LS #58, Karen's Ski Trip

This book starts with Watson announcing that since the children are off of school during the upcoming winter break, the family is going to go on a trip to Shadow Lake. Unlike their usual summer jaunts, this one will be a winter trip. There will be skiing, snowboarding, ice skating, and fun. Ah, Shadow Lake. Home of the dorm-style cabin where the BSC can go on trips and have vacation romances. Oddly enough, Watson does not invite the whole world on this trip. It's limited to just the family. Karen is really excited. She's never tried skiing before and she's sure she's going to be fantastic at it. Before she leaves on her trip, Karen invites Hannie and Nancy over. They play Lovely Ladies and discuss the upcoming vacation, and Karen starts packing her stuff.

Hannie has a completely different face than she normally does in the illustrations. Karen, on the other hand, is rocking a side ponytail and looking much like she always does. Karen tells Hannie and Nancy that she is sure she'll be great at skiing, and that Andrew wants to try too but he's probably going to suck at it.

When the family arrives at Shadow Lake, everyone goes to the lodge. Karen notices that there is a Winter Carnival and a Valentine's Dance, both scheduled for the last day of the family's vacation. Everyone rents skis except for Sam, who tries snowboarding instead, and Nannie and Emily, who just want to hang out in the lodge, because what is more fun than trying to keep a two year old entertained in a ski lodge while she knows that her older siblings are playing outside and having fun? Not much, that's what!

After all the bragging Karen was doing about how she was going to be a natural on the slopes, it turns out to be quite the opposite. Karen is terrible and can't get the hang of skiing, but Andrew is a natural. After falling down a whole bunch, Karen stomps back into the lodge, returns her skis, and vows never to ski again.

Not skiing makes being on a ski trip a little boring for Karen, but the next day, she meets a boy named Keegan who is vacationing with his parents. Keegan doesn't really care for skiing, and he and Karen make friends and spend the day together. Karen finds out that Keegan likes ice skating, and she and Keegan decide that they will enter the skating contest and the snow sculpture contest at the Winter Carnival.

Karen has a dream that she is a famous Olympic ice skating champion. I know I put a ton of images in this post, but if you only enlarge one, it should be this one. Then you have to check out the faces of the judges. Look at the judge just to the left of Karen's hair. Did you ever see such a happy judge? She's given Karen an 11. I don't know why this picture cracks me up so much, but it does.

The next day, Watson announces that the whole family is going to spend the day together. They all help make breakfast, and then have a breakfast picnic on the cabin floor. They go snowmobiling, Sam shows off some of his snowboarding moves, they build a whole family of snowmen, eat lunch at the lodge, go ice skating, and then go back and make dinner together at the cabin. It is kind of nice to read about the whole family spending time together, because even though it's a family vacation, most of the family members are barely mentioned in this book. They're all just skiing or watching Emily or otherwise out of the picture.

On Saturday, the day of the Winter Carnival, Karen and Keegan meet up at the lodge. They're scoping out the best spot for their sculpture competition when there is a big commotion. Andrew fell while skiing and hurt himself badly. Karen and Keegan quickly rent skis and ride up so that Karen can hold Andrew's hand while he waits for medical attention. Does it really take that long for a kid to get rescued from a fall on the bunny hill? Karen didn't even get the skis right when Andrew fell, she heard people discussing the accident before  she rushed to his side. After Andrew is whisked away, Karen realizes she is up on the mountain with no choice but to ski down. Luckily, Keegan is able to teach her in two minutes what her paid skiing instructor couldn't, so she and Keegan slowly ski their way down the mountain, and Karen gets over her fear of skiing.

Karen and Keegan compete together in the ice skating competition. Karen does not have a fancy outfit like in her dream, so she has to wear jeans and a sweater. Keegan appears to be wearing a fetching sweater dress with leggings. They do not win the skating competition, which actually kind of surprised me but I'm glad they didn't.

It turns out that Andrew has twisted his knee badly and will have to use crutches for a while, so Karen and Keegan say that he can help them with their snow sculpture. They get Honorable Mention in the contest. Karen thinks it's just because the judges feel badly for Andrew because he got hurt. The winner of the snow sculpture competition makes a beautiful snow angel. Apparently this is what you should make if you ever enter one of these competitions, because the winner of the snow sculpting in Karen's Sleigh Ride also made a snow angel.

That night is the Valentine's Dance. Keegan asks Karen if she will be his date at the dance. It is a little odd when 11- and 13-year olds have romances at Shadow Lake but it is downright ridiculous when 7-year olds do. I may be a little biased here because I hate how young children are pushed to "date" or "be boyfriend and girlfriend". I get especially irritated when people post pictures of infants with their friend's same aged baby and announce that the two are betrothed. Still, Karen's parents see nothing wrong with her having a date to the dance, so I guess it's really none of my business. Karen and Keegan mostly stand around talking, but he does ask her to dance and they do. At least they don't kiss.

