LS #29, Karen's Cartwheel

Karen is excited because some of the kids in her gymnastics class are going to be chosen to be on an invitational team. Karen is absolutely positive that she will get to be on the team, because she loves gymnastics and wants to perform in malls while people clap for her. Unfortunately, Karen can't do a cartwheel, even though everyone else in her class can. This doesn't stop her from having super lame fantasies about Daddy bringing the whole family to watch her do gymnastics in a shopping mall and everyone crying with pride. Karen practices her cartwheels over and over.

Here's the cover. Karen has pulled her hair into a side ponytail to help her balance on the beam. Smart thinking, Karen.


When the teacher announces the class members who have made the team, she says there are three kids. After she announces the first two, Karen waits for her to open her mouth again, then leaps up and yells "Yay I made the team!" only to discover that the teacher had called some other kid's name. Karen is embarrassed. I am entertained. Here is a drawing of that shining moment:

I love it.

Karen becomes obsessed with the idea that if she can just perfect her cartwheel, she'll be able to join the team. She is kind of obnoxious about it.

Meanwhile, Daddy has taken Karen and her friends to the toy store at the mall, where they fell in love with some dolls and really wanted them, but their parents won't buy them. Karen, Hannie, and Nancy start an odd-job business to earn money. They make signs to hang up in their neighborhoods. Daddy hires Karen to dig up dandelions from the backyard. Then on a weekend, he pays the girls to clean out the garage. Mrs. Porter sees the girls cleaning Watson's garage and hires them to clean hers, too. Karen, naturally, is kind of an asshole while cleaning the garage, taking the four brooms in the garage to be proof that Mrs. Porter is a witch. She also declares that a book they find is a book of spells.

Karen remembers that her gymnastics teacher lives in the neighborhood, so she shows up at the woman's house uninvited to show her how good she is at cartwheels now, and when that does not earn her a spot on the team, she asks to be hired to do odd jobs. Her teacher agrees. Karen shows up at 8:30 the next morning and digs up dandelions, walks the dog, sweeps the driveway, and waters the garden. Then Karen decides that since she did all that work, she doesn't want to put her money in the communal pot to buy the dolls with Hannie and Nancy. Hannie and Nancy, naturally, are a little annoyed at this because they have all agreed to pool their money. They have a brief fight but make up and then do a few more jobs until they have $41 to buy the matching dolls. They name them Merry, Kerry, and Terry, and then the Doll Sisters are mentioned in the Little Sister books off and on until pretty much the end of the series.

Karen is still upset though, because she is not good enough at gymnastics to be on the invitational team. Mrs. Porter sees that she is upset and asks what is wrong. Karen explains. Mrs. Porter says that Karen is good at a lot of things, and it's okay if she is not the best at everything. She shows Karen a picture of herself as a youngster (from the photo album which Karen had previously decreed to be a spellbook) and says that she was good at ice skating but always wanted to be an actress. Karen realizes that she can't be the best at everything she tries.

Karen has another gymnastics class and they get to watch the kids on the invitational team. Karen realizes she was not good enough at gymnastics to be on the team, like her teacher has been telling her all along. But she still enjoys gymnastics and has fun with the other kids in her class.

Overall, this book isn't really good or really bad. My score: 5/10.

Foods eaten in this book: pizza, ice cream, Orange Julius, popcorn, M&Ms, corn on the cob, fish, salad, peach.

#23, Dawn on the Coast

I have fond memories of this book. One day in fifth grade, my mom took me to the eye doctor in the middle of the day, and afterward, we went into the bookstore and bought this book, which had just come out. I took it to school and a few other girls were jealous that I had it because they didn't have it yet. It doesn't sound like much but for some reason, the memory has always stuck with me.

The book starts out with Dawn packing for a trip to California to visit her father during spring break. She hears her mom get home and "I could hear her kick off her shoes in the living room, drop her purse on the couch and her keys on the kitchen table. That's my mom, all right. I love her, but she is a little on the disorganized side." Judgmental much, Dawn? None of that seems egregiously disorganized to me.

Dawn is a little worried about leaving her mother all alone, but Sharon assures Dawn that she will be fine, because she has her parents (Granny and Pop-Pop) nearby and also is going on a date with the Trip-Man, who basically exists in this series for Dawn to whine about because she wants her mom to only date Mary Anne's dad. Like, in this book, she describes Trip-Man as "a real conservative type. Tortoise-shell glasses, you know what I mean?" First of all, no, I had no idea what she meant when I read this at ten years old. Secondly, being conservative is bad? Dawn, have you met Richard Spier?

Dawn goes to a slumber party at Kristy's house and the girls order pizza. Dawn wants broccoli on her pizza and everyone acts like that is the worst thing they've ever heard, although they do end up ordering broccoli on half of a pizza for her. I hate when people get all bitchy about pizza toppings, so I'm actually on Dawn's side here, and I hate broccoli.

