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The Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries #19
Kristy and the Missing Fortune
Kristy and the Baby-sitters Club investigate a century-old mystery involving an heiress named Christina Thomas -- possibly an ancestor of Kristy's -- who disappeared in 1863 with a fortune that might belong to Kristy.
112 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1995
19 people are currently reading
342 people want to read
About the author
Ann M. Martin
1,122 books3,085 followersAnn 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...
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...
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 7, 2020
While I actually started reading around age 3 (thank you, my Granny's Dick and Jane books!), this series is what I remember most about loving to read during my childhood. My sister and I drank these books up like they were oxygen. I truly think we owned just about every single one from every one of the series. We even got the privilege of meeting Ann M. Martin at a book signing, but of course little starstruck me froze and could not speak a word to my biggest hero at that time. Once in awhile if I come across these at a yard sale, I will pick them up for a couple hour trip down memory lane, and I declare nearly nothing centers and relaxes me more!
April 27, 2017
in this kristery by ghostwriter Ellen Miles, kristy incidentally discovers that a woman named christina thomas living in stoneybrook in the mid 19th century disappeared along with her family's fortune when she was 18, two years after both her parents died in a freak carriage accident. kristy is intrigued by their similar names (thinking they could be related), and even more intrigued by the prospect of a missing fortune (thinking that if they ARE related, she could be legally entitled to the fortune) -- plus kristy eventually finds a locket of christina, and they even look alike. meanwhile, the bsc tries to help clean up the arboretum, since they are about to lose their funding, to make them look fancy and appealing to potential backers. there is a development company interested in the arboretum's land, and it seems that they are interfering with the plan to make the arboretum look nicer. since it's a bsc book (read: super unnuanced) these plotlines are coincidentally perfectly linked in the end, when we discover that the arboretum is on the land that once belonged to christina thomas's family and her missing fortune is hidden there.
highlights:
-kristy: "those big black clunky boots made by Doctor somebody" = spot on portrayal of kristy's inner voice
-since weird things keep happening at the arboretum (footprints appearing out of nowhere, supplies disappearing, etc) kristy thinks it's the development company that is trying to buy the land to develop it sabotaging the attempts to fix up the arboretum. I love it; it's so kristy to assume that every adult is involved in some huge conspiracy and has horrible intentions all the time.
-turns out after christina's parents died her brother tried to control her life. this pisses kristy off, because she hates the idea of girls not being treated exactly the same as boys because she is a second wave feminist.
-they have a bit of a mad mad mad mad world with resident bsc nemesis cokie mason over the treasure. this is because it turns out that cokie's grandmother is christina thomas's descendant (seriously it is so hard to spell that word correctly). and christina thomas looks like kristy. I know what you're thinking...KRISTY AND COKIE ARE COUSINS, OR SOMETHING! HAHAHAHAHA SUCKS TO BE YOU, KRISTY!
lowlights/nitpicks:
-too many outfits are described for this to feel like a kristy book, and most of them are really boring outfits.
-the whole arboretum thing happens because jessi is plant-sitting. PLANT-SITTING. as a former pet-sitter, I have to say that when people gave me too many plant-sitting instructions I got mad. these people are paid to care for your kids! not your plants!
-they end up finding that christina thomas bequeathed the estate to stoneybrook, which means it can stay as an arboretum. how convenient!
claudia outfits:
-"First of all, she was wearing this blue-and-green stripey shirt that was kind of tight and stretchy-looking. Over it she was wearing a really, really baggy pair of overalls. On her head was a floppy green hat, and on her feet were those big black chunky boots made by Doctor somebody."
-"She was wearing black jeans, short black cowboy boots, and a black suede jacket with fringe along the back and arms and silver buttons that looked like those old Indian-head nickels."
other outfits:
stacey:
-"Here's what she was wearing that day: platform shoes with really high cork soles...black, lacy legging-things, and a blue dress that looked kind of like these pajamas I used to have when I was seven. Baby dolls, I think they were called."