Foods eaten in this book: lasagna, salad, green beans, bread, melted cheese on crackers, fresh squeezed lemonade, chocolate milkshake, hot chocolate, bacon, eggs, pancakes, waffles, cereal, juice, coffee, pretzels, toast, soup, spaghetti, rolls, toasted marshmallows, punch, jelly beans, chocolate kisses.

Overall, this book is not one of the strongest in the series. It's pretty forgettable, and nothing in it is ever referenced again (Andrew's knee has healed before the next book.) My score: 6/10, and that's mostly for the picture of the happy judge giving Karen an 11.

LS #80, Karen's Christmas Tree

I was going to do the book where Karen meets the President of the United States. I even got it out and read it to prep. But it was just far too stupid to even write words about, so I picked this book as a substitute.

The book starts out with Karen, Hannie, and Nancy having a Lovely Ladies tea party at Karen's house. Andrew runs in to show them his picture of Santa. Karen says that all she sees are scribbles. Do four year olds normally still just scribble? My niece was drawing recognizable people when she was 3. Maybe Karen is just being mean about Andrew's picture because she's a brat.

Karen's family decides that they'll each make an ornament for their tree this year. While they are downtown buying craft supplies, Karen goes in the toy store, where they have a wish tree. She asks the clerk about it and later convinces Hannie and Nancy that the three of them should grant a wish for an underprivileged child. They choose a little boy who wants a fire truck. The three of them plan to do chores for their parents and raise money to buy the toy. It's pretty sweet actually.

Karen has some neighbors, the Druckers, who show up in the books from time to time. In this book, the Druckers are sad because their blue spruce tree died over the summer. Then Mrs. Drucker breaks her hip. Karen is really worried about Mrs. Drucker and her broken hip. She talks to Nancy and the two of them decide to try and raise money from the neighbors to replace the spruce tree.

Nancy is given tickets to Annie as a gift. She can choose one friend to take. When Karen hears what day it is, she mentions she thinks she is busy that day, so Nancy invites Hannie. When Karen finds out that Hannie got the invite, she flips the fuck out and is a total cow to her friends. Nancy and Hannie both look really surprised that Karen is being an asshole, which leads me to suspect that they've never read one of these books. Karen is sure the fight will be over soon but Hannie and Nancy play together at recess and leave Karen out. Good for Hannie and Nancy, I say. Karen is pretty much a bully and a spoiled brat, and if I were Nancy's or Hannie's mother, I would encourage her to make other friends. Then when Karen gets home from school, she sits alone in her room waiting for her friends to call her and apologize. For what, I don't know.

Here's Karen looking sad because Hannie and Nancy are playing together and Karen is stuck playing with droopy socks Natalie. Natalie is not in the picture, maybe she is bent over pulling up her socks just to the left of the margin.

At school, the kids have to write a short paper about their holiday wish. Karen wishes that her fight with her friends was over. Ms. Colman asks her to collect the papers and she sees that Hannie and Nancy had the same wish. That afternoon, she and Nancy go collect money from the neighbors for the spruce tree. Afterward, Karen apologizes to Nancy and they call Hannie and Karen apologizes to her too. The fight is over. Nancy decides to take Grandma B. to the play instead of choosing between her friends. The girls pick out a fire truck at the store and pay for it with their own money.

Karen and Nancy get to go pick out a new spruce tree for the Druckers. The day Mrs. Drucker comes home from the hospital, the neighbors set the tree up in their yard and  decorate it. The Druckers are very pleased. This is the scene depicted on the cover, except that Hannie isn't there in the text.

At the end of the book, Karen's family hangs their handmade ornaments on the tree. Andrew made a paper reindeer. Karen made a star out of clay. Seth carved a beautiful wooden soldier. Mommy made a Santa out of pipe cleaners and foil. This always makes me laugh a little because a pipe cleaner Santa seems way more like something a child would make than an adult.

Foods eaten in this book: Pizza, blueberry pancakes, spaghetti and meatballs, salad, melted cheese on toast, warm apple cider, chicken soup.

There's a lot going on in this book, so at times it seems a bit disjointed, but overall it's one of my favorite Little Sister holiday books. My score: 8/10.

M #28, Abby and the Mystery Baby

Wow, it's been a long time since I did a mystery. And I'd only read this one once prior to this writeup, so it was almost like reading a new BSC book.