On the flight to California, Dawn has trouble with a stewardess who looks like a Kewpie doll (another thing I had zero idea about at ten years old in 1989 when this book was published. I don't think I or any of my friends ever had one.) The stewardess doesn't serve Dawn a drink and messes up her meal, and then when the coffee and tea are served, and Dawn asks for real milk for her tea, the flight attendant gives her two packets of the white chemical stuff. THE HORRORS.

Dawn's dad takes her and Jeff to Disneyland. The first thing Dawn does is buy souvenirs for all her friends, then they go on several rides and attractions. It would probably have been easier to do the rides first and not lug the souvenirs around all day, just throwing that out there. Then, when they get home from Disneyland, Dawn goes over to her California best friend's house and discovers that Sunny has started a baby-sitting club of her own, the We <3 Kids Club. Dawn even takes a baby-sitting job for her old favorite clients.

There's a chapter where Claudia and Mary Anne babysit for the Newtons, their cousins the Feldmans, and the Perkins girls while their parents go out somewhere together. This is the second appearance of the Feldmans in the series and as far as I know it's the final one, which is too bad. (In their first appearance, Kristy threatens to punch Rob Feldman's lights out, which is not a thing she would say later on.) It's not a very interesting chapter.

Dawn's father takes Jeff, Dawn, and some friends to the beach. I guess this is the scene pictured on the cover, although in the book, Jeff tosses a sand crab on Dawn's lap instead of splashing her with a bucket. Dawn has a great day at the beach and thinks about how she really feels like she's at home in California. Then Dawn babysits for Clover and Daffodil Austin. Dawn informs us that their parents were flower children, which she thinks means hippies. Mrs. Austin is a weaver who works out of her home. I bet their whole house smells like patchouli oil, just saying. Mrs. Austin suggests that Dawn take Clover and Daffodil to a little carnival that is set up nearby. Clover likes the pony rides and Daffodil wins a pink stuffed animal at the ring toss. Dawn realizes she's gone the whole day without thinking of any of her friends or family back in Connecticut.

There's a chapter where Jessi babysits for Kristy's siblings, and Karen wants to play Let's All Come In. The boys don't want to play but Jessi says she'll play. There's nothing in the dress-up trunk to fit her, so Karen says they'll have to go upstairs in Ben Brewer's room and get some antique clothing for Jessi, because that's what people do with antique and vintage clothing in these books, is allow their kids to unpack old trunks and ruin the clothes. Karen gets freaked out because someone has written "TURN BACK!" in the dust on the stair railing and left an ominous note in the clothing trunk. Jessi deduces that it was Sam who did these things, but she makes no effort to tell Karen that, instead letting her think that it is proof the house is haunted. Great baby-sitting right there.

Dawn goes to another meeting of the We <3 Kids Club and thinks about how California is much more her style because the kids are more relaxed and eat health food. She wants to stay in California forever...or at least, maybe she does. She goes home and talks to her dad about staying, then makes a list of pros and cons about California vs. Connecticut.

Another random chapter where Kristy and Mallory babysit the gross Pikes. Mrs. Pike orders them to feed the kids canned ravioli and homemade coleslaw for lunch. That combination doesn't even sound good. Even Byron, the fatty triplet, complains about it. Adam mixes the two foods together and announces that they look like snake guts. I don't know why ravioli and coleslaw mixed together would look more like snake guts than any other kind of guts, but I guess it does. The triplets are being mean to Nicky and Nicky is upset. He talks to Kristy and says he misses Dawn. Dawn kind of misses him, too.

Dawn makes her decision. She is going to go back to Connecticut. When you even miss the gross Pikes, it is clear that your home is now Stoneybrook. She calls her mom and cries and tells her that she had considered staying, which doesn't surprise Sharon at all.

On the flight home, Dawn is on a flight with the same flight attendant who ruined her last flight, so she moves across the aisle to another section. Sharon brings the whole baby-sitters club to meet Dawn at the airport. She is glad to be home.

I don't even hate Dawn in this book and I enjoy reading all the descriptions of the things she does on her vacation. My score: 7/10.

Mystery #10, Stacey and the Mystery Money

This is one of the mysteries I don't particularly care for. I'd say it's because young teenagers have no business trying to investigate counterfeiters, or because the plot is contrived, but really, the more I do these recaps, the more I realize I just find Stacey boring except in the book where she quits the club and the book where she goes to a concert with girls who sneak wine in their socks.

Stacey is going to babysit for her favorite kid, Charlotte. They are going to go downtown and have lunch and do some shopping. Charlotte is very excited about this and feels very grown-up. They go into the Merry-Go-Round and Stacey finds some earrings she wants, but when she goes to pay for them, the cashier thinks the $10 bill Stacey gives her is counterfeit. She calls the police.

