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.