The book starts out with Abby running home from school instead of taking the bus. And while she runs, she thinks about the plot of every BSC book she's had so far, and she thinks about her own personality and about her family, so that by the end of the chapter, we are bored acquainted with Abby. When Abby arrives at her house, she sees a car seat "the kind people use for babies" on her front step and is intrigued. Why would someone leave a car seat on her porch? Then she gets closer and realizes that someone left a baby, and the car seat is just one of its accessories. Abby takes the baby inside and changes its diaper, thus discovering that the baby is a boy. Abby's mother isn't home yet, but she's left a note that she'll be back early, so Abby calls Kristy, who comes over with Nannie. Nannie holds the baby and coos over it, while Kristy asks if there was a note or any ID. When Abby says there wasn't, Kristy calls the cops. The cops arrive at around the same time Abby's mother does. The officer who arrives is Sargent Johnson, who is the main police officer in the mystery books. He asks everyone some questions, then just leaves them with the mystery baby. Abby's mother seems interested in the blanket the baby was wrapped in, but Abby assures her that although the blanket is thin, the baby was not cold. He couldn't have been out there long before Abby found him.

Abby and Kristy would love to stay and chat, but it's Monday and they have a club meeting to get to. Abby describes her friends to us and tells us what each of them would do if they found a baby on their doorstep. Surprise surprise, they would each do one thing that corresponds with their sole personality trait. Mary Anne would knit for it, Claudia would draw it a picture, Jessi would measure its feet for ballet slippers, etc. Speaking of Claudia,

She was wearing a typical Claudia outfit: a funky red-flannel minidress layered with a black-and-white checked thrift-shop man's vest, black tights, and red high-tops. Her hair was in this sort of sideways ponytail (that's the only way I can describe it), held by a red scrunchie.

Sideways ponytails are, as you know, a gingundoly cool way to wear your hair.

Abby and Kristy tell the club about the baby and they are all excited and intrigued. Then Mallory proposes an idea for a subplot: they shall declare the month of February to be BSC Writing Month, get the kids they sit for to write poetry, and then cap it off with a poetry slam. I swear I am not making this up. I did not remember this subplot at all. Actually the only thing I remembered about this book from my first reading was whose baby it is.

Abby gets home and finds that the baby is going to be staying with them. She is confused, wondering why social services wouldn't have been involved, but her mother tells her that the authorities decided that their house was the best place for the baby for now. This is a totally logical decision considering Abby spends half of the pages of all of her books bitching that she's constantly home alone. They decide to call the baby Eli. The next morning, Abby gets up and feeds the baby and snuggles him and wants to skip school to stay with him but her mom says no, so Abby goes to school and spends the whole day daydreaming about Eli, because she's super excited.

That afternoon, Abby and Anna are there with the baby and pretty much the whole neighborhood comes over. Mary Anne comes with the Papadakis kids who she is babysitting. Kristy brings David Michael over. Shannon and Maria Kilbourne show up, as do Bill and Melody Korman. The kids all crowd around Eli, arguing over who should get to hold him. Bill calls the baby a "doink" and the book makes it sound like it's just nonsense baby talk, but that is a weird word for a nine-year old boy to call a baby, isn't it? I have never in my life heard someone look at a baby and say "What a little doink!" Eli doesn't appreciate all the attention and screams his little baby head off, so Mary Anne takes the kids in the kitchen to start working on their writing projects and sends them out one at a time to meet with Eli. This works much better.

That night, a cop and a social worker show up to check on Eli, who is asleep on the couch. Abby is worried that they'll judge her for letting the baby sleep on the couch, but he fell asleep there and she didn't want to move him, but it's okay because she surrounded him with pillows so he'd be safe. What can she say, it happens. The cop and social worker want to talk to Abby's mother in private. Probably about the baby. Abby wants to eavesdrop but is stopped by Anna, who is kind of a killjoy.

Then a nanny shows up to interview for a job, because Abby's mom had called an agency and apparently the agency and the prospective hire don't feel like bothering with such petty things as scheduling interviews. So the nanny comes at like 9 pm, with her overnight bag just in case she gets hired that very second, I guess. Abby thinks the nanny is weird but she does not make these decisions, so her mom hires the nanny. She says that they only need her during the day while the girls are in school. I guess she assumes that Abby and Anna would love to give up their extracurriculars and social lives to watch Eli every single day until 7 or so when she gets home from work.

Mallory and Jessi sit for the gross Pikes and force them to write for Writing Month. I feel bad for calling them gross before I even read the chapter, but then I start reading and on the second page of the chapter Byron, the fatty triplet, composes a poem that goes "Snot is gluey and snot is green, snot is the coolest thing I've ever seen." Then Jordan has a poem about puking. I feel vindicated. The other kids are working together to compose a story, each taking turns to write a couple of sentences. Nicky is making fun of Claire, because her sentence doesn't make sense in the story, because she's only five and doesn't know how to write anything else. Mallory and Jessi tell Claire that instead of working with the other kids, she can just draw pictures. Because I guess it would ruin everything if Claire just said her sentences aloud and someone else wrote them down? Fortunately, the chapter draws to a close without any more of the Pikes being gross, and thank goodness they don't eat anything.

