at Emily is a little misguided, but she's going to miss Halloween, which is like the holy grail of holidays for kids.

The next day Karen is feeling a little better. Nannie is trying to help Emily with her Halloween costume. Emily  is throwing a fit because she doesn't want to be a ghost, and Karen realizes that Emily wants to be a goat. Karen had told her about her chicken costume and Hannie's cow costume and Nancy's sheep costume, and Emily wants to dress as an animal just like the big girls. Karen can't stay mad at Emily, and agrees to help her with her costume. She calls her friends and they help give her ideas too, because she's realized it's pointless to be mad at everyone because she is sick.

See? How adorable is Emily?

On Friday, Elizabeth takes the cupcakes and soda in to Karen's class, and after school, Hannie calls with the news that Karen won a prize for her costume. Karen is confused, since she didn't even wear her costume to school, but Hannie explains that she and Nancy drew a picture of Karen in her chicken costume and entered it and they all won a sheet of pumpkin stickers. I assume that Ms. Colman had pumpkin stickers for everybody and just gave out various costume awards. You KNOW Natalie's sheet of stickers had "Participant" written at the top.

Sam's bake sale is a roaring success, too, and he gives Karen a joke book as a thank you gift.

On Sunday, Daddy takes Emily out trick-or-treating in the goat costume Karen helped make. He wears overalls to look like a farmer. Andrew, who is barely in this book, goes trick-or-treating with a school friend and her parents.  Daddy gets home with a bag of candy for Emily and a bag for Karen, and then Karen puts her costume on and Elizabeth takes their picture.

M #32, Claudia and the Mystery in the Painting

Yay a Claudia outfit on page 2! We are starting off strong!

Today I had on navy blue pants with wide legs, red suspenders decorated with big sunbursts, a white T-shirt, and over it all, a huge red-and-white-checked shirt. My earrings were also bright yellow sunbursts that I made to match the suspenders. My hair was in one long braid hanging down my back, tied with a red-and-white-checked bow. 

The only middle school I could see that going over well at would be Clown Middle School.

Claudia's mother is surprised to see her, and we find out that Claudia is visiting the library to learn more about the works of a local artist named Grandmother Madden who made primitive style paintings. The wikipedia link for primitive art led me to the entry for naïve art. I think that is the preferred term now but the book uses the former. Anyway as Claudia photocopies articles because the books she wanted were checked out, we find out that Grandmother Madden passed away several years prior but her old house is just now going to be cleaned out and all the stuff sold off, and for whatever reason none of the adults in this town can do anything without a bunch of eighth graders hanging around. The client is one Ms. Rebecca Madden, granddaughter of the famed painter. She inherited the house and the contents thereof, and then there was some fighting with some of her cousins over the will, but after the cousins found out that Grandmother Madden had destroyed all of her paintings after getting a bad review in her one New York show, they stopped contesting the will and that is why Rebecca needs Claudia's help to baby-sit her 7 year old son Jimmy and also help sort some of the shit for the estate sale. Oh but despite the bad review of her one show, FYI Grandmother Madden's work is extremely valuable now. All of her grandkids have one painting by her and there are a few in museums and private collections. I realize this is very convoluted but pretty much all of that is just given in an information dump in the book, too.

Claudia immediately decides that there is no way that Grandmother Madden (is this supposed to make me think of Grandma Moses? It's a pain in the ass to keep typing out, too.) would have destroyed all of her paintings. Because Claudia is an artist, and she personally would never destroy all of her paintings, so obviously all other artists think the exact same way and Claudia will find the paintings and be a HERO you guys. I read on the internet that Bill Watterson (the creator of Calvin and Hobbes) now spends his time painting and then destroying the paintings. Nobody tell Claudia, she might have a breakdown.

Someone did not peel the price tag off very carefully.