-"Stacey was wearing black leggings, black high-top sneakers, and a long, bulky, dark green sweater. She had hidden her blonde hair beneath a dark green wool baseball cap."
dawn:
-"She had on a soft, fuzzy brown sweater that looked terrific with her long blonde hair, and cozy-looking white thermal leggings."
mal:
-"Mal was wearing jeans, a purple sweater, and a big yellow button that said 'I Read Banned Books.'"
arboretum curator (mrs goldsmith):
-"A gray-haired woman wearing a bright pink smock over jeans and a white shirt smiled up at them."
kristy:
-"I chose a dark-green corduroy skirt, which I planned to wear with a white button-down shirt, and a blue sweater, panty hose (ugh!), and brown loafers."
other outfits note: mary anne's and jessi's are both boring and obvious (starched shirt and leotard, respectively) so I decided they weren't worth writing down
kristy cafeteria comments:
-"I was just about to comment on how much his chicken chow mein looked like dog barf."
jackie disasters:
-knocks a birdbath off its pedestal while running by
-almost knocks over a cherub statue in an empty fountain when dancing around in it
-pulls out twenty plant markers
-runs into mal while she is trying to fix a broken trellis
snacks in claudia's room:
-cocoa blinkens under her pillow
-popcorn (n.s.)
-m&ms (n.s.)
highlights:
-kristy: "those big black clunky boots made by Doctor somebody" = spot on portrayal of kristy's inner voice
-since weird things keep happening at the arboretum (footprints appearing out of nowhere, supplies disappearing, etc) kristy thinks it's the development company that is trying to buy the land to develop it sabotaging the attempts to fix up the arboretum. I love it; it's so kristy to assume that every adult is involved in some huge conspiracy and has horrible intentions all the time.
-turns out after christina's parents died her brother tried to control her life. this pisses kristy off, because she hates the idea of girls not being treated exactly the same as boys because she is a second wave feminist.
-they have a bit of a mad mad mad mad world with resident bsc nemesis cokie mason over the treasure. this is because it turns out that cokie's grandmother is christina thomas's descendant (seriously it is so hard to spell that word correctly). and christina thomas looks like kristy. I know what you're thinking...KRISTY AND COKIE ARE COUSINS, OR SOMETHING! HAHAHAHAHA SUCKS TO BE YOU, KRISTY!
lowlights/nitpicks:
-too many outfits are described for this to feel like a kristy book, and most of them are really boring outfits.
-the whole arboretum thing happens because jessi is plant-sitting. PLANT-SITTING. as a former pet-sitter, I have to say that when people gave me too many plant-sitting instructions I got mad. these people are paid to care for your kids! not your plants!
-they end up finding that christina thomas bequeathed the estate to stoneybrook, which means it can stay as an arboretum. how convenient!
claudia outfits:
-"First of all, she was wearing this blue-and-green stripey shirt that was kind of tight and stretchy-looking. Over it she was wearing a really, really baggy pair of overalls. On her head was a floppy green hat, and on her feet were those big black chunky boots made by Doctor somebody."
-"She was wearing black jeans, short black cowboy boots, and a black suede jacket with fringe along the back and arms and silver buttons that looked like those old Indian-head nickels."
other outfits:
stacey:
-"Here's what she was wearing that day: platform shoes with really high cork soles...black, lacy legging-things, and a blue dress that looked kind of like these pajamas I used to have when I was seven. Baby dolls, I think they were called."
-"Stacey was wearing black leggings, black high-top sneakers, and a long, bulky, dark green sweater. She had hidden her blonde hair beneath a dark green wool baseball cap."
dawn:
-"She had on a soft, fuzzy brown sweater that looked terrific with her long blonde hair, and cozy-looking white thermal leggings."
mal:
-"Mal was wearing jeans, a purple sweater, and a big yellow button that said 'I Read Banned Books.'"
arboretum curator (mrs goldsmith):
-"A gray-haired woman wearing a bright pink smock over jeans and a white shirt smiled up at them."
kristy:
-"I chose a dark-green corduroy skirt, which I planned to wear with a white button-down shirt, and a blue sweater, panty hose (ugh!), and brown loafers."
other outfits note: mary anne's and jessi's are both boring and obvious (starched shirt and leotard, respectively) so I decided they weren't worth writing down
kristy cafeteria comments:
-"I was just about to comment on how much his chicken chow mein looked like dog barf."
jackie disasters:
-knocks a birdbath off its pedestal while running by
-almost knocks over a cherub statue in an empty fountain when dancing around in it
-pulls out twenty plant markers
-runs into mal while she is trying to fix a broken trellis
snacks in claudia's room:
-cocoa blinkens under her pillow
-popcorn (n.s.)
-m&ms (n.s.)
May 17, 2023
This was pretty good. Research-focused mystery about a woman named Christina Thomas who lived in Stoneybrook generations ago (back when it was still spelled Stoneybrooke). She disappeared and left behind a fortune, and Kristy gets excited thinking maybe that's her ancestor coz their names are so similar.