Abby's mom has been acting unusual. Abby thinks she knows more than she's saying. The rest of the club suspect other people of being involved in the Eli mystery. Mal and Jessi suspect a woman from their writing group. Kristy suspects Erin the nanny. It's really kind of stupid, because the book has made it obvious that Abby and Anna's mom probably knows where the baby came from and just doesn't want to tell Abby because that would make the book really short she doesn't think Abby needs to know.

Claudia babysits the Arnold twins, who are fighting with each other and bored, so she invites Becca and Charlotte over. Stacey comes too, since she is babysitting Charlotte. They are having trouble with their writing projects, so Claudia tells them they should all write a play together. They decide to write a play about photosynthesis, because mullet-twin loves science. The kids in these damn books write more plays than anyone ever. Most kids I know would write one page, realize that an entire page is only ten seconds of stage time, and go watch TV.

Abby's mom has still been acting mysterious. On a Sunday afternoon, she makes some phone calls, then leaves abruptly. Abby and Anna go snoop in her study. They find a piece of paper with "Miriam" written on it, which is the name of  their estranged aunt. They go through some really old photo albums and find a picture with Miriam in it. She is holding the same blanket that Eli was wrapped in when he arrived on their doorstep. Abby hits redial on the phone and discovers the number her mom called is a hospital in New York City. She decides to go to NYC and confront her mom and find out the whole story behind baby Eli.

She finds her mom in a hospital room with Miriam, who has been very ill due to complications of diabetes. It is confirmed that Miriam is in fact the baby's mother, although his name is Daniel, not Eli. Abby's mom gives a strange explanation of why she didn't want to tell Abby and Anna that the baby was their cousin. Miriam recovers and moves with Daniel to Florida. Abby does not get in trouble for impulsively going to New York City alone and without permission.

The club holds their poetry slam at the public library. The gross Pike triplets perform a rap about snot and puke. The winners of the writing competition are the four girls who wrote the play about photosynthesis. It is probably the most boring subplot of any BSC mystery ever.

Overall, the book was readable, but there wasn't much mystery for it being a mystery. Abby's mom just didn't want to tell them where the baby came from. It's not one I'll look forward to rereading. My score: 4/10.

#81, Kristy and Mr. Mom

This book starts out with Kristy at home on a snowy Saturday. I believe this Saturday is probably in early January, but if that's the case the timeline in this book does not exactly work out. It could also be in mid-late December, but Christmas is never mentioned, and the kids are always going to school, so I don't think so. It does have to be in one of those months because Karen and Andrew are with their mother and arrive at the Big House in February. (Karen and Andrew spend alternating months with each parent but the months rotate year to year so they spend December and January with the same parent.)

Kristy's family is busy with wacky shenanigans so that we will all know that Kristy's family is big and difficult to keep track of. Watson and Charlie are trying to get the car unstuck from a patch of ice. Emily is watching TV and eating dry Cocoa Puffs out of a bowl. Nannie is dusting the downstairs and dancing. David Michael is practicing his part in a community theater production. He's into acting in a lot of the Little Sister books but this is one of the few times it's mentioned in the regular series. The book tells us that he got bitten by the acting bug after being a Winkie in his school's production of (what else?) The Wizard of Oz.

At Monday's club meeting, Kristy tells us that Dawn's mother "is pretty casual (some people might even call her a bit of an absent-minded slob). She'll put the wrench in the refrigerator and the milk in the tool box." I don't know how Sharon's family manages to store any food with all the weird stuff she allegedly stuffs into her refrigerator. Kristy also describes Claudia's current style:

This winter Claud's been into hats. She buys old hats in thrift stores and covers them in sequins, buttons, and really outrageous feathers. Usually she wears them with one of her super-trendy outfits, like a red long underwear shirt with tiny black-and-white polka dot suspenders, pinstripe trousers, and ruby sequined slippers.

 That is super-trendy indeed, if you live in Stoneybrook.

When Kristy gets home from the meeting, Watson is shoveling the walk. Kristy offers to finish up if he goes in and tosses a pizza in the oven. Watson agrees to this but then instead of holding up his half of the bargain and putting in a pizza, he has a heart attack on the front porch. Kristy calls 911, and Kristy's mom and Nannie ride to the hospital with Watson, leaving Kristy in charge of the kids. Kristy calls Watson's ex-wife to tell her what happened, and Lisa offers that she and Seth could come over and sit with her, but Kristy declines, which is probably a relief to Lisa because it would have to be kind of awkward to sit in her ex's house with his new wife's things in it. Kristy instead invites Shannon, Mary Anne, and Dawn over. This is the BSC, so instead of doing actual teenage things like sitting around worrying and getting more worked up, they get the kids ready for bed and pack school lunches for the next day. Dawn puts herself in charge of making the lunches and she makes a big plate of three different kinds of sandwiches so everyone will have a choice. This seems inefficient to me. It's not even like she just used different kinds of lunch meat. The choices are tuna, ham and cheese, or peanut butter and jelly. She also packs baggies of chips and an apple for each person and manages not to be judgmental about the relative healthfulness of potato chips. Nannie arrives home and says that Watson's heart attack was mild and he is expected to recover fully.

