Dawn and the Big Sleepover

The Baby-Sitters Club #44

by Ann M. Martin

A bunch of kids at Stoneybrook Elementary have pen pals at a school in New Mexico. The Baby-sitters love hearing the letters that Charlotte, Becca, and the Pike children get from their new friends.

Then the bad news reaches Stoneybrook: their pen pals' school has been destroyed by a fire. Dawn is so upset that she organizes a fund-raiser for them. And as a reward to all the kids who help out, she is going to throw a gigantic sleepover!

A hundred kids, thirty pizzas--will Dawn survive her biggest baby-sitting job ever?

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

138 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1991

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

[lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dawn decides to extend her white, privileged largess to the poor suffering Zuni people by throwing a party for the white, privileged kids of Stoneybrook. This book infuriated me when I was young because it was a racist piece of garbage. I remember making my mom read it, and she was mad too, and we tried to find out who "Harry and Sandy Colt" were. (They're the people who got a special thanks because of their information on Zuni culture.) My mom tapped all her resources at the schools, and at the 8 Northern Pueblos meetings, but we never learned their identities. When I was in my early 20s I briefly dated a man from Zuni, and I asked him if he knew Harry and Sandy Colt. Neither he, or his father had ever heard of them, despite having both grown up in Zuni. His father said those names were either made up, or Harry and Sandy Colt were white hippy anthropologists who wrote a master's thesis on the Zuni people. I kick myself to this day for not writing an angry letter to Ann M Martin about this book.

Things I remember from reading this as a kid:
The Pikes (those hated Pikes) being disappointed that the Zunis didn't have what they deemed proper Indian names. And then deciding that since someone had a name like Red River, that the Zunis must be legit after all. Thanks for your approval of our sovereignty, Pikes.

Zuni constantly being referred to as a "tribe" (Zuni is a tribe in only the loosest, whitest sense of the term) and a reservation. ZUNI IS A PUEBLO!!! IT IS NOT A RESERVATION!!! PUEBLO PEOPLE DO NOT LIVE ON RESERVATIONS BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT NEVER MOVED THEM FROM THEIR ANCESTRAL LANDS!!!!

The fictional Zunis making a lot of references to extended family like aunts and cousins. This was actually something I appreciated as a kid because Pueblo people do live closely with their extended family. I was (and am) much closer to my cousins and their children (and now their grandchildren) than I am to my sister and her kids.

The baby sitters secretly tracking down the principal of the fictional Zuni school so they can surprise them with the money they raised. There's something about how they call New Mexico information and get his address which I knew was ridiculous. In the 90s the Pueblos did not have physical addresses. Tribal offices and facilities did, and sending the money to a building like that would make more sense than sending it to the school principal's home address.


Things I've considered since reading this as an adult:
The Pikes infuriate me again when Adam is upset that his pen pal just looks "you know, like a kid." When his sisters ask what he thought his pen pal would look like, Adam says he thought he would look "Like an Indian, I guess." He's sort of embarrassed about it, but then he brings up the stupid name thing again. He wants his pen pal to have a "real" Indian name like "Chief Rocking Horse" or something horrible and racist, not Conor White. His sisters try to comfort him by saying "Maybe it's short for White Horse. . . or White Smoke Signals." ARE YOU KIDDING ME, PIKES??? Vanessa then reads her letter from her pen pal out loud, and I am completely confused about what I'm supposed to be offended about -- the fact that white people assume that the layout of pueblos haven't changed in four hundred years, or the fact that white people think that Indians live in large extended families to break up "the work." Vanessa's pen pal asks why she doesn't live with her other relatives, and says "It must be hard to get all the work done." A Pueblo kid would never, ever say this. Pueblo people do not share "the work" anymore than any other people living in close proximity, like the idiotic Pikes. And Pueblo kids who have access to cable TV, Nintendo, and Ninja Turtle movies know full well that white people don't live with their extended families. As a Pueblo girl reading the BSC books (many of which I checked out at my pueblo's library) I didn't think living so close by to my aunt, my uncle, my great-aunt, my cousins, their spouses, and all my cousin's children was unusual. Most Pueblo people live that way. We don't all live in one house, we have our own houses, but they're close to each other, and I often spent the night at my great-aunt's house. or at one of my cousins house. I also knew (thanks to reading the BSC, but also because of TV, movies, and having lots of friends in the wider world) that white people often live far away from their parents, or other extended family. I didn't consider it anything to make a fuss about. Granted, Zuni is considered one of the most traditional Pueblos, and they have kept a lot of traditions that most of the other Pueblos have given up on, but any kid living there would know full well how white people live. Native people are constantly smacked in the face with white culture through TV, movies, magazines, websites, and you know, LIFE IN GENERAL!

Dawn assumes that "compared to the Zunis, we were probably rich." Now why does she assume that? There was nothing in the few letters she heard the Pike kids reading to imply that the Zunis were poor. Many Zunis are actually fairly well off since their jewelry, art, and fetishes are so sought after, and they don't live an extravagant lifestyle. Zuni is under the jurisdiction of the nineteen pueblos of New Mexico, who are all under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) a US government agency within the Department of the Interior. It sucks that they had a fire, and the school burned down, but there is no reason for Richard to imply that their buildings aren't up to code, and no reason for Dawn to think that the people of Stoneybrook should come to the rescue. The nineteen pueblos actually set pretty high standards for their public buildings and programs, and all the pueblos help police each other. That doesn't mean a gas station can't explode, and cause a fire that can get out of control quickly, but the BIA and the governors of the other pueblos can ensure that money, clothing, food, shelter, new school supplies, a new building, and anything else Zuni pueblo needs will find their way to the right people. Maybe what Dawn means is that compared to most small communities, Stoneybrook is probably rich, but why she thinks that means it's her job to save the poor, pathetic Indian (excuse me, Native Americans) who lost their school and their homes and have no way of helping themselves is beyond me. I guess I'm insulted not by Dawn's well-meaning yet misplaced charity, but by the fact that she doesn't understand that Pueblo culture is set up so that there is always a support system. The reason why the Pueblo people were never forced off their lands is because the pueblos banded together in the 1600s to revolt against the Spanish, and throw them out of the state. When the Spanish returned to Santa Fe ten years later they couldn't break the alliance that had formed among the nineteen pueblos that is still in place to this day. The Spanish realized that they couldn't bully a group of savages into submission, especially when they are UNITED savages; and the Pueblo people realized there was no way to make the rich, determined conquistadores leave for good. So the Spanish people, and the Pueblo people settled down to squabble over boundaries, and compromises, intermarrying along the way. The Spanish never again tried to conquer the Pueblos, and the Pueblo people never tried to force the Spanish out completely. But due to the Pueblo Revolt, the pueblos have formed a network that ensures that any pueblo that needs help or support will receive it from someone. If Dawn thinks she can compare her sad fundraising efforts to the nineteen governments of the Pueblos, then she is dreaming.