Ending was pretty low-key. There's also a funny minor reveal that
Ending was pretty low-key. There's also a funny minor reveal that
March 8, 2011
could this book be more boring? my sources say no. let us plod through it together.
kristy is babysitting for her younger brothers & sisters & they have cabin fever. they don't want to do anything that kristy suggests. finally karen says that they should play in watson's library (they're allowed to do that). so they do & kristy finds an old book about the history of stoneybrook. she checks to see if there were any thomases back in the day & uncovers the secret of christina thomas. she was only 16 when her parents died in a grisly carriage accident (it really says that). their death made her wealthy--she split their fortune with her two brothers. but two years later, she disappeared & neither she nor her fortune was ever seen again.
kristy decides she might be related to christina & she wants to find out what happened to her & her fortune. meanwhile, jessi accepts a planet-sitting gig, but the plants are not exactly flourishing under her care. she decides to visit the local arboretum, which sounds like the isabella stuart gardner museum but for plants, & get some gardening tips from the curator. the curator is bummed because the city owns the house in which the arboretum is placed, but the lease for the land is long-gone. now developers are sniffing around, & they may want to tear down the arboretum to build condos or something. the only hope the arboretum has is to get all spiffed up so a wealthy woman named mrs. vanderwooten or something will want to buy it & preserve it. jessi volunteers the babysitters club & their charges to help clean up the arboretum.
*snorrrrre* oh, sorry.
so they're cleaning up the arboretum. kristy, meanwhile, does some genealogical research on christina's family. she traces christina's brother edward's family line & discovers a woman named mildred abbott who would be christina's grand-niece or something. she calls mildred & gets invited over for tea. mildred knows all about christina's mysterious disappearance. word on the street is that her evil brother devon wanted her to marry his best friend simon so that simon & devon would gain control of christina's share of the family fortune. christina refused & ran off the pennsylvania to marry her real true love, a union soldier named henry. she wrote a henry a letter announcing her intentions & giving ahim a clue about where the fortune is hidden in case they fail to reunite. because somehow it's awesome & empowering for christina to give her fortune away to some random dude that she may or may not succeed in marraying? anyway, she does not succeed because henry dies the day before christina arrives in pennsylvania. his family sends the letter to devon, who keeps it hush hush. he doesn't want anyone to know his sister defied him & ran away rather than submit to his nefarious machinations.
mildred lets kristy make a copy of the letter, which involves an elaborate drawing of a rosebush inside a big circle.
at the arboretum, jessi takes kristy aside & says she thinks someone is sabotaging the clean-up efforts. her clues include mysterious footprints, weeds strewn all over the yard, a broken trellis, & most hilarious of all, a missing bucket. jessi goes on & ON about how she was washing a statue & then her bucket disappears. where's her bucket? someone took her bucket. she wants her bucket back. NOW! i just kept imagining jessi as a walrus. it was pretty awesome.
mysterious things keep happening at the arboretum to derail the attempts to tidy it up. finally the babysitters decide that the evil developers are behind it. they're trying to make the place icky so mrs. vanderwooten won't buy it & they can turn it into condos. but then they forget about that & get obsessed with looking for christina's fortune. they tear the arboretum apart, digging holes everywhere...& of course, that's when mrs. vanderwooetn shows up. she passes on the pace because it's all grimy & torn up. whoopsie. also, cokie mason is lurking around all the time, eavesdropping while the sitters talk about christina & her mystery.
eventually the babysitters realize that the roses christina drew on her letter to henry are a clue. the circle represents the full moon. on the next full moon, they all lie to their parents & enlist charlie to drive them to the arboretum after dark. they dig is the rose bushes for a while but are interrupted by mysterious sneezing near the fountain. it's cokie. turns out mildred abbott is cokie's grandmother, so cokie is descended from christina thomas & thinks she is entitled to christina's missing fortune. then dawn realizes the roses christina drew might represent the wooden roses carved on the porch. everyone runs over but they can't figure out what the clue means. then they realize that while they are sitting on the porch, the full moon is perfectly silhouetting a big tree in the front yard. they run over to the tree & start digging & find a box christina buried.
the box does not contain any fortune (much to cokie's displeasure), but it does contain a locket with christina's picture in it. christina looks exactly like kristy. it also contains a deed granting the disputed land to the town of stoneybrook for public works usages (like the arboretum). turns out the arboretum is actually christina's ancestral family home, squiremore or some ridiculous shit like that. so the babysitters didn't find the fortune, but they did save the arboretum.
they attend the celebratory party the arboretum curator throws & mildred pulls kristy aside to give her christina's locket. kristy is convinced that she is related to christina after all because both she & christina are headstrong, independent women. everyone points out that that means she's related to cokie, but kristy doesn't care.