Kristy visits Watson in the hospital and is a little scared by all the machines he is hooked up to. Watson is in the hospital for about a week and is released that Sunday. The family has a welcome home party for him. That Tuesday, Kristy babysits for Karen and Andrew. The following weekend, they have a special family dinner and all the kids wear their nicest clothes. Watson announces that he is going to quit his job and stay home full time. This announcement takes everyone by surprise.

The next morning Watson is up early and makes breakfast for everyone while wearing a red striped apron and a white chef's hat. This is the scene pictured on the cover, except that David Michael is not wearing his full rooster costume in the text. Watson makes dinner every night that week except for Thursday. Nannie seems to be spending more time in her room. The next week, Watson takes Kristy to a BSC meeting and while she is at the meeting, he goes and buys a single pizza to feed 8 people, including two teenage boys, for dinner. When they get home Nannie has cooked pasta and is pissy about the pizza. Kristy suggests they can freeze the pizza and eat it the next night, but Emily and David Michael have their hearts set on pizza. If they're going to eat it the next night, why do they need to freeze it? Couldn't it just be refrigerated? Nannie snaps that they can freeze the pasta instead but you can't really freeze pasta so she'll just throw it away. They decide that the kids will eat pizza and the adults can eat pasta, but, again, how was Watson planning to feed eight people with a single pizza anyway?

After that evening, Nannie and Watson check with each other before planning meals, and they settle into a routine. Then on a Thursday night, Nannie blindsides everyone by announcing that she is going to move into her own apartment in two days' time because she feels unneeded now that Watson is making some meals. As she is moving she mentions not to forget that Karen and Andrew will be arriving the next day.

Okay, if the first day of this book was the 3rd of January, then this timeline works out, but just barely, and it means that Nannie decides to move out, finds a place, and signs a lease all within 11 days of Watson's announcement. Which makes Nannie seem frankly rather impulsive and odd.

After a week, everything falls apart, and there is a terrible day where Emily is sick and Karen is annoying and Kristy's mom wants to hire a housekeeper. Karen begs Kristy to play Let's All Come In with her, but Kristy doesn't have time. Kristy visits Nannie and tells her that things have all gone to hell in a handbasket, and Nannie moves back in three days later. Which, really? All of this could have been avoided if Nannie and Watson had talked at all, and he had said they still wanted Nannie to stay and she had not stomped off to her own house like an angry child. She probably had to pay a significant amount of money for breaking her lease after a week and a half.

The subplot in this book is that Mrs. Marshall keeps dumping extra kids on her sitter when they come over, and only paying them for her two children. This is clearly unsafe for the children and unfair to the sitter, and is against the club rules, which state that two sitters must be sent for more than four children. This rule is pretty ridiculous and is also often ignored for plot purposes if the sitters want to gather a huge group of children for whatever reason. In the end, Kristy calls Mrs. Marshall who apologizes for springing the extra children on them, and then Kristy babysits Nina and Elanor and feeds them grilled cheese sandwiches. They cut them into circles (which is the wrong way to eat them but whatever) and Kristy says they can make faces on them by attaching raisins with small glops of peanut butter. This sounds revolting to me and also to Nina Marshall. Then Kristy and the kids spend the rest of the meal trying to come up with the grossest food combinations. This is something that pops up from time to time in the books and I don't understand why it is allegedly so much fun and always leaves the participants giggling like loons. Then again, I'm given to understand that not everyone can make themselves throw up just by thinking about foods that might be gross or weird feeling, so perhaps I am not the most qualified person to judge.

Overall, I would say that this is one of the more solid books in the later series, even if the timeline is a little off. My rating: 7/10.

LS #88, Karen's Puppet Show

Karen is going to art camp! The Baby-Sitters club is running an art camp during the month of August. I don't think this showed up in any of the regular series books, although they did enough camps that I may have just forgotten. Claudia is the art camp director, and Kristy, Mary Anne, Stacey, Jessi, and Mallory are the counselors. Then Karen lists off everyone who is attending Art Camp, which including Karen is ten kids, and does not include Andrew or David Michael. Nor is Jessi's sister Becca attending the camp. So, one counselor for every two kids. Also, the club has made T-shirts for all the campers, and Karen says that each camper got five shirts, plus, the club probably had to pay for all the art supplies and probably snacks too. This camp may not have made much profit, is what I'm getting at.