When Dawn tells the entire elementary school about her idea to raise money for Zuni she tells them not to tell their pen pals so they can surprise them. One, I assume someone like a responsible adult has approached Zuni's school leaders and/or community leaders (remember in pueblos they are interchangeable) and asked if they could accept a donation. Two, kids cannot keep secrets like that. Someone would have said something.

This book would be incredibly boring if not for my outrage about the portrayal of Native people in New Mexico. However, I thought it made some good points about how stupid people are when they donate items. Dawn's house is a drop-off point for donations, and she sees the crap people bring in. "A lot of it was pretty junky, to be honest -- stuff I would be embarrassed to send to New Mexico," she thinks. When my husband worked for a housing initiative several years ago there was a huge faction of people in the city who thought that homeless people should be grateful for any clothing and household items, even if they were falling apart or broken. They believed that people who live in low-income housing shouldn't have beds as long as they had sleeping bags, and so on. I was feeling pretty friendly toward Dawn for a few paragraphs until she says: "Why would anyone send hot cocoa to people who lived in the desert? And the imported chocolates were wonderful but not exactly necessary." I have lived almost my whole life in the desert and I LOVE hot chocolate. Why shouldn't people who live in the desert be allowed to drink hot chocolate? Most people who live in hot climates learn pretty fast that the best way to stay cool is to drink hot beverages. And only Dawn would say something stupid like chocolates are not necessary. Give me a break, carob girl. But it's amusing that the kids donate items that their parents never use because they figure someone should enjoy them, and the adults are embarrassed that they want these items back. . . but they are willing to donate their junkier stuff. Ah, people who think they are generous and giving.

I didn't think about this as a kid, but as an adult this point really bothers me. The kids are supposed to raise money for Zuni (for what exactly, I don't know) and have a food and clothing drive. For their reward for doing this they get a big slumber party with games, and prizes, and food. So Dawn convinces local businesses to donate pizzas and funds to pay for the party. Why is there such an extravagant reward that costs so much money, and gets the kids such an awesome prize when all they did was donate their old clothes, and earn a little money for their sister school? Wouldn't everyone have been better off going to the local businesses directly and ask them to donate money to Zuni and just be done with it? It's like those ridiculous black tie dinners that charge you twenty thousand dollars a table, then give you a nice dinner, and somehow the proceeds (and is there much "proceed" left when you rent the dining room, pay for waiters, buy the food, and so forth?) go to help someone who doesn't get the nice dinner, but maybe gets a little money. People would just be better off if someone donates twenty thousand dollars directly to the people they claim they are helping.

The principal of Zuni's elementary school sends a letter to Stoneybrook saying that the money they donated "helped enable us to obtain financing for the construction of a new school." I can promise you that it absolutely did not. The US Government is pretty strict on what Native tribes can do with donated money, and building new schools is not one of them. When buildings are damaged or destroyed Native tribes can apply for grants or funding through government agencies, or certain non-profits. Or they can ask the BIA to scrounge up some money for them. Or they can use their own infrastructure and economies to pay for the building themselves (yes, Native people do use casino money to make their communities stronger). Because of the federal government's oversight on donations coming into Native communities, most Indigenous groups are cautious about accepting large donations. The letter goes on to say that the government has agreed to grant Zuni disaster funding relief, possibly because Stoneybrook has showed how much they care about the poverty-stricken Zunis. That's great, but it has nothing to do with Stoneybrook. In the real world a donation from a rich, white suburb might compromise disaster funding from the government. And once again, just for emphasis. . . THE NINETEEN PUEBLOS WOULD HAVE GOTTEN ALL THE ZUNIS NEEDS TAKEN CARE OF. THE PUEBLO PEOPLE DON'T NEED WHITE TEENS FROM CONNECTICUT TO SAVE THEM! This book really horribly portrays the Native people of New Mexico, and it's really, really offensive.

[Ciara · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book is preposterous. the premise is that second- through fifth-graders at stoneybrook elementary school are participating in the pens across america program, & have been assigned pen pals. their pen pals all attend an elementary school on the zuni indian reservation. the book opens with the pike kids showing a staggering lack of sensitivity to other cultures. adam is all bummed out because his pen pal has an "anglo" name & isn't named, like, thomas flying eagle or something. he is also disappointed that his pen pal looks like a regular kid & isn't sporting a headdress & war paint. mallory tells the kids they are being insensitive, but jesus fucking christ. i am not remotely surprised that this is the same town in which jessi's family initially felt so unwelcome. i am not convinced that things would be so great if a second black family were to move to town.

anyway. dawn things the whole pen pal thing is pretty cool. but early in the book, mallory is late to a BSC meeting because her siblings received the news that the zuni students' school burnt down. as did several houses on the reservation. she had to stay & comfort them. the babysitters are all aghast at this news...& dawn thinks that they should organize some kind of food drive/clothing drive/fundraiser. she pitches the idea to her brother's old teacher, ms. besser. ms. besser likes it & suggests it to the other teachers. they like it too, & they arrange for dawn & the other BSC members to give a presentation at the elementary school outlining their idea. it all culminates with a huge sleepover for any SES students who participate. everyone is pumped.