Claudia has a sitting job on Saturday. "I dressed in overalls and a long-sleeved green-and-blue-striped shirt, then put on a green-and-blue-checked cap, pulling my ponytail through the back." At the house she meets Rebecca, who tells her that people have been trying to see the estate early, and 7-year old Jimmy, who misses his dad and is bored helping his mom get the house ready. Jimmy gives Claudia a tour of the house and while they are in Grandmother Madden's studio which has a lot of canvases painted by her students because apparently bad reviews didn't stop her from giving art lessons even though she destroyed all her own work, Claudia notices a painting of a Japanese woman that she likes quite a bit, but then the doorbell rings and she goes and answers it and it's a guy who says he's working for a company that is helping Rebecca appraise and sort things for the estate sale. Thank goodness she's not having 13-year olds do the appraisals is all I can say. He leaves before Claudia can get Rebecca downstairs to greet him but Rebecca thinks it's probably Mr. Ogura and tells Claudia it's OK to let him in if he comes by again. You know, because it's probably the right guy, most likely. Anyway when Claudia goes upstairs again later the painting of the Japanese woman is gone. She angsts about it off and on for like another hundred pages, but I'll save you the trouble and tell you that Jimmy knocked it over and the paint chipped and he was scared his mom would yell at him so he hid it.

I feel like I am whacking you with a huge wall of text, and this is only like the first three chapters. This mystery is really complicated.

Later a woman who looks kinda like Rebecca comes by and wants to see the sale early but Claudia doesn't let her in, and then Jimmy and Rebecca go to visit Jimmy's dad, who is named James Cook, and he comes back to Stoneybrook with them. He is not always very nice to the BSC members and he kind of snaps at Claudia when she knocks over a painting and tells her that she should stick to sorting books and shit like she was asked and stay away from the potentially valuable things. We are supposed to think that he is an asshole but really he just seems like the most sensible person in the book.

Jimmy finds a cat and his mom like freaks out because the cat looks just like her grandma's string of identical cats who were all named Goldie. Because apparently when one Goldie died she'd just get another cat who looked the same. This seems a little off to me but whatever. The cat Jimmy found is wearing a collar and it has her name on it: Goldie. It does not, however, have an address or phone number of an owner, so James Cook says Jimmy can keep the cat while they try to find the owner. I don't think the owner really wants the cat back if they went to all the trouble to put a collar on her but couldn't be arsed to add any contact info.

Claudia goes to the museum to look at the Grandmother Madden painting they have on display. She finds out that all of G.M.'s paintings were 10 inches square and four of them would fit together to make a scene or they could be displayed on their own. The four that Rebecca and her cousins have are a set, but due to the feud will probably never be displayed together again. Claudia also learns that Grandmother Madden added a little painting of Goldie to all of her pictures. She sees Mr. Ogura at the museum talking to the lady who had come to the house and wanted to see the stuff and she is really suspicious.

The day before the sale is when Claudia finds out that Jimmy had chipped and hidden the painting. He'd stuck it in a closet with a bunch of other paintings that were on 10 inch square canvases. On the day of the sale Claudia wakes up with the realization that Grandmother Madden had let her students paint over her own work. Wait, didn't we already use this in Mallory and the Mystery Diary? Can nobody in Stoneybrook afford blank canvases? Claudia goes to the house to set aside the paintings so she can talk to Rebecca and James, but then the mystery woman who turns out to be Rebecca's cousin Suzanne shows up to take all the paintings and then Mr. Ogura comes to accuse Suzanne of trying to double cross him, and then they lock Claudia in a closet and take off with the super valuable paintings. Jimmy and his dad arrive and Claudia bangs on the closet door, and after she explains, they call the cops and then eventally Mr. Ogura and Suzanne are apprehended and Claudia is a HERO just like she knew she would be cause Grandmother Madden would totally never destroy her paintings and Claudia knew that because she is psychic I guess. Oh also it turns out the cat was Suzanne's cat and she couldn't come banging on the door asking for it back because then Rebecca would know something was up and she couldn't put her name on the collar because that would shorten the book considerably.

The subplot in this is that the museum is adding a kiddie art room and since Claudia is an honorary museum trustee (no, really) they want her to help with it, although it actually ends up being Mary Anne and Abby that do most of the helping. The museum has chosen their most comically inept employee to be in charge of the kids' room. She tries to make the kids all do one art project that she has set out but they don't want to just fill in a picture of someone else's bear and they kind of trash the art room but don't worry guys! The next time, Mary Anne and Abby just let the kids do whatever the hell projects they want because getting out clay and paints and scissors and glue and cotton balls all at the same time is so much more free spirited and then because they are not being stifled by The Man the kids make incredible art which is perfect to line the hallway outside of the Kaleidoscope Room for its grand opening. And the museum employee is totally impressed that the kids made such great art. But of course none of you are surprised, because you knew the BSC would totally be smarter and better with kids than Rigid Art Lady.