Karen is pissed because Hannie and Nancy don't want to come to Art Camp even though they'd signed up. Hannie's family is going out of state, which is a reasonable excuse, but Karen is still pissed at her. Nancy just decides that she would rather hang around the house with her parents and baby brother. Karen suggests that maybe this is because Nancy is also a baby. I think Nancy is kind of a baby, but I'm not allegedly her best friend, so it's less hurtful when I say it. And she'd already made the commitment, and then changed her mind. I hope the BSC charged a nonrefundable deposit.

For the first week of camp, the kids do various art projects. One day when it rains, they go in Mary Anne's barn (yes, of course the camp is held at the Spier-Schafer residence) and Karen and Marilyn and Carolyn Arnold make a huge long paper chain. It's not that I dislike paper chains. With Christmas coming up I may teach my little nieces to make them. It's just that if I was paying for my kid to go to Art Camp, I would probably prefer that they did actual art, and not just cut and taped strips of paper.

Claudia announces that the campers will hold an art show on the last day of camp. Each camper will make a special project of their choice to display. They'll sell dollar tickets, and the money raised will be used to purchase supplies for the next year. Now I am really, really thinking that the financial aspects of holding an art camp were not thought through. How much do you suppose each camper paid? It's five days a week, and probably at least 6 hours a day, since they eat lunch there. It appears to be about a four week camp.

Karen wants to put on a puppet show for her final art project. Here's a picture of her starting the writing for it. Clearly the illustrator doesn't read these books very closely or she'd know that Karen does not actually use lower case letter. Karen makes puppets that look like herself and Hannie and Nancy. She names them Sharon, Hannah, and Francy. Her show is going to be about the beautiful and lovely Mary Sue Sharon and her "meanie-mo deserter" friends, Hannah and Francy. This book uses the phrase "meanie-mo" a lot. Is this something actual children somewhere actually say? It always kind of confused me in these books, much like the "word" "gigundoly". Karen decides that her puppet show will be a musical, and she writes little songs about the puppets. I can't tell you what they say, as I skipped over them, like I do every poem in every book, even if it's only two lines long.

Nancy stops by Karen's house and gives her a gift (a mug with her name printed on it). Hannie sends Karen a postcard from wherever she is. But Karen's still pissed at them, so she ignores the gift and postcard, and when it's time to sell tickets to the art show, she does not sell any to Hannie or Nancy. But on the day of the show, Hannie and Nancy are in the audience. Karen's worried, because her show does not paint them in a particularly flattering light. But luckily, Hannie and Nancy just laugh it off and think the show is funny.

Karen, Hannie, and Nancy look at the other kids' art projects and are best friends again. The book says that the cardboard bouquet of flowers (on the left) was Natalie Springer's project. I don't know who made the others.

The subplot in this book is that all the grown-ups go away for a weekend and leave Sam and Charlie and Kristy in charge. Charlie orders pizza with toppings the kids don't like and makes them go to a scary movie at the drive-in. Sam feeds them toasted marshmallows late at night and lets them go to bed with sticky faces and they stick to their pillows. Kristy, Sam, and Charlie ruin the Saturday morning pancakes. I'm a little disappointed at how this plays out, because I would have liked to see Karen enjoying the weekend and having fun with the older kids, instead of reading about Karen, David Michael, and Andrew bitching the whole time about everything fun the bigger kids try to do.

LS #63, Karen's Movie

This book makes me hungry. At the beginning, Karen has breakfast, which includes Krispy Krunchy cereal (this is the made up brand that she always eats), blueberries, milk, juice, and a basket of tiny rolls. I'd eat that (minus the milk). Fresh blueberries are awesome. Then Karen and Andrew go out and play with some neighbor kids. The neighbor kids in Mommy's neighborhood are Nancy Dawes, Bobby and Alicia Gianelli, and Kathryn and Willie Barnes.Kathryn and Willie are in several of the Little Sister books. They have no defining characteristics. They are basically just filler for crowd scenes.

Sorry, where was I? Oh right, food. At dinner that night, they have watermelon, which is the second best summer fruit. (Cherries are the best.) Karen drips juice all over, and then she arranges the seeds on her plate to form a picture, but I like watermelon enough to not be grossed out by that. As they are finishing up dinner the phone rings. It is Seth's mother, calling to tell him that his father has had a heart attack and will need surgery. Seth immediately makes arrangements to fly to Nebraska in two days. Three weeks after that, Mommy, Karen, and Andrew will fly to Nebraska and visit and the whole family will come home together. Karen is very concerned about Grandad's heart attack.