& i'm pleased too, because this is a SES-specific storyline, which means...NO KAREN!

anyway. kids are instructed to bring food & clothing drive items to mary anne & dawn's barn. the kids are on their own for fundraising ideas. the rodowskys host a fundraising yard sale, & it turns out that kids all across the neighborhood donate things without their parents' permission. david miachel donates a bunch of books from watson's library. no word on how he transported them to the rodowskys' place. mysteriously, max & amanda delaney donate a fancy lamp. again, no word on how they transported it out of their neighborhood, or why, considering that they don't go to SES, don't have pen pals, & aren't eligible to attend the sleepover. we have not exactly been led to believe through characterization that the delaneys are the kinds of kids that do things out of the goodness of their hearts.

anyway, all the parents who find their own possessions at the rodowsky sale decide it's for a good cause & they buy their stuff back. so their kids are not exactly learning anything. yet another case of stoneybrook parenting fail. dawn & mary anne begin to realize that some of their clothing/food drive donations were also probably donated without parental permission. so they start hinting around to the parents, & manage to give some stuff back.

to raise money, the pikes host a carnival in their backyard. there's a magician (performing for free?) & the perkins' dog chewy ruins a bunch of shit. haley braddock dresses up like a gypsy (another instance of cultural insensitivity) & reads fortunes.

the whole project goes quite well & they have a bunch of stuff to send to the zunis, & they cut a check to the zuni elementary school principal. he writes them back & says that their check helped them secure financing to build a new school. bear in mind that the check was probably received about three weeks after the fire. so...seriously? the school struggled to get financing to re-build after a disaster like a fire for at least three weeks? the principal also says that the government just agreed to provide disaster relief funds. SERIOUSLY? THREE WEEKS AFTER THE DISASTER? i am dumbfounded. he adds that he speculates that the government ponied up the disaster relief money because the community has been striving to be so positive about the fire. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? so if the zunis had been all, "fuck this fire bullshit! our elementary school burnt down, our kids are just hanging out at home, some of our community member sare homeless & going hungry, & the government is not stepping up with disaster aid, nor is there enough money in the city/state education budget to get cracking on a new school building without the benevolent gifts of our white benefactors in connecticut. this fucking blows!" then the government would have been all, "hey you! turn that frown upside down if you want to see one red penny of this disaster relief funding! i said SMILE!"

the sleepover happens. some kids get scared & want to go home. some kids have to pee a lot. the pizza place providing dinner tries to back out but dawn manipulates them into making the thirty free pizzas, some with whole wheat crust. but i am so dumbfounded by the racism, cultural insensitivity, & utter FAIL in comprehending the way that government disaster relief & school budgets are administrated that i can't even focus on the stupid sleepover. WTF, book?

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

in this book (which I'm pretty sure is the first ghostwritten by Peter Lerangis! that's huge, considering how many of them he would go on to write) the kids of stoneybrook elementary school have zuni penpals in the southwest. there is a fire in their reservation, and their school and many of their houses are burned down. dawn is really bummed, and in a kristy-like move, decides to DO SOMETHING about it: create a campaign to raise funds and collect donations of food, clothing, etc. to help out the folks in the zuni rez. the titular sleepover is just a large slumber party at the school for all the kids who participated after the campaign is over. it really only takes up a tiny bit of the book, which is mostly about the kids' nutty fundraising schemes.

highlights:
-dawn tells someone to eat his heart out and narrates that it is not something she would usually say but she's keyed up. oh peter, you're just as much of a 1950s goody-goody as ann. eat your heart out IS NOT profanity! hahaha
-dawn says david michael makes labels using "one of those little rotating things that look like mini versions of the starship enterprise." OMG.
-I'm gonna put this in the highlights, even though I kind of hate it. kids keep giving things away without asking parents, both in the rodowskys' yard sale (a fundraising scheme!) and for the clothing donations. at some point mary anne finally makes a permission slip that parents have to sign with the descriptions of items donated so the bsc knows the kids have permission.
-haley braddock's plotline as "madame leveaux" the fortune-teller (a fundraising scheme!) is funny. alan gray and co come to her and when she tells them exciting things about their future, she keeps saying that she can tell them more if they give her more money. she manipulates way more than the 25-cent cost of fortune-telling out of those idiots.
-during the sleepover a little boy, after eating dinner, asks dawn if his pen pal is going to be able to eat dinner now too. this was kind of obvious but really did it for me. I got a little feelingsy. it's just...it's allergies, guys. there's something in my eye.
-THE ENDING. we find out that haley braddock wrote a letter to her penpal as madame leveaux predicting that a lot of money would come to the zuni rez "from the east", and her penpal responded in earnest, like, "wow, everything you said came true! write me again with more predictions!" but then she followed it up with a PS: "this time, haley, disguise your handwriting better!" I laughed out loud.

