Get Well Soon, Mallory!

The Baby-Sitters Club #69

by Ann M. Martin

Mallory hasn't been feeling well for awhile now. And finally she discovers why she's been so tired and run-down. Mallory has mono.

Having mono means staying in bed and resting - for a long time. No school, no activities, no baby-sitting, and no Baby-sitters Club.

Mallory is crushed. So are the Baby-sitters. It's bad enough that Dawn is away in California. But now it looks like Mallory's out of the club, too.

Genres: Middle Grade, Childrens, Fiction, Young Adult, Contemporary, Juvenile, Friendship

137 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1993

About the author

Ann Matthews Martin was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane. After graduating from Smith College, Ann became a teacher and then an editor of children's books. She's now a full-time writer.

Ann gets the ideas for her books from many different places. Some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. Many are written about contemporary problems or events. All of Ann's characters, even the members of the Baby-sitters Club, are made up. But many of her characters are based on real people. Sometimes Ann names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.

Ann has always enjoyed writing. Even before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl. They inspired her to become a writer herself.

Since ending the BSC series in 2000, Ann’s writing has concentrated on single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s.

After living in New York City for many years, Ann moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she now lives with her dog, Sadie, and her cats, Gussie, Willy and Woody. Her hobbies are reading, sewing, and needlework. Her favorite thing to do is to make clothes for children.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/annmma...

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

In which Mallory has cooties.

[FIND ME ON STORYGRAPH · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is my first time reading this book!

in this book by my least favorite ghostwriters Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner, we finally learn the cause of mal's recent exhaustion: she has mono. she and her family have to cancel their plan to go to nyc for thanksgiving, and the bsc are stuck in a crappy position since dawn is also in california, so they're essentially down two members. this is especially rough because mal's doctor says she may have to miss school (and everything else -- almost exclusively bedrest) for weeks or even months. mal acts like a jerk to try to get the bsc to kick her out, since she thinks she knows what's best for them, but they outsmart her. in a classic inane holiday-themed bsc subplot, they do some unrealistic humanitarian thing for someone (in this case, they make goody bags and throw a carnival for folks in the retirement community).

highlights:
-vanessa practices her wave for the parade and talks about the three types: the windshield wiper, screwing in the light bulb, and the flap. it's funny how I've never heard them called those names, but I know EXACTLY what each of them means.
-the pike kids call mono cooties and the neighborhood kids say ben gave it to mal because it's the kissing disease. ooooOOOOOOOoooooo.

-the bsc goes to "cost-club" to buy things for the carnival goody bags. I love how it's a cross between price club (the original name) and costco (the current name)
-in the carnival they sing the make new friends but keep the old song:
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-in general, the one really effective thing about this book is how it conveys how helpless and defeated mallory feels about her sickness. it's really a bummer, but it's well done.

lowlights/nitpicks:
-mal acts like a jerk to try to get them to kick her out of the bsc, since she feels like she is a strain on them. this whole chunk is very unpleasant to read.
-mal has a "promises" idea for fundraising for the carnival: the bsc kids get folks to donate money to their carnival by making promises to people. this seems sketchy, but okay. I'll gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today, etc.
-why are the apples at cost club stacked individually? at costco they come in a bigger package (and when it was price club they also came in a bigger package). you don't buy them buy the individual apple, but by the carton/crate of apples.
-the way it's left, the bsc will vaguely look for someone to temporarily replace mal. I don't think that ends up happening though.

pike thanksgiving dinner outfits:
mrs. pike:
-"She was wearing her red knit dress. She'd tied her best red and green plaid taffeta apron over it. The apron had ruffles all around it and was so fancy, it was hard to imagine it functioning as a real apron with mashed potato glops and gravy smears on it."
byron:
-"He was dressed in maroon corduroy slacks, a yellow shirt, and a blue-and-yellow sweater that he'd gotten for Christmas the year before."
mal:
-"I had a new outfit for special occasions, such as a party or a dance. It's a blue velvet skirt with a matching bolero jacket and a white silk blouse...I pulled my hair into a pony tail and tied a white satin ribbon around it."

no snacks in claudia's room.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read two-thirds of this book and then got a migraine. I blame Mallory's cooties.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorites as a child and I still enjoyed it as an adult. Poor Mallory and her cooties lol.