She suggests that they can make get well cards for Grandad. Mommy thinks this is a good idea, and everyone makes a card. Note the bowl of scribbles on the counter behind them. I told you this book makes me hungry. Also, enlarge this picture and look at the scissors. Then imagine how you would have to contort your hand to cut anything at all with the scissors as they are shown. Karen's card with the cut-out heart looks a lot more impressive now, doesn't it?

The next morning, Seth announces that he has decided to buy a TV and VCR for his parents as a get well gift for his father. They do not have TV on their farm. Karen's a little worried because Granny had told her that television sets are a waste of money, but Seth thinks Grandad will like having the TV when he is in bed after the surgery. They still won't have cable or get any broadcast channels though, hence the VCR.

Kristy babysits Karen and Andrew while Mommy takes Seth to the airport. She helps them make a big pitcher of fresh lemonade. I hate lemonade, but I like the idea of making it fresh. I just never do it because I wouldn't want to drink it. Then Karen says she wants to give Grandad a present. Kristy helps her brainstorm, and Karen decides to ask to use Daddy's video camera. She will make Grandad a movie to watch on his shiny new VCR. Hannie and Nancy come over and help Karen write the script. Daddy says she can use the video camera and Sam promises to help with the editing. Because that is something Sam has ever shown an interest in before or since.

The next day, Karen gathers the neighbor kids plus Hannie and assigns them all parts in her movie. Then on another day she makes them all make their own costumes. I am sure that all of the costumes looked just as good as Nancy's on the cover, considering that they were made out of paper bags and old pillowcases. Karen has acquired a clapboard from somewhere. Maybe Sam had it, because he's into video editing.

Karen manages to force all the kids to rehearse for two days and shoot on another two. I don't know how she manages this. Again, this is the sort of thing I always tried to get the neighborhood kids to do when I was a kid, and nobody would show up for the second rehearsal, except my sister and brother and only because I made them.

Karen is really bossy (surprised face) and all the other kids quit, but she thinks there's enough film to make the movie. She and Sam watch it together and she tells him which takes to use and in which order. He is going to use the video editing equipment at the high school, but they are having a summer workshop so he will have to wait his turn. Also Sam asks her if he should leave in all the bits with Karen yelling at people. Karen doesn't think this is very funny, but she doesn't know how to edit movies so she can't fire Sam over it.

Soon, it's time for Karen, Andrew, and Mommy to travel to Nebraska. Andrew's never been to Granny and Grandad's farm before, so Karen tells him all about it. Somewhere in between making the get well cards for Grandad and getting on the plane, Mommy got way prettier. It's like magic. Seth meets them at the airport and they ride back to the farm in Granny and Grandad's rusty green and white pickup truck. Karen shows Andrew around but it's not as fun for her as it was the last time she was there, because Grandad isn't there to do things like give them rides on the tractor. They go visit Karen's friend Tia (defining characteristics: has short hair, wears overalls) and feed the chickens.

Finally Grandad is allowed to come home from the hospital. They have a small welcoming party for him and Seth presents him with the TV and VCR. The book makes me totally hungry again:

All the food was spread out in the kitchen. There was roast chicken, corn on the cob, cooked zucchini with onions and snow peas, and a gigundoly beautiful salad. (Guess who made it.) We could put anything we wanted on our plates.

They also have blueberry pie which Tia's mother has made for the family. Then Karen and Andrew watch the movie with Grandad. He says the movie must have taken a lot of cooperation, which is the sort of thing you say when you hated the movie and want to say something kind to a small child. Karen starts to feel guilty because she was so bossy, and the movie was not a cooperative work at all.

I love the framed artwork on the wall, particularly the duck. I also like Karen's sailor dress.

When they get back to Stoneybrook, Karen gets permission from Mommy to have a viewing party of the movie at her house. Seth makes brownies for the party, and there is punch to drink and popcorn to eat during the movie. Karen gives a little speech about how she is grateful for all of her friends' help, and gives everyone a souvenir movie poster (hand drawn by herself.) All of her friends decide not to be mad at her anymore. (All of Karen's friends are mad at her but she has a party to make it up to them is kind of a running joke between me and my sister in regards to the Little Sister series. I added a tag for it.)

#91, Claudia and the First Thanksgiving

This book starts out right. We get a description of Claudia's outfit on page four.

Now where was I? Oh. Right. My autumn fashion colors. I'd put on a pair of baggy pants, not blue, not black, but yellow. With these I was wearing my red Doc Martens, laced with orange and yellow laces, and this great, funky, enormous shirt that I found in a vintage clothes shop. It has a leaf pattern on it. The leaves are in a Hawaiian print design, and the colors are fabulous. Underneath I was wearing my red and yellow tie-dyed long underwear shirt. To complete the ensemble, I had on earrings that I'd made myself, shaped like pumpkins, and a fringed yellow-and-white scarf tied around my hair.