lowlights/nitpicks:
-sort of reads like its goal is to make people know that native people don't look like horrible stereotypes (a chapter where the pikes talk about how the penpals look like normal kids, not wearing feather headdresses and all that jazz), but then there's this gypsy plotline with haley being madame leveaux and manipulating people out of money. I like that because screw alan gray, but I just want to know: is this or is this not an anti-stereotype book? make up your mind!
-dawn narrates that she doesn't know how stacey can "watch claudia pull out candy left and right and not go totally crazy." two problems with this statement: 1. you, dawn, watch claudia do that and you don't go totally crazy. 2. remember when stacey kept eating candy in spite of her brittle diabetes, IN THE LAST BOOK? (Stacey's Emergency)
-when dawn tells her parents about the fire, richard spier says, "maybe they didn't have a good sprinkler system." uggghhhh whatta victim-blaming POS.
-I'm sorry, but DAWN HAS ALREADY MET MS. BESSER. THEY HAD A MEETING IN Kristy and the Snobs). I thought so but wasn't sure, so I went to my friend's house (because she borrowed many of my early bsc books) and spent a while flipping through them trying to find this chapter I remembered. and yes, they HAVE met. peter, I know you're new, but please READ the bsc stories before you write them. thank you.
-pike triplets have a free throw contest at their carnival (a fundraising scheme!) and dawn doesn't understand why it's called a "free" throw contest when it costs money to participate. this is cute and funny and all, but I call bs. I knew what a free throw was when I was her age, and I hate sports! plus she has a masculine little brother not to mention is tight with kristy. she's NEVER watched a basketball game before? no way.
-a guy named goober pretends to be dinosaurs and entertains kids at the carnival. he doesn't do anything wrong, but chewy (the perkinses' nightmare of a dog) freaks out and terrorizes the carnival. and everyone acts like it's goober's fault. it's the perkinses' fault! why do they keep bringing chewy places?
-there's a reference to the barrett "parents" coming to pick up buddy - huh? mrs. barrett and mr. barrett are divorced and do not get along at all.

claudia outfits:
-"For instance, she walked into school today wearing a bright yellow, oversize man's jacket with rolled-up sleeves; a wide paisley tie right out of the nineteen-sixties; orange stirrup pants; ankle boots; and huge hoop earrings."
-"Claudia greeted us at the door to her room with her hair in a ponytail on top of her head, held up by a huge barrette in the shape of a bone, like Pebbles in The Flintstones. It made her hair bounce when she moved. She was even wearing a Pebbles-type outfit--a pink, off-the-shoulder blouse with huge polka dots and a ragged bottom over black tights."

jackie disasters:
-knocks plates off the table at the yard sale and they get smashed.
-slips on grapefruit juice and lands on his butt.

snacks in claudia's room:
-"some new kind of dark-chocolate caramel" under her pillow
-pretzels under her bed

[✨Jordan✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the elementary kids are writing and receiving pen pal letters from kids in Mexico! A town/tribe called Zuni. They learn about other cultures and kids. When a devastating event leads to a fire that burns down the Zuni school and a bunch of their houses Dawn and her friends get the great idea to start a fundraiser and clothing drive! With the help of the middle school teachers they plan out what they need to do. Have they bitten more than they can chew though??

[Hallie]

I read this while waiting for election results and I know that Dawn is somewhere celebrating this win too.

[Joey Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dawn hears all about the pen pal letters the children are receiving from a native sister school and it gets the kids all worked up, but then a fire destroys everything and she takes it upon herself to help these people.

Dawn planned way too much stuff to get done all in one go, she had a good heart to try her best and get these things accomplished but whilst reading you could tell it was overwhelming her.

The children were nothing but trouble all just wanting to win the big prize, though they wanted to help their friends, it honestly at times felt like they just wanted to help themselves be the winner at the sleepover and the sitters just let them.

I did enjoy reading this it was fun and chaotic and had so much happening through the whole book, it also had a good message to help out others that are in more need than yourself. It was sweet and different.

[ivy · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is something so touching about this book, that I can't really fully put into words. The BSC is always encouraging their charges to be the best people they can be, and I felt as if this book really showed not just how important it is to help others out, but just how amazing children can be. Their kind hearts and giving ways always put a smile on my face, and this book just made me really happy. The way the children tried to fundraise money and all the things that went wrong were hilarious; yet, also very cute. This was a great read and light hearted read.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was just okay, more "kids being greedy and wanting to win prizes, so they take things from their parents without asking and try to donate/sell them" and less "big sleepover." It's nice when a BSC member other than Kristy comes up with Great Ideas though.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two after-school-special-esque books in a row, but this is a really sweet story about the community coming together after a tragedy.

[Tiffany Spencer]

Dawn and the Big Sleepover
Dawn is baby sitting the Pikes. All of them except Claire are excited about reading the letters from their pen pals. They’re apart of a program called Pens Across America and it’s for second through fifth grade. They’ve been writing to kids from Zoni (a Native American tribe in New Mexico). Vanessa’s pen pal’s name is Rachel and she shows her picture. Margo thinks she’s pretty. Hers isn’t smiling. For some reason they think, Adam’s will look like a geek, but he looks like a regular kid. His name is Conrad. Adam is disappointed because he wants him to look like a stereotypical Indian (headdress, costume, war paint, etc). Mal tells him he’s a Native American not an Indian. Indians are from India. Dawn reminds him that sometimes Native Americans can have English sounding names.

Margo points out her pen pal’s name is Wendy Jackson and Nicky says he’s is named Joey Evans. Vanessa goes first and reads her letter. There are tweleve people in her family and they all live in the same house. She’s the youngest. She wants to know why Vanessa’s relatives don’t live with her. She talks about her teacher and village. Jordan reads his next. It’s about a Zoni festival. He’s interested in if he has Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies there and what his favorite video game is. He also want to know if they have Nintento. He ends his letter with his teacher smells like a cow. It’s in Pig Latin. Byron is upset because it’s supposed to be the triplets secret language. But Jordan says Sam’s cool. After this Mal suggests thinking of something to send their pen pals.

The triplets pick out a pendant but Mal says it’s not unique enough. They throw around some ideas. Bumper stikers,Stoneybrooke merchandise, tee-shirts with their pictures on them. Adam decides to sent a pendant. Nicky will send decals. Byron will ask his dad if he can take some pictures of the family. Vanessa will send a poem. Jordan will record himself playing the piano. Margo is undecided. Dawn goes home wishing she was in the Zunis program (a little down). Maryanne suggests that Dawn write the school and maybe they’ll find her a pen pal of her own and Dawn likes this idea.