This is the scene depicted on the front cover. First of all, I always pictured the Merry-Go-Round as a much more casual type of shop, not a gold-jewelry-locked-in-glass-cases place. Secondly, what the hell is Charlotte wearing? Is this what the illustrator honestly thought 8-year olds were wearing in 1993 when this book was published? I mean, yes, the text does say that Charlotte is excited about the lunch and shopping and is a little dressed up, but she looks like she's dressed to step into a time machine and go to 1953 to eat.

The cops show up and ask some questions and say that the bill is fake and that Stacey will need to come to the station with them. Then and only then does Stacey call her mother, and it's only because she wants her mom to watch Charlotte until her parents are done with work. Stacey's mother is like "sure, whatever, take my minor child to the station with you and interrogate her without her parent or a lawyer present, that's fine." This is a stupid move on Stacey's mother's part, I'm just throwing that out there. Charlotte  is really upset because she thinks Stacey is getting arrested. Stacey tries to reassure her but it doesn't really work. Stacey goes to the police station and tells her story several times.

Kristy babysits a new client, Georgie Hoyt. Georgie is 8 and has an older brother and sister, twins who are in 8th grade. The twins are named Terry and Tasha. Stacey has a crush on Terry, and apparently he likes her back, because he invites her on a date. While she's babysitting for Georgie, Kristy finds a school ID with Tasha Hoyt's picture on it but a different name, but doesn't know why it might be there. 

The club has a special Saturday morning get-together (at which Claudia is wearing tie-dyed pajamas) and Kristy is kind of a cow to Stacey.  She's worried that news might get out to their clients that one of them passed a fake bill, and it would be bad for business. I don't know why I even like Kristy, because she is really kind of a bitch to most of her friends a lot of the time. The club decides that they will try to solve the counterfeiting mystery, to clear Stacey's name.


At school on Monday, the girls use lunchtime to go to the library and research counterfeiting. While they are there, they see Alan Gray and a couple of other boys standing by the dictionaries and snickering. Kristy rolls her eyes and says they're probably just looking up dirty words. This little detail is amusing to me.

After school, the club goes to the public library and also to the police station. The officer they speak with at the police station tells them to stay out of it and let the professionals catch the criminals. This is sound advice which naturally is ignored completely. 

Jessi babysits for Becca and Charlotte. Charlotte is still worried about Stacey so Jessi tells her about what the club is doing and Charlotte wants to help. I mean it's goddamn stupid enough that 11- and 13-year olds are trying to catch criminals, but dragging 8 year olds into it is not a quality I would be looking for in a babysitter.  Jessi, Charlotte, and Becca stake out copy machines around town because they think the counterfeiters may be making copies of money on copy machines in public places.  They see one of the teachers from the middle school using a copier and remember that Stacey had seen him the other day, which makes him a suspect. You know, because teachers have utterly zero reason to use a copy machine aside from being counterfeiters. It's not like they might need to copy anything for class, amirite?

Stacey goes on her date to the movies with Terry, and afterward, they go out to eat with Mary Anne and Logan. Stacey notices that Terry references living in at least half a dozen cities, and she thinks he might have said different middle names when introducing himself to her mother and then to Mary Anne. Who introduces themselves by their full name anyway is what I want to know. Then Mary Anne and Logan leave, and Stacey's ex-boyfriend comes in with his new girlfriend, which is awkward.

At the club meeting, Kristy says that she thinks the Hoyts are the counterfeiters because they've lived a lot of places and Georgie didn't want her to open a closet in their house when she sat for him. Everyone but Stacey is like "oh, maybe".

The girls follow their english teacher around school and spy on him because this book is stupid. And long.

Stacey babysits for Charlotte again and they go stake out copiers and then they leave and see a man running through a parking lot and he drops a bag that is filled with counterfeit money. For some ungodly fucking reason, Stacey decides that the person to call in this situation is not the cops, but her friends and Terry Hoyt. The kids all come and wait in the parking lot for the counterfeiter to come back for the money and then they take his photo to give to the police. Because that is a much better idea than calling the police in the first fucking place. At least Stacey has the brains to take Jessi up on her offer to take Charlotte to her house to play with Becca instead of staking out criminals.

Terry Hoyt tells Stacey that they don't need to take the photo of the bad guy to the cops. They can just take it to his dad. It turns out his dad is a Secret Service agent who moves from place to place investigating counterfeiters. The pictures help him catch the criminal, he lectures Stacey for getting involved in the first place (THANK you), then Stacey says goodbye to Terry (real name: David Hawthorne) and he kisses her and the Hoyts move away.

Good lord this book is fucking stupid. And boring. My score: 1/10.

LS #30, Karen's Kittens

This book starts out with Karen being bored on a rainy day. She's at her mom's house playing Go Fish with Andrew. Then there is the chapter where she tells us about her families. Then it is a weekend at her dad's house, and she has a really boring night there, too. I'm not just being an ass about it, either. Literally, in the book, Karen is complaining that she is bored and describing how there is nothing going on. I don't know who thought it would be a good hook to start a story with three boring chapters.