#32, Kristy and the Secret of Susan

In this book, Kristy gets a regular job sitting for an autistic child several times a week for a month while she is in between special schools. The book and its descriptions of autism seem very dated in some ways, maybe because so many  more kids are being diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum these days. For one thing, when Mrs. Felder is explaining autism to Kristy, she says that Susan is "extremely retarded." This book doesn't use the word "spectrum" but it's clear that Susan would be on the more severe end of it. She doesn't talk or communicate. She does, however, have some very specialized talents. She can play anything on the piano after hearing it once, and if told a date, she can tell you the day of the week it falls on as long as it's not more than 60 years in the past or 20 years in the future.

Kristy decides within about five minutes of meeting Susan that her parents are wrong to send her to special schools and that she, Kristy, will make Susan make some friends and fit into the neighborhood. It's like she didn't even listen to anything Mrs. Felder said.

There are some other new kids in town, the Hobart family. Ben, James, Mathew, and Johnny are from Australia and they are having a hard time fitting in because the other kids tease them for being different. I am not sure why. When I was a kid my parents were going to college and I met several kids from other countries whose parents were studying in the US. Mostly we just treated them like any other kids except for trying to get them to teach us swear words in their languages. But I guess the Stoneybrook kids are more threatened by anyone who is different. Oh but the kids who are teasing the Hobarts are not the usual sweet well mannered backyard-carnival having kids the BSC usually sits for. It's mainly a couple of boys named Mel and Zach, who show up every so often throughout the series but only in books relating to the Hobarts. They are not friends with anyone else the club sits for.

Kristy takes Susan over to play with the Hobart kids a lot while she is sitting. James, who is eight like Susan, tries to be friends with her, but it's hard because Susan really doesn't have the skills to communicate or play with him. Meanwhile Zach and Mel keep coming by the Hobart boys' backyard to taunt them about being Australian and talking funny. (I found out much much later from Australian friends on the internet that the "Aussie slang" in these books is about as accurate at the portrayal of all Californians as being blonde health nuts anyway.)

At an assembly at school, Kristy is seated behind the special ed class, and sees that one boy is autistic although less severely than Susan. This redoubles her determination to show the Felders that Susan could be educated right in good ol' Stoneybrook. You know, because the thought probably never crossed their mind at all. Also she describes all of the kids in the class and says that three of them are retarded. This book contains a lot of usage of the words retard and retarded and it's very jarring.

The most memorable scene in this book is one that happens toward the end, when Kristy is sitting and kids keep coming over to ask Susan dates or get her to play the piano. One girl has brought a record of The Sheik of Araby. The record skips and when Susan plays and sings the song, she plays the skips. Kristy discovers that Mel Tucker is charging the kids a dollar to do this and calling Susan "the incredible retard who can memorize dates and music. The amazing dumbo who can sing but not talk." Kristy yells at him and he runs away. I always think of that scene first when I think of this book.

After yelling at Mel, Kristy goes over to the Hobart house and James is playing and skateboarding with Zach, who wants to be friends with him after all. Kristy sits and talks to Claudia who is sitting for the Hobarts and says she's realized that Susan is very severely handicapped and that probably her parents have made the right decision for her schooling.

Kristy goes over for one last sitting job and helps Mrs. Felder pack up Susan's things for the new school, and they talk about Susan and she finds out that Mrs. Felder is pregnant with another little girl who will be named Hope. I think it would have been nice if the club had ever sat for Hope or even seen her out and about with her mom but the Felders are one-book characters so they never did.

At the end of the book Mallory announces that Ben Hobart asked her to the movies, which marks the official start of their awkward geeky romance. (In one book they have a fight over the right way to use the card catalog.) It's things like this that made me think my school was just backwards, because I was eleven when this book was published and nobody I knew was going on dates to the movies.