At the BSC meeting, Mal is late. She tells them the pen pal school burned down. Vanessa’s pen pal told her there was a fire at a gas station. The school went up. She had to calm her siblings down. Dawn tells her parents about it at dinner. She’s taken it to heart and thinks it’s really unfair. Her mom tells her they’ll rebuild everything and life will go on. Richard says she can help cheer the Pike kids up. Later, Dawn calls Mal and asks her what wil they do about the stuff they were going to send. No Mal wonders this and Dawn says they can still send it. It might make them feel better but then she thinks it might seem insensitive. Dawn thinks surely there’s something the people in Stoneybrooke can do and then thinks about what they’ll need. She thiks of a three part plan.

She tells Maryanne SMS can have a food drive and a clothing drive. Then last but not least a fund raiser. Maryanne says it’s a great idea but it’ll be a lot of work. Dawn says she’s not worried about it but she really is. The nexr day she calls a teacher. She didn’t go to SES but she remembers a teacher Jeff hated named Mrs. Besser. Mrs. Besser says she’ll bring it up in the teacher’s lounge and there’s a good chance the others will be agreeable. Then she decides to get Kristy involved and she wants to have an emergency meeting when they hear from Mrs. Besser to decide what the fundraiser will be. Dawn’s happy she’s excited but hopes she doesn’t get carried away and think it’s her idea. Mrs. Besser gives Dawn the green light. At the Monday meeting, they all decide to make a flier so everyone will know about it. Dawn says they can drop off the food and clothes at her barn. They also decide there should be prizes and a party. Then they come up with using the school gym and having some of the staff participate. They can have pizza for dinner and then play games and have a cermony to hand out prizes. In the morning they can have pancakes. They can also ask a pizza place to donate the food. They decide to let the kids decide what they want to do to raise the money.

Monday and Tuesday Stacey gets sitting jobs with Charlotte. Charlotte shows Stacey how she can communicate with her dog without words. Then they start to talk about her pen pal Thersa whose house caught fire. Then she shares her letter with Stacey. So not only did her house burn, her school burned. Now she has to live with her aunt and uncle and wear the same clothes. Her cousin makes a joke and says she wishes her school would burn down but her mother doesn’t think it’s funny and neither does she. Charlotte asks if their house burns down can she move in with her. Stacey says yes and then she tells her about Dawn’s plan. Charlotte really likes the idea and suggests they have an assembly so they can announce it to the whole school. Stacey lets Charlotte give Dawn her brilliant suggestion.

There’s an assembly on Friday and Dawn has been asked to talk about her idea. Of course, she’s nervous about it. She’s worried if they’ll listen or even want to get involved and how she’ll sound. But the assembly goes well. Dawn gives her speech and then answers some questions. She says they can’t tell theire pen pals about it because its suppsed to be a surprise. The drives will be three weeks or longer if they do well. David Micheal wants to know if they can collect money and Kristy tells him yes (as in door to door). Also if no one participates in any activity they can’t come to the sleepover.

The Pikes decide to have a carnival. They make stands out of cardboard boxes. There’s a free throw contest. Nicky and Jordan make grab bags. Vanessa and Margo take a pool and make a fishing pond. They use Claire’s rubber ducks. Jessi invites her cousin Kesha. Jessi takes pictures by the Pikes garden and candid shots. Marilyn and Carolyn set up a ring toss. Linny does a magic show. David Micheal makes pins. There are some issues. Vanessa has problems blowing up the pool. The triplets ball keeps getting away. Some boy named Goober is coming to do three shows. He’s the star of some local productions. The triplets aren’t happy about him taking their spot. Hisi act seems kinda lame. He ends up scaring Chewy and he rauns away and knocks over the ring toss and into Linny’s show. Then Jaimee starts to cry. Things get back to normal. Even tho they think Goober messed up the show it brought in more people.

Mrs. Rodowsky asks Claudia can they help her organize a yard sale. None of them want to so they draw stras and Claudia loses. A lot of kids donate food and clothes but then they start wanting receits so they can win first prize. The Rodowsky boys get a lot of things out of their parents (a blender, a toaster, a juice extractor, a waffle maker, and some glass bowls). But Jackie makes the toaster fall and some of the plates. At first no one comes but then after a little while it’s packed. People starts to notice their things (not given by them) at the yard sale. Mr. Rodowsky has to make an annoucment. He apologizes and says they should separate the non sale items from the sale items. Some decide their items can still be sold. Some buy back their own items. So it’s a big success and they make a lot of money. The parents are understanding and decide it’s for a good cause.

When Dawn goes through the items donated there’s a mixture of some bad things (like out of date clothes like polyester suits, cavier, imported chocolate, and caviar) and some good, praticial things . (I bet Amanda Delaney donated the caviar). Dawn gets an odd feeling when she sees a suit from a
Haley wants to tell fortunes to earn money. Maryanne tells her to go ahead but she makes her promise to be happy if she makes a lot of money or not. She knows this is a last ditch effort to win first prize. The Great Madame Leaveus’s first customers are Mrs. Barette, Suzy, and Marnie. She predicts she sees there brother in a gym and that she sees some children in a room with a party going on. Suzy calls her on her bull and wants her quarter back, but the Barette’s leave after Marnie starts to cry. Things go a little better after an hour. She becomes more confident after Maryanne tells her it’s ok to make things up. Alan and Pete come over to have there fortune told. She tells Alan she sees that he’ll have lots of success and riches but stops before telling him doing what. She tells him that’s all he gets for .25. So he gives her another quarter and she tells him he’ll be a movie store. She lays it on thick and gets two dollars out of the guys. She says she feels guilty after that but Maryannetells her not to worry about it.