Finally, that Saturday morning, the interesting parts of the story start. Karen sees a grey tail going into the toolshed and goes to investigate. Look how long her hair is in this illustration. I think this may be the longest-haired Karen in any of the illustrations I've seen thus far. Also, she appears to have worn Charlie's shirt by accident, that thing is enormous. When Karen looks in the shed, she sees a grey tiger striped cat, which is apparently the only kind of cat in Stoneybrook, because don't Boo-Boo and Mary Anne's stupid kitten match this description? Watson tells her that the cat is going to have kittens and has probably chosen their toolshed to do it because it is a private space, or it was till Karen found it. Karen brings the cat some food and water. She states that she does not ask Boo-Boo before bringing some of his food to the other cat because he would probably say no. You know, because cats can talk.

Karen names the mama cat Growly, because it growls at her. I would make fun of her for picking crap names, but to be fair, she's just a little kid. My niece tried to name my cat Sharp Claws (although she was four, not seven.) Growly has five kittens in the toolshed. Karen thinks they are kind of ugly because she expected them to look like TV kittens. Watson explains that the kittens will get cuter after the first couple of weeks. Karen goes up to her room and uses her crayons to make birth announcements for the kittens to give out to her family and friends.

Here's the cover. Karen is playing with the kittens and again, her hair is really long.

Karen begs to keep one or all of the kittens, but both of her parents tell her no. Watson does tell her she can find homes for the kittens when they are old enough. This book (like a lot of the early LS books) has hardly any scenes at Karen's mom's house, and also skips over several weeks. The kittens are born, then the next time we read about them, they're a month old, then they're eight weeks old.

Karen, Hannie, and Melody play with the kittens in a featureless void. I don't like Melody. I wish Amanda had never moved away, because I'm sure she would have had something to say about the relative merits of free kittens vs. $500 Persian cats.

Karen's first idea to get homes for the kittens is to set up a table, put the kittens in a box, and make a sign that says "FREE KITTENS." Soon the yard is full of kids manhandling the kittens, but none of the kids can take a kitten home. Then when Karen wants the kittens put back in the box, one of them is missing. Karen throws everyone but Hannie and Melody out of her yard so they can find the kitten.

Karen's next idea is to take photos of the kittens in to her class and ask if anyone can have one. Natalie "Droopy Socks" Springer says she can have a cat, and chooses the one she wants. Karen promises to bring it over the next day. Mommy drives her over to Daddy's house so that Charlie can drive her to bring the kitten to Natalie, but when they get there, it turns out Natalie can't have a kitten after all. Her parents told her she could have a pet but they meant something like a turtle or guinea pig. Charlie drives Karen and the kitten back to Daddy's house where she explains what happened, then Charlie drives her back to her mom's house. It would probably have been more efficient for him to drop her off on the way from Natalie's, just saying.

Karen remembers that when Mommy and Seth wanted to sell their couch, they invited over several people who wanted to buy a couch, and sold it in one day. Why they knew multiple people who wanted to buy a couch I don't know. Maybe it was just a time of couch shortage in Stoneybrook and they were taking advantage. This anecdote makes me glad that I live in a time where I can sell my couch on Craigslist, no couch-sale party necessary.

Karen hands out invitations that basically say "Do you want a cat? Will your parents allow you to have a cat? Bring a parent to a kitten party and get a kitten!" Nancy's parents read the invitation and call Karen to ask her to set aside a kitten for Nancy as a surprise, because they can't come to the party but want her to have a cat. A bunch of people come to the party, and all of the rest of the kittens are adopted. One of them is adopted by Melody's family, because their cat died the year before and they had wanted to get a new cat. This is weird because in the regular series books, Melody's baby sister Skylar is terrified of cats. Karen goes over to Melody's house and Melody and her mom tell Karen that she can share the kitten and visit it whenever she is at her dad's. The kitten will never be mentioned again, either in the LS or the regular series.

Growly the cat runs away, and Watson tells Karen that she is a wild cat and needs to be free. I kind of wish that they had gotten Growly fixed because the next people whose toolshed she has kittens in may not be able to find homes for them. And yes, I understand that this is not really Watson's responsibility, but neither was providing for the kittens and finding them homes, and they did that.

Karen takes the final kitten to Nancy's house and Nancy is absolutely thrilled. She tells Karen that the kitten can be half Karen's. Karen tells us that having half a kitten at Nancy's and half a kitten at Melody's is perfect for a two-two. Gag-gag.

Foods eaten in this book: "a big plate of hamburgers and rolls and lots of gloppy stuff to put on them" (yes, it says exactly that in the book. Yes, it sounds gross. No, I don't know if the gloppy stuff was on the same plate with the hamburgers and rolls.), Fruity-Os, popcorn, pretzels, raisins, carrot sticks, juice, soda.