Claudia goes to school and finds out that her next Short Takes class is going to be a drama class. If you stopped reading before this point in the series, Short Takes classes were these special classes the middle school kids would take for six weeks at a time. I guess it was a way to work in more school related plots without having to worry about any previously established continuity with what the girls were studying. Because continuity was a huge concern in the series, right. Anyway, Claudia's class is assigned to write a play for the third graders at the elementary school to perform. The class decides to do a play about the first Thanksgiving.

All seven of Mallory's brothers and sisters decide to dress as Groucho Marx for Halloween. This seems like a very Stoneybrook thing to dress as. Mallory, naturally, is a giant party pooper who does not dress up while she and her father take the others trick-or-treating. Because Mallory is eleven, so she is far too mature to dress in a costume and get candy like her ten-year old brothers.

Claudia and her classmates decide they will make a Thanksgiving play that will highlight the differences between modern times and the Pilgrim era. The play sounds, honestly, pretty terrible, because in order to highlight the differences, the dialogue has to be really heavy-handed. But the third graders are excited about the play, because, well, they're in third grade. Don't worry, though. All of the speaking roles in the play go to kids the club sits for. Betsy Sobak gets the lead, and Jake Kuhn is Squanto, and Carolyn Arnold is Miles Standish.

In lieu of boring babysitting chapters, we get sitting jobs that just happen to take place at rehearsals. First, Mary Anne babysits for Laurel and Patsy Kuhn and decides to walk them over to watch the rehearsal. I always wonder how some of the names in this series were chosen. Because a five-year old named Patsy just seems anachronistic. Mary Anne watches as the kids rehearse the lines, which, again, are pretty terrible.

Here's the cover. Claudia is wearing one of the outfits she describes later on, well, almost. The skirt isn't rainbow colored but it's fairly close. The Pilgrim cooking the turkey looks about ten years older than the little kid pointing at her while she does it.

At the next rehearsal, Claudia and some kids are painting scenery, and she notices some parents watching the rehearsal. She mentions that a little girl named Susie is part of the scenery crew, which, again, how many 8-year olds were named Susie in 1995? Susie's mother is watching and making a bitchface while the kids rehearse. There are some other unhappy looking parents there too.

Jessi has a babysitting job which brings her to the next rehearsal, where there are a bunch of angry parents milling about. They are upset at the content of the play, because they don't want their kids talking about historical differences in women's rights and race relations. Some parents start to shout. Abby yells right back, because she is Passionate, but Claudia stays away from the main conflict.

The class is told that either they can put on the traditional Thanksgiving story with the kids, or the play will be canceled. They decide to go ahead and do the play because the little kids are excited about it, but the night of the play, they go around writing the word "CENSORED" in red on the posters and things.

I want to point out, though, that I was a very well dressed graffiti artist/protestor. [sic] Just for the occasion, I was wearing my rainbow colored crinkle gauze skirt, my crocheted vest with the matching hat, and my silver earrings (designed by me, of course). I felt that I looked artistic, yet responsible. And of course my button, with the bright red writing on it, added the finishing touch.

The next night, the original version of the play is performed at the middle school by a different Short Takes class. There are lines of protesters outside the school, some pro-play, some anti-. Some of the people in Stoneybrook really have too much free time on their hands. Don't worry, every single person the club sits for supports the 8th graders. It's only the non-recurring characters who feel that it is un-American to spit out lines of overwritten dialogue about women's rights as related to Thanksgiving. As Claudia watches the play, she realizes it  really isn't very good, but she is glad that the play went on anyway.

The subplot in this book is that everyone's plans for Thanksgiving fall through. Mallory's family was supposed to stay at a cousin's apartment in New York and watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from the windows but the apartment flooded and they will be unable to do so. Sound familiar? Jessi was supposed to visit relatives, but the relatives were wait listed for spots on a church retreat and spots open up so they can go. That's noteworthy because it's one of the few overt mentions of religion in the series.

The girls talk Kristy's parents into inviting everyone's families over and hosting Thanksgiving for 36 people (then Dawn shows up as a surprise so 37.). It sounds like fun but also like a lot of work. The adults all cook at Kristy's house the day before while the club sits for all the younger kids at the Pike house. Most of the kids get to help make cookies and decorations but the triplets have to clean their room before they can do any of that. Except don't the triplets share a room with Nicky? Nicky is baking cookies with the others, apparently he is immune to cleaning. Then after the triplets clean their room they play pin the feathers on the turkey and Claudia says that one wall of the Pike family room is covered in cork so it doesn't matter where the pushpins go in. Is that weird? I think it's weird. I can't imagine it looks very good.

The next day they all eat Thanksgiving together and I should probably say something snarky about it, but it's actually one of my favorite subplots. I like it when the girls' families spend time together.