#127, Abby's Un-Valentine

Abby starts out this book by telling us how stupid Valentine's Day is and how it's not her kind of thing at all. For those of you who don't know who Abby is, she's the Cousin Oliver of the BSC. She was added late in the series to help pick up sales or something. Abby's personality traits are as follows: she has asthma and allergies, she plays soccer, and she tells terrible jokes all the time. Like, she'll say something, and another character will stare blankly at her, and she will narrate that the other character didn't get her sense of humor, and I'll have to go back and read the preceding paragraph four times before I figure out what the "joke" was supposed to be. And it never turns out to be funny. Abby also has a twin sister named Anna who is the best 13 year old violin player ever. Because nobody in these books can ever have a hobby or interest they're mediocre at. Jessi can't just be a talented 11 year old ballerina, she has to beat out 17 year olds for leads. Abby can't just enjoy playing soccer as a way to stay healthy and have fun, she has to be the best on her team. Kristy can't just enjoy playing softball, she has to be the best left-handed shortstop in her school. Claudia can't just be a talented 13 year old artist, she has to be fantastic and even better than many adults. It's one of the most annoying things about this series.

Here's the cover. Abby looks utterly confused and annoyed that anyone would leave flowers by a locker.

Abby's English teacher is doing a unit on Shakespeare's sonnets. The class talks about love and the meaning of the sonnets. It sounds like the teacher is genuinely trying to keep students interested in Shakespeare by tying the unit into Valentine's Day, but Abby is tremendously annoyed by the whole thing and keeps trying to say in class that romantic love is a crock of shit. Her attitude catches the attention of a boy named Ross Brown, who chats with her several times after English class. Abby is glad to be making a new friend, but then Ross asks her to the Valentine's Day dance and she is horrified. She doesn't want to go to the dance with anyone, and she doesn't know how Ross could have misconstrued her friendly chatter for romantic interest. Stacey and Anna in particular are baffled that she turned Ross down, but some of her other friends, especially Kristy, support Abby's desire not to go to the dance with Ross.

Ross continues to try to pursue Abby. He brings flowers to her house, explaining that his mom is a florist, and they make Abby's allergies flare up. Then he leaves a carnation in her locker. Then he leaves her a book of cartoons from the New Yorker. Abby actually likes that gift, but then she finds out that he went to Stacey for advice and she was the one to suggest that Ross give her the book. Abby is furious with Stacey for giving Ross advice on how to woo her when Stacey knows full well that Abby is simply not interested in dating Ross or anyone else. Stacey is unapologetic. There is a pretty intense argument and Abby accuses some of her friends of being willing to date anyone just so they won't be alone. At a later meeting Abby realizes that the club is purposely avoiding talk of the Valentine's Day dance, so she apologizes for some of the mean things she said and tells them to go ahead and talk about the dance. They are supportive of her desire to avoid it and she can be equally supportive of their desire to go.

Ross makes some comments about loving classical music and having recently attended a performance by a quintet that performed a Bach piece, and Abby decides that between the flowers, classical music, and poetry, he would be a perfect match for Anna. Because Anna plays the violin, you see, so obviously she loves classical music and listens to it all the time. The best part is that Anna even has a bit of a crush on Ross already ever since the day he brought roses to the house. Abby invites Ross over so that she can introduce him to Anna, but because of some wacky hijinks, Ross ends up thinking Anna is Abby. The girls don't correct him for some reason, but when their mom gets home and calls them by the right names, Ross thinks they intentionally tricked him and storms home, furious. Anna is mad at Abby, too.

Ross won't speak to either of the girls, but when they both go to his house, he listens to their explanation of why they had traded clothes and whatnot. Then he invites Anna to go with him to a concert on Valentine's Day. She is over the moon, especially when she gets home from the concert and announces that he has invited her to the dance as well. Abby helps her get ready, and then has plans of her own. She spends Valentine's Day with Kristy, watching a zombie movie. I think the message of this book is that much like we learned in Kristy + Bart = ?, it's OK if you aren't ready to date someone and that not having a boyfriend is not the end of the world. Also in several places in this book Abby is bitching about kids making out and holding hands in the hallway, and she mentions that Mary Anne and Logan aren't like that and don't make her uncomfortable. You know why that is, Abby? They've been dating for TEN YEARS at this point. The initial giddiness has worn off.