My score: 3.5/10

#74, Kristy and the Copycat

It is the best time of the year, by which obviously I mean Opening Week for the MLB season.  Go Rockies! It is a week where you don't even care if your team sucks, and you find yourself watching parts of games between teams you'd never watch otherwise. Marlins-Nationals? Orioles-Rays? Cubs-Pirates? Hell, why not, baseball is back and I'm going to get my fill! Also, with Twitter and streaming video, it's easier than ever before to catch highlights and know which games are worth looking at for at least an inning or two.

Anyway, I knew that I needed a softball book for this time of year, even though the Krushers are the stupidest thing in the Baby-Sitters Club series.* Seriously, the only thing dumber than the Krushers is the Bashers. The Krushers are kids who are too little or sucky for Little League, right? Including a two year old, because that's a thing that would happen. And they rarely beat the Bashers because the Bashers are older and better, right? Well, then, why the hell aren't the Bashers in Little League? And who did they play before Kristy made her team to face them? And then later when they make the Krashers which is the best players on the Krushers and Bashers and they travel to other towns, why aren't THOSE kids in Little League? But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, I suppose.

This book starts out with Kristy riding home on the school bus thinking about how she's felt a little blah lately. She describes her family, of course. She says that her parents divorced when she was eight years old, which is wrong. She was six.

Chapter two, club meeting, and Claudia is wearing an outfit:

Today she was into big: a big yellow shirt with red X-shaped buttons, enormously baggy white pants, and big red Doc Martens double-laced with black and yellow shoelaces. Her long straight black hair was pulled up on top of her head with more black and yellow shoelaces braided together. Her earrings said "stop" and "go"--"stop" in her left ear and "go" in her right.

It's been a while since I recreated one of these in Neopets form for you, so here you go. I think I got the stop and go backwards though.

Kristy leads the Krushers through a practice and decides that her blah feeling is because she misses actually playing the game. Her friends suggest she try out for the SMS softball team, but Kristy doesn't think she has time. Her life is too busy with school, sitting, and coaching. She doesn't want to disappoint the Krushers by giving up on them. Stacey and Claudia offer to take over the Krushers if Kristy makes the SMS team, so Kristy goes to tryouts.

Kristy's heard that the softball coach is very tough, and she's nervous about trying out, especially when she sees that the other girls trying out are really talented, especially the ones who were on last year's team. She describes one girl catching a ball over her shoulder with her bare left hand, then casually sauntering back to her position at shortstop.

OH MY GOD NO. OK. NO. THERE ARE NO LEFT-HANDED THROWING SHORTSTOPS. THIS IS NOT A THING THAT HAPPENS. WHY DO THESE BOOKS DO THIS TO ME, WHY.

Kristy makes a solid defensive grab and the coach praises her for doing a good job. The tryouts last a long time, and Kristy is exhausted by the end of it. She overhears some of the girls from the previous year's team saying something about an initiation, and she finds it hard to believe that sports teams still do initiations in 1994, when this book was published. That night at dinner, Sam and Charlie also both tease her about having to do an initiation if she makes the team.

Kristy makes the team, one of four new members. The others are named Tonya, Dilys, and Bea. As usual, the names feel a bit anachronistic for 1994. Dilys is the only sixth grader on the team. Bea is in eighth grade and I think Tonya is in seventh. Kristy, Bea, Dilys, and Tonya are approached by two team members named Marcia and Tallie, who tell them they must spray paint graffiti on an old shed as an initiation. Kristy protests, and Marcia and Tallie threaten that they will make the new players look bad in practice if they don't comply.

Kristy and Dilys both say they won't spray paint the shed, but after a few practices where they look bad, they change their mind and decide they will meet up with Tonya and Bea and they will all paint the shed. They do this on a Friday night. After they paint some graffiti, Tonya and Bea smoke cigarettes. Kristy, naturally, scolds them for smoking and stomps off.

The next morning Kristy hears a report on the radio that the shed they vandalized has burned down and a man is in the hospital after a failed attempt at putting out the fire. She panics because she is just certain that the shed burning down is somehow their fault, like, maybe Tonya and Bea's burnt matches ignited the spray paint and they didn't notice. Kristy freaks out and makes the other three come to the mansion for an emergency meeting. Tonya and Bea are like "calm down" but Dilys is pretty freaked out too. Then Tallie calls to say that if they tell, the team will say they are lying and there was no initiation.

The boys' baseball team ends up getting blamed for the fire, and after a bunch of boring angst, Kristy decides she's going to tell that it was really her. But the morning that she was going to go confess, it comes out that some high school kids burned the shed because they wanted to put out the fire and be heroes.

So, since the high schoolers have confessed, Kristy decides not to tell on herself and her teammates for vandalizing the shed, and also decides that she will stay on the softball team. Maybe she'll change it from within, she thinks. Maybe she'll make it so that next year, there's no initiation. Which seems silly, because a.) Kristy still isn't that tight with the other girls on the team, because she's kind of a goody two-shoes and b.) assuming she makes a team, she'll be on the high school team next year, not the middle school team, so how will she stop anything?