[Kristi Clemow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Mallory books - she is a cute kid. Personal summary/spoilers in comments

[Ciara · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book is so boring. you know how mallory has been dragging ass & falling asleep everywhere for the last five books or so? well, in this one, she is finally diagnosed with mono. she has to stay home from school & can't do any babysitting or anything else while she recovers. the pikes got tickets to see the macy's thanksgiving day parade in new york city, & booked a hotel room & made restaurant reservations & everything, but they cancel because they fear that all the excitement of gigantic helium balloons will trigger a relapse in mallory.

you know how boring it is being sick yourself? when you feel icky so you can't even really get into watching a movie or reading a book or chatting with a friend? now imagine how boring it is to read about someone else being sick. mallory is seriously not allowed to do anything but lay in bed. of course she has to take a leave of absence from the babysitters club, & they have a meeting about how to handle it. mallory is panicked that they will just replace her, but jessi comes over after the meeting, bearing the good news that the whole club decided not to replace her. when jessi leaves, she turns & says, "i'm glad we decided not to replace with you," which is such a weird thing to say. like turning to your spouse one morning & saying, "i'm pretty relieved i decided against that divorce i was considering." what the fuck? thanks?

anyway, no sooner is mallory over that hurdle than she decides that her leave of absence is causing too much work for the other club members, & that they would all be better off if she wasn't in the club. she decides that the only way to make this happen is to make them so mad that they kick her out. they are in the middle of their latest holiday project: making thanksgiving baskets full of food & gifts for the elderly residents of stoneybrook manor with some of their charges. mallory had previously volunteered to call parents to ask them to sponsor baskets (ie, donate money), but now she says she doesn't feel like it. she tells kristy to get someone else to do her errands. she suggests to claudia, for no real reason that i could discern, that jessi is trying to take over the project & make claudia look lazy. the babysitters all fight with each other for a little while as mallory fights back the tears caused by knowing that she is about to be kicked out of the babysitters club, never to speak to any of its members again. but then they all figure out what she's up to & tell her it won't work because they all love her (seriously?) & she cries with relief & agrees to make the calls to parents after all.

can i just mention that the club has twelve days to pull together all these baskets, along with a carnival? & mallory helps them squander like three or four days by not doing what she said she'd do & making the sitters fight with each other. & they're like, "oh, you! what a little scamp!" id' be a lot more mad than that. don't waste my time, mallory pike!

oh wait. i'm 31 years old & i'm reading all the babysitters club books in chronological order. again. my time could actually not get more wasted.

anyway, mallory helps the kids brainstorm a way to raise the last $100 they need in 24 hours, & it works. basically, they promise to do favors & chores in exchange for advance payment. sounds like a recipe for disaster, but what do i know? the old folks at stoneybrook manor love their baskets & the carnival & everyone thanks mallory for helping out. after thanksgiving dinner at the pike house, the doorbell rings & it's the whole club. they have come over to spend some quality time with mallory. & for some dumbass reason, the entire pike family & the families of all the club members are totally okay with this breach of family holiday togetherness. if my future child(ren) think they're getting away with that shit, they better think again.

this book was so boring. & it ends with mallory still recovering from mono, unable to babysit or go to school.

[Aubree Bowling · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book describes one of the best ideas for a community service project I've seen. I really love what the club did for a small nursing home. this fictional one had 55 residents. The only lack of reality, I thought was them pulling it off in 3 weeks. A real life club, class of students, or youth group would need 3 months in real time!