Dawn gets photograghers, the pizza place to donate as many pizzas as needed, the toy store to give the prizes, four teachers to come, and three cafeteria workers to make breakfast in the morning. She and Maryanne also come up with a schedule of games and activities. On the night of the sleepover, the pizza owner says he can’t get a shipment of special flour (I think he really didn’t want to make all those pizzas) but she talks him into it by telling him she’ll go to his competition. Then a reporter says he can’t come and one of the teachers says she can’t get a CD player so Maryanne has to bring her tape deck. But afte this it goes a little better.

Some kids start crying and two have to go home, but then the pizza comes. Haley wins the prize for Most Creative Fundraiser and gets a mini telescope. The Haines kid wins for most clothes donated. The other kids get smaller prizes like stickers and such. Then they split up and play different games, At nine they start to wind down and the kids are divided into circles. The teachers and the BSC read to them. Before they go to bed, Dawn announces the grand total. (It doesn’t give the actual total). A little boy comes up to Dawn and asks her will Johnny have inners and Dawn tells him yes. Then another little girl comes up to her and asks to go home and her parents come and get her. At ten everyone gets into their sleeping bags and cots. By 11 they’re all mostly asleep. Mrs. Besser congratulates her and tells her (her) brother would be proud. She praises all the BSC. She tells them to stay the same age until she has a child that’s old enough to be sat for. It’s not a good night tho. The kids keep having to go to the bathroom. One throws up from having too much pizza, Then one of the triplets gets in a fight over where he can put his feet (Jordan). Buddy starts to sleepwalk and a teacher has to walk around the gym with him and not wake him up. Another girl has a screaming nightmare.

After breakfast and the kids go home, they sent the money in a check to the Zuni’s and they get a appreciation letter back. They say they were given emergency supply money and hopefully in the future they’ll be able to visit Stoneybrooke and the damage done by the fture will be rebuilt. Haley writes her pen pal as her alter ego (Mrs. Leavuex) and has the letter sent from Maryanne’s address because they were told not to tell anyone.

My Thoughts
This was nice! It reminded me of when Hurricane Katrina hit and people all over the world got involved and helped out the victims. It also made me think of years back when I had a house fire and how fortunate I was not to have been like some of the pen pals. There was a lot of damage to the kitchen and appliances had to be replaced but luckily the fire men came in time so nothing major was lost as in clothes or material things (which can always be replaced). And most importantly no one was hurt. It took some time for the house to be livable again and that was somewhat frustrating but all and all I was blessed and very grateful. I did have to stay with a relative for a while but that wasn’t so bad. It was just ONE and not TWELVE. I think that would have made me CRAZY! Apartment and hotel living had its ups and downs (I also had to live in a couple of these for a short time) but overall it wasn’t so bad. I don’t think I ever got use to the noise from the people in the pool outside my window but it was an experience and both places the insurance company put us up in were pretty nice. I’m trying to remember if I ever had a pen pal or my elementary school ever had a program like this, but it’s just not coming to mind. But then it is early.

Rating: 6

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick and fun read. SES kids have a pen pal program with an elementary school in a Zuni reservation in New Mexico, and the Zuni kids' school (and homes, I think?) burns down, so Dawn and the BSC organize a donation drive for the SES kids to help their pen pals.

There are some outdated elements, of course, like Haley Braddock playing a [Roma] fortune-teller, and one of the Pike triplets being surprised his Zuni pen pal is 'such a regular kid' without a stereotypical 'Indian' name. But I do like that Mallory corrects him by saying that 'Indian' refers to people from India; I think that was a pretty progressive bit of knowledge for a 90s book.

My biggest snag with this book honestly is how....inefficient (?) the plans to help the Zuni kids are.

First, no one tells the Zuni community anything about their plans to help, so that their donations will be a big surprise, but then talking to the community first will help the Stoneybrook folks know what they actually need. And maybe it WILL turn out to be old clothes and canned goods, but maybe they already have enough of those donations from a closer neighbourhood, and maybe cash is what they really, really need.

And on the note about cash, I couldn't stop thinking about how much more useful it would've been if the BSC and SES just did their usual fundraisers and sent all the proceeds over to Zuni sister school. How much would it have cost to transport all those canned goods and old clothes? Wouldn't that money be better used as part of the donation, so that the Zunis can just buy what they need? (Granted, this is me not knowing geography and potentially being overly anxious about shipping costs.)

And finally the sleepover. I don't mind that so much because I can see it as a fun way to motivate the SES kids, but I do think it's naive for the BSC (I'm looking at you, Kristy) to think that such an evening would be very low cost. There was pizza for all the kids, and toys -- unless all of that was donated? There were supplies for the games, and also all the staff time to supervise those kids. I don't remember how many kids there were, but surely a lot more than the BSC can handle on their own, especially overnight. How many school staff had to put in overtime to run this event? (Unless again they all donated that time.)

With all the costs of running the drive, transporting the donations, AND organizing a massive sleepover for the entire elementary school, I can't stop thinking there are so many more efficient and effective ways to actually HELP the Zunis. I'm giving Dawn, the BSC, and the SES kids a pass because they're kids, but I'm kinda definitely side-eyeing the SES adults. The whole thing felt more like a feel-good project for SES kids than an actual assistance to the Zuni school.

Bah...this is me being unable to turn my adult brain off and just enjoy the story for what it is. Keeping it at 4 stars because I recognize I'm being overly critical of a kids book.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was book 100 for the year for me woot woot! :) And I actually really liked this one, even though Dawn is usually pretty boring and whiny. Also, I didn't remember much about it so that was a nice surprise. But let's talk about this cover for a minute. First, those boys pillow fighting? Kristy would put the kabash on that immediately. And I'm pretty sure the boy in red is wearing one-piece pj's...possibly footies. The girl (?) in the pink is seriously scary, I think she might be an alien. And then there's Dawn's left hand. I'm pretty sure she's just got it sticking out weird, because her fingers are bent funny, but...maybe she needs to take that "places baby-sitters don't touch" class down at the Y.