Meanwhile, Stacey and Claudia are attempting to coach the Krushers. First, at a meeting, Kristy tries to explain softball to them. First they are talking about throwing strikes and full counts and Kristy says that strategy is too advanced for the Krushers and suggests they do simple drills instead. She starts to describe a drill and Stacey and Claudia are both suddenly stupid and do not understand what a drill is, even though they were using baseball terms three paragraphs prior. At Stacey and Claudia's first practice, Claudia wears the following:

Claudia was wearing a red satin baseball cap, purple sweatpants that were cut off just below the knees, purple high-tops with neon pink laces, red-and-white-striped socks, and a red and pink tie-dyed crop top shirt.

That sounds hideous.

Stacey and Claudia tell the kids to do some drills, then have a short practice game. Claudia acts as the umpire and hears "a half dozen bewildering phrases, including 'infield fly rule', 'tagging up', and 'full count.'" This is stupid and makes no sense, because a.) full count is one of the phrases Stacey and Claudia used before Kristy even explained softball to them and b.) if throwing strikes is too advanced of strategy for the Krushers, then what the hell are they doing talking about the rest of this shit? I am just going to go ahead and assume it's Gabbie Perkins the wonder-two-year-old who is explaining the infield fly rule to the others.

Then Claudia and Stacey run one other practice and it goes a bit better, except for Karen Brewer following them around trying to talk about makeup and boyfriends while they coach. The title of this book, Kristy's Copycat, refers to Karen trying to act more grown up and talk to the BSC about boyfriends and makeup, even though that's only like one chapter plus three pages of the book. Still, I suppose Kristy's Copycat is a catchier title than, say, Kristy Might Have Burned Down a Shed.

My score: 4/10.

*except for that stupid book where Karen meets the president of the United States

LS #120, Karen's Easter Parade

First of all, sorry about the inside scans of this book. For some reason they were printed very lightly in the book and the lines were so faint that my scanner had a hard time picking them up.

Karen is excited because her cousin Diana is coming to visit for just over a week leading up to Easter. Karen and Diana had met once before and had a magical adventure at their family reunion in Maine. Diana is coming on the train by herself, and the rest of her family will arrive in a week's time.


Karen finds out that the town will be holding an Easter Parade on Easter Sunday. She and her friends are really excited because they hear "parade" and think "floats and candy." Karen also thinks there will be a bonnet decorating contest with prizes. As it turns out, the Easter Parade is more of a social event where people dress up in their finery and chat with each other, but I can't fault Karen for thinking the other thing, because I had never heard of an Easter Parade either and I'm in my 30s. I think it might be another regional thing like Mischief Night. I'm getting ahead of myself, though, because Karen doesn't find out what the parade is really about till almost the end of the book.

Diana arrives on the train with her chaperone, and rushes to give Karen a hug. Karen thinks everything will be hunky dory, but Diana is kind of an asshole to Karen later. They go for a bike ride and Karen asks Diana if she's homesick. Diana yells at her and rides off. The next day, they are decorating Easter eggs, a week early, because they are going to donate the decorated eggs to the community egg hunt. Karen explains that the hunt will be held on Tuesday morning so as not to conflict with the Easter Parade, which is super ideal for working parents, right? Saturday morning apparently was right out.

The kids start decorating eggs. Andrew and Karen are using standard dye methods, but Diana is coloring hers with crayons and watercolor markers prior to dipping them in the dye. She is being a total asshole about it too, loudly bragging that her eggs look soooo much better than Karen and Andrew's baby eggs. Karen is upset, because she doesn't remember Diana being a huge asshole before.

That night, things seem fine with Diana again, and she and Karen talk and giggle until Mommy comes in to tell them to shut up. Karen is all ready to go to sleep, but Diana calls her a baby and gets Karen to keep talking until Mommy comes in again and yells at them. Then the next morning, the nanny wants the kids to help her with chores, and Diana is kind of an ass about that, too, but I blame her less for that, because who wants to clean out a rat cage when you're on vacation?

Diana is irritated at the egg hunt because the kids younger than 5 get a head start, and she doesn't win. She tries to talk Karen into combining their baskets so they can get a prize, but Karen won't do it because that would make them beat Andrew and she is happy for him that he got a prize. They run into Sam after the egg hunt and he tells them that he'll be dressed up as the Easter Bunny at the parade. For some kind of charity. So, if they're going to have a costumed Easter Bunny, why wouldn't the kids think it was the other kind of parade, right. Then Sam asks if the girls are going to wear their best Easter bonnets and for some reason Karen thinks this means there is a bonnet decorating contest.

Diana gets really, really into the whole idea of decorating hats. They go to the mall and the nanny is supposed to buy some stuff for the family party, but Diana drags them from store to store looking for plain straw hats and fake flowers and shit. Then the nanny is pissy because they don't have time to get the other shit and will have to come back. Which is stupid, because she's the adult in this situation, and let herself get bossed around by an eight-year old. Great nannying, there.

