#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.

#63, Claudia's Freind Friend

This book starts out with Claudia in English class, having a hard time paying attention even though the teacher calls on her twice. After class, the teacher tells Claudia that they have a big test coming up and if she doesn't do well on it, she will fail English. She suggests that she can set up some time in the Resource Room for Claudia, which has helped her in the past, but Claudia is horrified and turns her down. I don't know why. If it helped her before, why would it be so bad this time?

At the BSC meeting that afternoon, the girls get a call from Mrs. Rodowsky. We are told that the oldest Rodowsky boy, Shea,  has been diagnosed with dyslexia. His mother thinks it would be a good idea to hire young teenagers to help him with his homework while he adjusts to this diagnosis because they're closer to his own age and he might like them better. After the call from Mrs. Rodowsky, Claudia admits to her friends that she is in danger of failing English, and they offer to tutor her. Because this is somehow less embarrassing than going to the resource room. Claudia's parents agree that Stacey can tutor her but they will be monitoring the situation.

One thing I should note about Claudia is that it is stressed over and over in the books that she does not have a learning disability. She's of above average intelligence but has a  hard time paying attention in school and doesn't focus on it very well. I think this is utterly ridiculous and that the books would read a lot smoother if Claudia did have a diagnosis of some sort. I mean, even when she tries hard to pass a test, she has to work a lot harder than the other girls, and she's had trouble in school forever.

The first tutoring session that Mary Anne has with Shea ends badly because it takes Shea about a decade to write one letter to a person he admires that is up to Mary Anne's standards. Shea is really discouraged by the end of the session. The person he admires that he chose to write to, by the way, is Jackie Robinson.

the recent Google doodle in honor of Jackie Robinson's birthday

I'm really excited about the new movie about Jackie Robinson. It's coming out in April and I'm thinking I might see it in the theater. Usually I wait for stuff to come out on DVD but I saw the trailer for 42 and it looks good.

Claudia sits for the Rodowskys and manages to upset Shea by trying to help him with his homework.

Stacey is a total hard-ass while tutoring Claudia. Claudia feels resentful. Stacey makes Claudia keep a journal to improve her spelling. Claudia also starts a second journal, bitching about Stacey. Then she and Stacey get into a fight at a club meeting, while the other girls stare in disbelief.

Claudia babysits for the Rodowsky boys again and this time, she and Shea really hit it off and help each other with their spelling. It goes so well that Mrs. Rodowsky wants Claudia to tutor Shea. Claudia has another tutoring session with Shea and that one goes swimmingly as well. She and Shea really understand each other because Claudia, like Shea, knows what it's like to struggle with a learning disability has some experience with doing poorly in school.

The sitters have been getting some notes that they think are from a secret admirer. The follow up to this is that they get a note inviting them to the Rosebud Cafe. They decide that it must not be secret admirers after all, but a prank being pulled by Cokie and Grace, so they dress in really weird clothes and go, only to find that it's some sitting charges who have invited them because they are great babysitters and they deserve ice cream. It's kind of stupid.

Naturally, when Stacey wants to take Claudia's journal home to see how her spelling is, Claudia gives her the wrong one and Stacey reads about what a bitch Claudia thinks she is. This is some great teenage girl drama. She invites Claudia over and they both apologize to each other and are friends again. This is what Claudia wears to go over to Stacey's house:

I changed into something more suitable--a giant blue-and-white striped shirt and socks with blue spots, over blue bike shorts that matched the stripes and spots. I pulled on red high tops, and hung a dangly red earring made of a string of hearts in one ear and another earring that was a dangly row of silver arrows.[sic] I pulled my hair back with a red ribbon, and headed for Stacey's.

Claudia gets a B on the English test, and then the sitters and several of the kids they sit for all go to the spring dance at the community center.

If this recap seems really disjointed and fairly boring, it's because the book is disjointed and boring. The recap doesn't flow very well even though I left out two random sitting chapters that added nothing to the plot. I don't find reading about someone else doing homework and being tutored to be all that fascinating. It's definitely not one of my favorites. My score: 3/10.

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.