The book starts out with Dawn & Mallory watching the younger Pike kids. They're all excited because they've just gotten letters from their school pen pal project. They're writing kids in New Mexico who are all part of a Native American tribe called Zunis. Adam is upset because his pen pal isn't wearing a headdress and named Chief Rocking Horse. Luckily, Mal calls him out on his stereotyping crap. Which is honestly surprising, since they stereotype all the time with California girls and New York chic and Asians are smart etc... Anyway, the Pike's learn all about the Zuni people, who are a contradiction with their Pueblos and multi-family living and then their Nintendos and Ninja Turtles. Dawn is kind of jealous that she doesn't get to have a non-white friend but then she remembers Jessi and it's all good. (Just kidding)
Read my full review here...plus 2 Claudia outfits!!

[Swankivy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Suddenly, for Purposes of Plot, Dawn and all her schoolmates happen to have American Indian pen pals in an exchange program thing. But then they get bad news that the Zuni kids' school burned down (along with some houses) and they want to do something for their pen pals to help them get back on their feet after the disaster. This is an extremely nice gesture but it kinda bothered me that a bunch of kids in another state (who are, of course, predominantly white) had to assist the poor native peoples who apparently did not have any insurance or something. (I think they got government help in addition to what the babysitters ended up raising for them, but I can't remember exactly--just that what the babysitters sent them was not enough to build a whole school. Not that that would have been that unlikely in a book this silly.)

Dawn and her friends organize a yard sale (but a lot of the contributed items are stolen from parents without permission), and there's a big sleepover/lock-in thing. I remember the lock-in part really well--because some people flipped out and didn't want to stay. Also because I had a similar cool lock-in at my gymnastics place once and I was imagining that ambiance.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic books for young girls getting into reading!! Great stories about friendship and life lessons. The characters deal with all sorts of situations and often find responsible solutions to problems.

I loved this series growing up and wanted to start my own babysitting business with friends. Great lessons in entrepreneurship for tweens.

The books may be dated with out references to modern technology but the story stands and lessons are still relevant.

Awesome books that girls will love! And the series grows with them! Terrific Author!

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I downloaded this to read while stuck in an airport, and it definitely helped pass the time. I always loved this one, for reasons I can't really fathom, and it was still a lot of fun to read now.

Also, is that Claudia on the right? If so, why is Dawn having to hold her back from starting a stuffed animal fight?

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know, i liked this one. It was all cute and heart-warmy and provided a few giggles (Haley Braddock's gypsy routine. My gosh!) The idea of that sleepover makes me want to crawl the bottom of the sea, just to avoid it, but overall a good BSC.

[Moriah Baxster · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was really funny. I liked it.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

In which STFUDawn organizes a massive sleepover at school to cap off some fundraiser she also organized. Snore.

[Katy Lovejoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a nice, heartwarming story, that didn't neglect to let us know about the struggles of babysitting s9 many kids

[Maria Constanca dOrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do love all of the BSC books but this one was honestly boring. I liked the comcept and ideas but I felt thab there should be done a little more research. Great book but ver tedious.

[Alison Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

The notion of a giant sleepover with like 100 elementary school kids in a gymnasium sounds like AN ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE.

Can you tell I'm happily child-free???

This one was...fine. There are definitely some issues, although I do think some reviews have been a bit harsher than is merited. I had a pen pal as a kid, somewhere in Eastern Europe, and I remember loving the experience -- getting to know someone who lived on the other side of the world, learning about what foods he ate and games he played, his family's traditions, etc. And it really did feel like he was my friend, and I'm sure if I'd heard about something like this (the school burning down) happening, I would have been incredibly sad and wanted to help. So I do like the basic premise here, that the kids and the babysitters want to do something to help out the Zuni people affected by the fire. Sending clothes and food and money in the wake of a disaster is always a good idea, so long as it's all stuff that is needed and usable.

Some of it did seem farfetched and a little too simplistic, but this is a middle grade book written decades ago, after all. You can't go looking for depth in a BSC book. And I didn't love the idea of "rewarding" the Stoneybrook kids with a giant party because they donated some clothes and food, as though charity is something you do because of what you'll get in return rather than something you should do simply out of kindness and being a good human. (There are apparently no Jews in Stoneybrook to teach them about tikkun olam.) And yes, as some reviews have noted, there is a lot of cringey shit in here regarding how the kids talk about the Zuni people and Native Americans in general. However, most of it is directly challenged on the page, and a lot of it is coming from little kids who based on the time and place shouldn't really be expected to know any better right off the bat. This book was published in 1991, and I believe we're supposed to imagine the books being set roughly in the same time, or maybe still in the mid 80s when the series began. A 10-year-old in small-town Connecticut in the mid to late 80s is not going to know that not all Native people have "Indian" sounding names. Their only experience of Native Americans is likely going to be from their shitty textbooks that tell them the Native peoples were super happy to make friends with the Pilgrims and from awful TV shows and movies where every Native person is wearing a headdress. So when one of the Pike kids whines that his pen pal doesn't "look like an Indian" or has a boring name, I'm not gonna call that kid a racist for not knowing any better, and he is immediately corrected on those expectations by the babysitters. There are other examples of this that to me show the author was trying to highlight some stereotypes or wrong beliefs the series' readers might have and then gently correct them and hopefully have them come away with a bit of a better understanding. Were there moments that could have been handled better? Yes indeed. Dawn's assumption that all of the Zuni people must be poor, for one thing, and the extreme vagueness about how things ended up (we don't even get told how much they raised! And how would that money be incorporated into whatever grants and funding the Zuni would be given from the BIA or other government entity?) were annoying. But it's a fool's errand to demand modern understandings be present in a book written over three decades ago, even if it is still a little painful to read.

I did think it was far too simplistic and made helping people recover from a disaster seem like a fun game you play in order to get pizza and toys. Everything comes together super easily and works out great, and they somehow figure out how to send everything to New Mexico with nary an issue. But again, I'm not expecting much nuance in a book written for middle-schoolers in the early 90s.