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now I think this is the last BSC book I read before I gave them up. I clearly remember Mallory getting sick with mono and everyone making fun of her calling it the kissing disease. Mostly because I was terrified I'd get it and everyone would pick on me. In hindsight that's ridiculous no one would ever believe anyone kissed me back then and our school was so small they'd find out if someone did. But apart from that I remembered nothing about this book. Mallory has been extremely sick for the past couple books at least. At last she gets a diagnosis of mono. Her family had planned a trip to New York for the Macy's Thanksgiving parade but they cancel it. Mallory becomes bored stuck in bed all day and depressed and tries to get the BSC to dump her which they refuse. This also ties into the b plot. The kids decide to make Thanksgiving gift bags for the seniors in the local nursing home. They manage to get families to sponsor and donate food which Mallory in her depressive state refuses to do at first in order to get kicked out of the club. They go visit the home and regale Mallory with stories from their visit. As someone who works in a nursing home the excitement of the residents is pretty accurate. The slowness of the residents isn't exactly though. Some of them can move pretty quick. But this was a sweet moment. In the end they bring the party to Mallory who is still confined to bed. Unlike most books that tie everything up nicely this one ends with Mallory still sick and and recovering which actually extends a bit into the next one. I like this one it's a bit more realistic than others including Mallory's illness which probably would've been miraculously cured in any other book.

[Michael Longman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

I really enjoyed the story and the plot. One of my favorite of the babysitter club! Another great babysitter club book.

[Claire Cherrington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this on a sick day and was like a comforting hug

[Christina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure how to feel about this book. I remember reading it as a kid and feeling vaguely but indefinably uncomfortable. Now I see why. Mallory is basically punished for getting super sick. She'd been feeling really run-down for several books already by this point, and the other babysitters had been giving her a lot of guilt about it. Then she gets mono and her parents make her leave the Babysitters Club, instead of just saying she can't babysit (or go anywhere) for awhile. They sit her down and tell her this "decision" as if it's a punishment for something she's done. Then she has to tell the other babysitters, who don't just say, "It's okay, Mal, we just won't schedule you for jobs for awhile, until you're better." Why do they have to downgrade her to "honorary member" at all? Also, every time she freaks out about school, all the adults are like, "well, we'll try to help you not fail, but there's always summer school." The bullshit neoliberal values are so strong in this book. Also, Mallory will only feel better if she feels "useful," aka doing work. The other babysitters give her a long list of jobs to do--including making a gajillion phone calls and BAKING COOKIES--that they say she should be able to do "without leaving her bed." Sorry, how can she make cookies without leaving her bed? There is an element of care work erasure in that, in the sense that cooking/baking is "so easy" they think of it as something she can do in bed. And then they give her a bunch of guilt for not doing any of the things. SHE HAS MONO! SHE CAN BARELY STAY AWAKE FOR LIKE 2 HOURS! And her mom still makes her babysit! When she's already told her she can't go to school or be in the Babysitters Club! And she tells Mallory that the whole family is not going to NYC in front of everyone, without prepping the other kids at all first, so of course all the kids are super disappointed and resentful, and Mallory feels majorly guilty! Ugh this book is ridiculous in so many ways.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mallory had mono. She had to miss a lot of school and drop out of her after school activities, including the Baby-Sitters Club. The BSC decided not to replace Mallory during her leave of absence and keep her on as an honorary member. Mallory thought the BSC's decision put too much extra work on them. She decided to be mean to her BSC friends so they would fire her from the club. When her plan backfired, Mallory decided she could help the club prepare for the community service event they were having at the nursing home (carnival and Thanksgiving baskets with food and gifts for each resident).

It was boring to read about Mallory being sick. I was frustrated that Mallory did not communicate with her friends. She should have told them that she thought they should hire another member AND keep her on as an honorary member. I was not sure why the book presented this as an either/or situation. Why would she want to burn bridges with her best friends, including Jessi, simply because she thought they were working too hard? I was glad that Mallory's friends caught on to her stupid plan and showed they loved her by coming over for Thanksgiving.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh nostalgia! This was my first-ever Babysitter's Club book. My parents bought it to get me to chill out because we were on our way back home from the beach and I had already finished everything I'd brought with me and had nothing to read on the ride home. Not only did this open the Babysitter's Club floodgates for me (and leave me with an outsized lasting affection for Mallory), but I went on to do school research projects about mono (from this book) diabetes (Stacy!) and leukemia (one of Jessi's kids) later on.