There is one Claudia description in this book, in Chapter 2.

Today she was dressed in ski-lodge mode. That meant a woolly sweater, long black tights with thick blue socks, and hiking boots. But these weren't just any hiking boots--they were tied with shiny silver shoelaces with little snowflakes on the ends. They'd also been decorated--by Claudia--with a motif of snowcapped mountains running along the outside of each boot.

Claud's sweater was blue, white, and gray with a snowflake-patterned yoke. It was enormous, stretching almost to her knees. Her hair was pulled back in a long braid. From one ear dangled a silver earring in the shape of a pair of crossed skis, and from the other hung a small silver polar bear. This was actually a somewhat conservative fashion statement from Claudia, but you couldn't help noticing how good she made it look.

I recreated Claudia's outfit in Neopet form for you although I had to fudge the earrings a little:

 She looks damn good.

The subplot in this book is that Kristy's family has to give the puppy they've been raising back to the guide dog foundation so that she can train to be a seeing-eye dog, and Andrew is having a hard time saying goodbye to Scout, even though they knew all along they'd only have her for a year. Eventually the club helps him come to terms with the idea and Scout is sent off, never to return.

New year, new organization

I was bored and I wanted to make sure I was doing these in a fair distribution so I wouldn't end up with like half the little sister books or only Kristy titles at the end, so I put all the remaining titles into a spreadsheet sorted by main character and used a random number generator to sort them and then assigned each to a group weighted by number of titles left with that main character and then used the random number generator again because it's more fun that way. So I ended up with 13 groups of ~21 titles each, and then I had a slight freakout because that is a hell of a lot of books, but you know, this is an ongoing project and at least now I won't have to feel like I'm doing only my favorites and will end up with only the dregs at the end. I might end up doing slightly shorter recaps in the future, though.

I will also note that the Little Sister books are going to be showing up at a higher rate than they previously were, which is OK with me because they're shorter and easier to write up, but I know some of you don't like them, so you might have to skip more entries. Sorry.

#35, Stacey and the Mystery of Stoneybrook

Don't be surprised if this turns out pretty short because this is my least favorite BSC book. It derails me every time I try to do a straight read-through of the series.

Here is the cover. Stacey and Charlotte are looking at an old house that is going to be torn down. Charlotte looks terrified. Stacey looks fat, although it could just be her super unflattering sweater. Also I cut off the edge when I scanned. Maybe I should find a source for images and give up on attempting to appropriately use my scanner.

This book opens up with Stacey on the train ride back from visiting her dad in NYC for the weekend, with a description of everything they did. I know these books like to point out that Kristy's stepdad is a real live millionaire but Stacey's dad isn't hurting for money at all, either. Every time she goes to see him for a weekend there are plays, restaurants, and shopping trips.

Back in Stoneybrook, Charlotte Johanssen's parents have a very special job for the BSC. See, Mr. J's father has to have surgery, so the Johanssens are going to go stay with him for a week, but they don't want Charlotte to miss an entire week of school, because fourth grade is just that important. So they want Charlotte to stay with either Jessi's family or Stacey. Jessi's family is going out of town for the weekend, so Stacey gets permission from her mother to have Charlotte stay at their house for a week. She's really excited and gets the guest room all ready with some of her old toys and books and a special set of Raggedy Ann sheets that her mom got at a yard sale. Based on knowledge of vintage character sheet sizes and an admittedly half-assed eBay search, this leads me to the conclusion that Stacey and her mother have a twin sized bed in their guest bedroom. I wonder if they have separate larger sleeping accommodations elsewhere, or if couples visiting them must simply get a motel room. These are the kinds of things I wonder about when reading these books. Someday I will draw up floor plans for each of the BSC homes and try to resolve these issues.

They are festive sheets though.