They go over to Nancy's house, and Diana is flat-out rude to Karen's friends and calls them babies. Hannie and Nancy laugh at Karen and Diana for still thinking it's a parade with floats and explain what it really is, and Diana yells at them that she and Karen are still going to win the bonnet contest that Karen made up.

Karen and Diana decorate their stupid hats. Karen is sad because Diana is still being kind of an ass, and she shoplifted gum from the dollar store. Diana thinks that they should add framed pictures to their stupid hats, and Karen says they don't have any money for frames, and Diana suggests they could just steal them. Karen calls Kristy and Kristy agrees to bike ride to the store with them. While they are at the store, Karen and Diana get in a big fight because Karen threatens to tattle on Diana if she steals picture frames. To put on their hats. Because framed pictures. On hats. Diana yells that Karen is a baby and is ruining her whole vacation.

They go to the mall to see Easter Bunny Sam. Andrew wants to get his picture taken with the Easter Bunny even though he knows it's just Sam in a suit. Some older boys are heckling the young kids for getting their pictures taken with the Easter Bunny. Diana goes up to them and tells them off for teasing Andrew, and the boys run off. Then Sam goes on break, and the kids chat with him and he tells Karen that there is no bonnet decorating contest. You would think this is the sort of thing adults might check before they let an 8 year old drag them to six stores and spend $50 on tacky shit to glue to hats.

The day before Easter, Diana's parents and little brother arrive. Last time, Kelsey was Diana's 4-year-old sister, one of the most glaring inconsistencies in the series. On Easter Sunday, Karen wakes up and finds a note from Diana apologizing for being an asshole for an entire week and explaining that she did it because she was embarrassed to have a chaperone on the train and didn't want Karen to think she was a baby, so instead she just called Karen and Andrew and Karen's friends babies. It's a really stupid resolution to the conflict because Karen is just like "oh, okay. we're besties again."

Later in the day, they go downtown and run into Karen's friends again. Diana apologizes for being rude to Hannie and Nancy. (No, I don't know why Karen's Jewish friend is at the Easter Parade, all dressed up.) Nancy and Hannie agree to give Diana another chance. Karen says that they have given her a million second chances. This is true. Again, if I were Nancy or Hannie's parents, I would encourage them to find other friends.

Here's the cover. Karen is walking with Sam in a bunny costume, although Sam doesn't look as tall as you'd think, considering that he's 15 and Karen's 7. Karen has pulled her hair into a side ponytail for this special occasion. Her bonnet is not nearly as tacky as you would expect from reading the book. Maybe they removed all the fake flowers and fruit when they found out there wasn't a contest.

Foods eaten in this book: spaghetti, lemonade, fruit roll-ups, marshmallow bunnies, orange juice, cereal, chocolate bunnies, eggs goldenrod.

Overall, this book is pretty stupid. My score: 3/10.

#55, Jessi's Gold Medal

Good job giving away the ending, title of the book!

It's getting to be summer time, and Jessi is supervising her younger siblings playing in the sprinkler. Becca is wearing a bathing suit with wild patterns all over it, and Jessi reassures us that it is not a fancy designer suit, but a plain white suit that Becca decorated with Magic Markers. This really doesn't relate to anything else in the book but it's really strange to me that one would assume a plain colored suit would be necessarily less expensive than some "designer" version that used multiple colors.

Jessi asks her parents if they can get a pool, which gets a hell no, but they do say they'll buy a family membership to the Stoneybrook pool complex.

Jessi goes to a club meeting and we get a Claudia outfit description:

At that meeting, for example, she was wearing these sharply creased, pastel green, cuffed shorts; a wild Hawaiian shirt tied at her waist, with vibrant colors that perfectly picked up the green; and sandals with crisscrossing ankle straps to her knees. Her hair was swept to one side and held in place with a long, fake-flowered barrette that looked like a Hawaiian lei.

 In gym class, the teacher announces that they will be doing a swimming unit, combined with the boys' class. I don't know why they even bother having separate gym classes (my schools never did) considering that they are always combining them. There's this unit for Jessi's class, the volleyball and archery units in Mallory Hates Boys (and Gym), the class that Kristy has to co-teach with Cary in Kristy in Charge, and probably more that I'm forgetting.

Mallory is mortified that she has shown up to the pool with the "ugliest, babiest bathing suit in the world!" Jessi looks at it and agrees that "It was an out-of-style, faded, one-piece suit with a ruffled skirt." Mallory tries to stand behind Jessi so that none of the boys can see her, which of course draws even more attention to her. I am just wondering why Mallory has chosen the old, faded bathing suit. The Pikes go to Sea City every summer, right? They have bathing suits. I looked up the suit Mallory wore in #34, and it was a two piece with a blue bottom and a striped tank top. That sounds perfectly reasonable, and clearly the Pikes don't seem to object to buying bathing suits for all of their kids. Then in #39, Poor Mallory, when she's babysitting the Delaneys and wearing her bathing suit, she doesn't describe it all, which leads me to believe that it's not embarrassing, because Mallory would be sure to mention if she hated her suit. Even if Mallory has had a little growth spurt and outgrown her old tankini in the intervening books, where would she have gotten the old, faded one-piece with the ruffle? She's the oldest child in her family. Did her mom take her to a thrift store and buy the suit? Did she just dig out something from the way back of her drawer, or even her mother's drawer? WHY? The Pikes are weird. And gross.