(I will say: I did very much appreciate the fourth-wall-breaking inside joke when the teacher asks the babysitters if they could please stay the same age for a few years until she has kids for them to babysit. Like...good news, lady! These girls literally never age! They have already been this age for a few years and will stay this age for years to come!)

[CB · Rating 4 out of 5]

SOME SPOILERS: This book was great! A quick read. I like how diverse the group of girls is from their personalities, looks, and roles within the group. But they all manage to fit in together. I liked that the author (Martin) took the time to describe the club and its members for those who haven’t read any books in the series before (including me.) The disability representation of the deaf boy was a nice touch. It was a wholesome read. The whole premise of the book is raising money for the Native American reservation elementary school kids and their families in New Mexico. They are the Stoneybrook elementary in Connecticut kids pen pals after a fire burned down the Indian kids school and burned some homes. A plan is put in place organized by the baby sitters club to throw a big slumber party, coming originally as an idea from Dawn, but the rest of the group chips in to help. They do various activities to raise money and the party is the reward. I felt the way the kids were written felt realistic to how a kid would actually behave (I’ve worked with young children before so I have some experience with them myself.) Needing to use the bathroom at odd hours, crying to go home, getting excited for a pizza party. The pen pal letters were sweet too. And there was a touching moment between one of the babysitters and a little boy near the end of the story. He was worried about his pen pals food situation which was kind. It was definitely chaotic at times but the bbc pulled through a win for everyone in the end! Some parts were repetitive like the yard sale and the separate event with the donations being the same plot line (giving away the parents items without permission.) That’s the only negative I have keeping it from being a 5 star read. I recommend for all ages!

[A. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Part of my re-reading the BSC series as I run across the books at the thrift store.

This one's okay, not my favourite--there are problems, like the casual racism.

The funniest bit is when the kids are so enthusiastic about fundraising for their penpals to help rebuild their school that they take stuff from their homes without checking with their parents for the yard sale and the clothing donations. Although I'm definitely a little irritated that the BSC and the adults involved paid for the shipping of all the donations out of the fundraising proceeds, though it certainly mirrors some of the issues involved with non-profit organizations and where people's donations actually go.

I'm not qualified to comment on the representation of the Zuni people--some of the info appears to be correct based on a quick fact-check, but I don't know how much is accurate, and there's definitely some white savior overtones in the book. Plus there's one of the kids who dresses up as a fortuneteller and tells fortunes to raise money and the g-slur shows up multiple times.

I don't really get, for example, why the kids who help with the fundraising get to have a fancy pizza party and sleepover--shouldn't it just be enough to help their friends? They don't need to get a reward for it. And why does it have to be the BSC who shoulders the burden of running and cleaning up after the whole thing?

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought dawn was really kind and generous in this book, when usually, I complain about how badly she treated Mary Anne in other books. The kids at Stoneybrook elementary have indigenous pen pals, and one day their school burns down, so dawn decided to organize a fundraiser for donating items, and at the end, the kids would have a sleepover at the school. One thing I didn’t like about the book was that they stereotyped natives and made assumptions about them

Anyways the sleepover goes well. There are group games, and the kids receive prizes donated from a toy store for their fundraising work, and a lot of pizzas are donated, as well as pancakes for breakfast.

I do think in real life they could not pull this off though, there’s so much liability from being at the school after hours and 13 is too young to supervise all those kids, adults could have been chaperones maybe

[Jennifer Maloney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Kinda boring. I felt like we didn’t get a lot of uniquely Dawn storyline in this one. It was mostly about the different fundraising ideas the kids had that the babysitters helped implement to raise money for their sister school that had burned down. We didn’t even get to the sleepover part until about 70% in. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I guess it just didn’t feel like a super cohesive book. It almost felt like an afterthought kind of story. Maybe I’m overthinking this, but it really felt very all over the place. It did make me want a story completely focused on a sleepover though. That’d be cool. Complete with pranks and scary movies. That needs to be a thing in this series. (Who knows, maybe it will be in an upcoming book. We’ll see).

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es una bonita historia pero se gasto casi la mitad del libro en la introducción y después de tantos libros ya conozco a los personajes muy bien, no necesito que me de un resumen tan largo de cada uno de ellos cuando lo ha hecho anteriormente en todos los libros, llega a ser cansado y admito que este es el ultimo que leo, no despierta ninguna clase de emoción en mí, no me gusta pero tampoco me disgusta y eso es todo, es un libro meh, no puedo recomendarlo pero tampoco no diría que no lo recomiendo, si alguien lo quiere leer pues adelante, no podría saber si le gustaría o no.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh, Stoneybrook. You said, backward, racist place. Don't ever change. Or...maybe do change, because it's pretty sad and I feel bad for all of you. Especially after reading this again. Even as a kid I knew that they were all assholes to think that most Natives have names like Running Bear and wore war paint every day of their lives. I live near a few reservations, and yeah. We never had that ideology as kids, thank God.

I still hate, you Dawn.

[Mary Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved every bit of this book. Even though it is unrealistic, the thought of a schoolwide sleepover is a fun thing to do. Dawn was quite tolerable in this one and she put her crusading into good use. Even Kristy the Great Idea Hog allowed Dawn to have the spotlight in this one.

It's a sad thing that the books never followed back with the Stoneybrook kids Zuni pen pals. I would haved loved to read a Super Special that involve the two schools doing an exchange program.

[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.

[Danni Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was actually my favorite main-series BSC book growing up, so I felt really uneasy going back and reading it. It's extremely problematic in many ways, which was all the more uncomfortable because of how oblivious I was to that when I read it over and over as a kid. I can easily see both how this book inspired me in positive ways as a young activist and also how it fed me some harmful racist/classist/colonialist bullshit that I'm finally learning to unlearn.