Charlotte is nervous and homesick and doesn't even feel like eating supper, even though spaghetti and meatballs is usually a favorite meal for her. After supper Stacey teaches her to play the card game War. She claims that they play 12 games of War in a row before she puts Charlotte to bed. Either they are playing a vastly different version of the game than I did or Stacey is exaggerating for comic effect or Charlotte's bedtime is 3 am because 12 games of War would take hours the way I learned it.

The next day, a Friday, Stacey takes Charlotte to see an old house that is being torn down and they hear weird noises and see a swarm of flies and a face in the window. It's really boring scary. They tell the rest of the club all about it at the BSC meeting, which Charlotte is allowed to attend because heaven forfend Stacey should just miss a meeting while baby-sitting.

Kristy babysits for her younger siblings and stepsiblings in the next boring chapter. Karen tells scary stories. Kristy reads them a chapter out of Ozma of Oz and the book tells us they are reading through all the Oz books because they just saw the movie. When I started this project I thought my Wizard of Oz tag would get less use than my I Love Lucy tag but thus far I have been dead wrong. She sings them lullabies including the Ghostbusters theme song. The book states the title as "WhoYa Gonna Call" but the actual song title is Ghostbusters. This inaccuracy annoys me more than it probably should. Then Kristy reads some books about the history of Stoneybrook that Watson recently got at an estate sale and finds a map that seems to show that the house that's being torn down is built on the most boring spot on earth on an ancient burial ground.

On Saturday, Charlotte wakes up with a fever, and Stacey takes her to the doctor. She says that the waiting room choices are this month's Highlights for Children or a July 1979 Reader's Digest. She picks up Highlights and then is totally embarrassed because a cute guy walks into the waiting room with his brother and sees her holding it. The 1979 Reader's Digest is one of those things that gets a little funnier as time passes. When the book was published in June 1990, oh, ha ha, the waiting room has a magazine that is a decade old. Now the waiting room gives you a choice between a current magazine or a 30 year old one. It'll be even more funny in ten years, right? Right? It turns out that Charlotte has tonsillitis and has to take liquid penicillin. She whines about it so Stacey shows her all of the things she has to do to manage her diabetes like poke her finger and use test strips and give herself shots, and then Charlotte stops whining about the medicine. Something about this technique seems a little off to me but whatever. The book is half over.

The next day Charlotte is feeling a bit better so Stacey invites Kristy to come over with her boring ass history books and look for clues about the old house. Then in the next chapter Claudia is babysitting the Perkins girls and takes them to the library for story hour, and she does some research and finds that the house is owned by an old dude who now lives in a nursing home.

On Monday after school Stacey and Charlotte walk to the old house and they think they see a fire but when they rush to put it out (safety first!) there is no fire. They both have nightmares about the old house. Then there's an emergency meeting of the BSC and Claudia and Mallory also have boring scary stories to tell about the house.

Mallory and Dawn babysit for the Pikes and the Pike kids are kinda gross and eat gross food. Byron, the fatty triplet, eats a bologna and grape jelly sandwich and Nicky, the weird kid, eats a peanut butter and bologna sandwich. Adam and Jordan eat cold spaghetti-os. They want to eat them straight out of the can but Dawn makes them put them on plates. Some environmentalist she is. Now they'll just have to use precious water to wash those dishes. Margo eats bread and butter, Claire has cereal, Vanessa has a fried egg, and Mallory has a ham sandwich. The Pikes gross me out sometimes. The Pike kids want to put on a play and they choose the Wizard of Oz. Hang on, afk making a surprised face.

The next day they go to the nursing home and the elderly owner of the house tells them boring scary stories about it and says they'll know whether it's haunted when it's finally torn down the next day. And when they go the next day to watch like the whole town is there watching the house get torn down. Because watching a house be demolished, that's a thing, right? Stacey thinks she sees the house go up in flames but Charlotte is like "can we go? this is boring." which is the most sensible thing anyone has said this entire book and Stacey runs back to the nursing home and finds out the old dude died in the night and finds out he left a note for her telling her that his stories were not true and then Kristy says that Charlie and Sam talked to the workmen and there are explanations for everything they saw and heard and unsurprisingly they are all boring as hell. Stacey and Charlotte go home and play some more War and then Charlotte's parents come to pick her up and everything is back to normal in Stoneybrook.