After class, the teacher meets with Jessi to ask if she wants to switch from regular gym into synchronized swimming. Jessi's not sure about it because she's not a very strong swimmer but the coach really likes her form. Jessi is paired up with a girl named Elise to be her pairs partner. Elise is Jessi's opposite; a strong swimmer (she's on the swim team) with less-than-stellar form. Then the coach announces that the team will be doing a demonstration and a pairs competition at the upcoming SMS Sports Festival.

Here's the cover, which shows Jessi and Elise competing at the end of the book. They have gotten matching bathing suits for the competition, but don't worry, as you can see they're a solid color and not some fancy designer swimwear. Jessi and Elise feel like they are way behind the rest of the class, because Jessi is completely new to synchro and she and Elise just got partnered up. The two decide that they will practice together outside of class, after school and on weekends when they don't have other obligations.

The rest of the club will also be participating in the Sports Festival, except for Mary Anne, who hates sports. I have never really thought of any of the club members aside from Kristy as being particularly athletic but they all plan to enter an event or two just for fun. Kristy, by the way, is going to be involved in a special one-on-one exhibition against Alan Gray. The winner gets a week of "personal service time" from the loser.

The subplot in this book is that they decide to hold a mini-Olympics for their charges. Naturally, they are going to hold it in Mary Anne and Dawn's backyard, where they hold almost every activity they do. Kristy babysits at her house and a bunch of neighbor kids come over, so she is in charge of ten kids. Even though the club rule is that two sitters are needed for more than four children. Andrew is trying really hard to do everything but he sucks at it all because he's four, and he ends up in tears. Poor Andrew. Naturally all the kids in Stoneybrook are totally into the idea of the mini-Olympics, except for Charlotte and Becca. Stacey inadvertently hurts Charlotte's feelings by trying to push her to participate. Claudia and Mallory babysit for all of Mallory's siblings, who are all running around practicing to enter various events. Eight more neighborhood kids show up, too, which leaves an eleven and thirteen-year old to supervise fifteen children. Nobody seems to have a problem with that. Mallory tries the potato sack race and sprains her ankle. (The people of Stoneybrook seem to have weak ankles. There's a sprain like every third book.) Mallory tries to pretend that she is sad she'll miss the Sports Festival, but eventually admits she hurt herself on purpose to get out of it because she only signed up so her friends wouldn't think she was a baby.

The day of the SMS festival arrives. Jessi's really nervous about her routine, but her mother reassures her that all that matters is that she does her best, and they will be proud of her no matter what. Jessi feels a lot better and even enjoys watching some of the other events. Kristy gets second in the hundred-yard dash, Dawn enters the javelin throw, and Claudia enters a backwards race. Two Claudia outfits in one book? We are all winners today!

Take Claudia. She was wearing electric-pink track shorts with a turquoise racing stripe, a matching top with cut-off sleeves, brand-new high top track shoes with no socks, and floral-print suspenders! Her hair was pulled up on top of her head and held in place with a silver barrette in the shape of the Olympic symbol. If it had been an athletic-wear fashion show, she would have won.

 Kristy wins her obstacle course race against Alan Gray, and is kind of a bitch to him about the week of "personal service." I am unsurprised by this. Then it is time for Jessi's event. She and Elise do their best, and when prizes are announced, they have won. Again, thanks for giving that away, title of the book.

Elise and Jessi both decide to quit synchronized swimming. Jessi because it interfered with her ballet, and Elise because it gave her less time to devote to the swim team, which was her true love. This isn't really surprising. Jessi already has a single characteristic (loves ballet) to mention in the chapter 2s. Unfortunately, but again not unexpectedly, Elise and Jessi don't stay friends after this book and she is never heard from again.

The club holds the mini-Olympics for the kids and naturally it is a huge success. There are like 30 kids, plus parents milling around, plus all the club members, plus Elise and Alan Gray, all in Mary Anne and Dawn's backyard. Aside from giving up their yard for the day, I imagine that Richard and Sharon have a constant stream of people in and out needing to use their bathroom. That is what they get for having the biggest and most centrally located yard, I guess. Andrew enters almost every event but doesn't win any, and the club gives him the Most Determined award.

Overall, this book is just not that interesting to me. I have a hard time getting invested in Elise because she never shows up again, and reading about all the sports and the kids practicing various sports is not interesting either. I wish there were more scenes with Jessi at home with her family, because I think I've mentioned before that the Ramsey family is one of my favorites. My score: 6/10.