...This might be the nerdiest summary of my childhood ever captured in one place.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grabbed this book to re-read right before Halloween because it takes place between Halloween and Thanksgiving. I have some weird obsession with re-reading holiday BSC books during those times, but sadly I am starting to run out of options.

This book has always had a special place in my heart because I can relate to Mallory being so sick. I've never had mono (knock on wood) but I AM sick a lot, so this has always been a little comforting to read.

[Sayo -bibliotequeish-]

As a kid my best friends sister had the whole BSC series on a book shelf in her room. I thought she was so grown up. And I envied this bookshelf. And would often poke my head into that room just to look at it.
And when I read BSC, I felt like such a grown up.
And while I might have still been a little too young to understand some of the issues dealt with in these books, I do appreciated that Ann M. Martin tackled age appropriate issues, some being deeper than others, but still important.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is pretty dull, but it's not horrible. Mallory really is the punching bag of this series. Getting picked on in school, getting mono, going away to boarding school. She just continually gets screwed over, on top of being a ginger. Don't worry, Mal. You'll be the most successful of them all in adulthood.

[Devon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly wouldn't have liked this one as much, most likely, if I wasn't reading it in Fall. Mallory's sick but she acts like a complete brat for a good part of this one. But her family and the side story are cute. Not much in the way of babysitting in this book (and by not much I mean...was there any babysitting? Other than planning for the Thanksgiving event?)

[Cassandra Doon · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was 10 I joined a readers club/group where we got a new book every week. I chose The babysitters club.
The books are fantastic! So enjoyable. I loved getting the book every week. They are super quick reads and I was able to read it in one day.
Highly recommend for young teenagers to read or even younger if they are able too read well.

[Gabrielle S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mallory has cooties. (I had cooties once too but I did get it from kissing a boy. I was also not 11.) Mallory is sad she has cooties.

Is Mrs Pike on some kind of drugs? She’s very serene for a woman who popped out 7 kids in 5 years including a set of triplets. (She waited two years between Margo and Claire.)

[Lianna Kendig · Rating 4 out of 5]

(LL)
This book does a great job tackling: Mononucleosis and the importance of a healthy recovery, volunteering at places that appreciate the time, and tacking care of someone who will be sick for a while.

As an aside: Margo and Claire were so sweet with Mallory in this book. They played doctor and nurse to try and cheer Mallory up and it was so pure and genuine.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Books like this are why I have a depressing plot for Mallory outlined in my head for the eventual BSC Grows Up fan fiction series I want to write. All the mono and bed rest talk also literally made me so drowsy that I fell asleep for thirty minutes with my laptop open to the book.

[Jamie (TheRebelliousReader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars. I like Mallory but man was she annoying as hell in this one. I get that she was sick but the way she was acting and treating the girls was frustrating. It wrapped up nicely though but definitely not one that I loved.

[Ellis Billington · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Mallory, but I did not love this book unfortunately. The B plot was boring in a way that made the book really drag (I mean, how many different versions of the charity/fundraising plotline is this series going to give us?), and the ending felt way too abrupt and not fleshed out.

[Brenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this series!!!
Great way to show people are trying to fight to get better.
Totally rate this 5 stars!!

[Jennifer Baratta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review on www.Audible.com please listen to this book.

[Christina]

Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: https://www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blo...

[Jaclyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is so sweet! And also kinda sad. What the BSC and the kids did for Mallory almost made me tear up. 😊

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book boring overall, and felt sorry for Mallory.

[NinaR · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was all sorta fucked up. Why is ann so pressed about mallory? Give her a break dude. Only gave it a few stars so mall wouldnt be sad

[Myrah Parkhani]

Amazed