oh, & the curator helps keep jessi from killing all the plants she is supposed to be plant-sitting. *yawn*
kristy is babysitting for her younger brothers & sisters & they have cabin fever. they don't want to do anything that kristy suggests. finally karen says that they should play in watson's library (they're allowed to do that). so they do & kristy finds an old book about the history of stoneybrook. she checks to see if there were any thomases back in the day & uncovers the secret of christina thomas. she was only 16 when her parents died in a grisly carriage accident (it really says that). their death made her wealthy--she split their fortune with her two brothers. but two years later, she disappeared & neither she nor her fortune was ever seen again.
kristy decides she might be related to christina & she wants to find out what happened to her & her fortune. meanwhile, jessi accepts a planet-sitting gig, but the plants are not exactly flourishing under her care. she decides to visit the local arboretum, which sounds like the isabella stuart gardner museum but for plants, & get some gardening tips from the curator. the curator is bummed because the city owns the house in which the arboretum is placed, but the lease for the land is long-gone. now developers are sniffing around, & they may want to tear down the arboretum to build condos or something. the only hope the arboretum has is to get all spiffed up so a wealthy woman named mrs. vanderwooten or something will want to buy it & preserve it. jessi volunteers the babysitters club & their charges to help clean up the arboretum.
*snorrrrre* oh, sorry.
so they're cleaning up the arboretum. kristy, meanwhile, does some genealogical research on christina's family. she traces christina's brother edward's family line & discovers a woman named mildred abbott who would be christina's grand-niece or something. she calls mildred & gets invited over for tea. mildred knows all about christina's mysterious disappearance. word on the street is that her evil brother devon wanted her to marry his best friend simon so that simon & devon would gain control of christina's share of the family fortune. christina refused & ran off the pennsylvania to marry her real true love, a union soldier named henry. she wrote a henry a letter announcing her intentions & giving ahim a clue about where the fortune is hidden in case they fail to reunite. because somehow it's awesome & empowering for christina to give her fortune away to some random dude that she may or may not succeed in marraying? anyway, she does not succeed because henry dies the day before christina arrives in pennsylvania. his family sends the letter to devon, who keeps it hush hush. he doesn't want anyone to know his sister defied him & ran away rather than submit to his nefarious machinations.
mildred lets kristy make a copy of the letter, which involves an elaborate drawing of a rosebush inside a big circle.
at the arboretum, jessi takes kristy aside & says she thinks someone is sabotaging the clean-up efforts. her clues include mysterious footprints, weeds strewn all over the yard, a broken trellis, & most hilarious of all, a missing bucket. jessi goes on & ON about how she was washing a statue & then her bucket disappears. where's her bucket? someone took her bucket. she wants her bucket back. NOW! i just kept imagining jessi as a walrus. it was pretty awesome.
mysterious things keep happening at the arboretum to derail the attempts to tidy it up. finally the babysitters decide that the evil developers are behind it. they're trying to make the place icky so mrs. vanderwooten won't buy it & they can turn it into condos. but then they forget about that & get obsessed with looking for christina's fortune. they tear the arboretum apart, digging holes everywhere...& of course, that's when mrs. vanderwooetn shows up. she passes on the pace because it's all grimy & torn up. whoopsie. also, cokie mason is lurking around all the time, eavesdropping while the sitters talk about christina & her mystery.
eventually the babysitters realize that the roses christina drew on her letter to henry are a clue. the circle represents the full moon. on the next full moon, they all lie to their parents & enlist charlie to drive them to the arboretum after dark. they dig is the rose bushes for a while but are interrupted by mysterious sneezing near the fountain. it's cokie. turns out mildred abbott is cokie's grandmother, so cokie is descended from christina thomas & thinks she is entitled to christina's missing fortune. then dawn realizes the roses christina drew might represent the wooden roses carved on the porch. everyone runs over but they can't figure out what the clue means. then they realize that while they are sitting on the porch, the full moon is perfectly silhouetting a big tree in the front yard. they run over to the tree & start digging & find a box christina buried.
the box does not contain any fortune (much to cokie's displeasure), but it does contain a locket with christina's picture in it. christina looks exactly like kristy. it also contains a deed granting the disputed land to the town of stoneybrook for public works usages (like the arboretum). turns out the arboretum is actually christina's ancestral family home, squiremore or some ridiculous shit like that. so the babysitters didn't find the fortune, but they did save the arboretum.
they attend the celebratory party the arboretum curator throws & mildred pulls kristy aside to give her christina's locket. kristy is convinced that she is related to christina after all because both she & christina are headstrong, independent women. everyone points out that that means she's related to cokie, but kristy doesn't care.
oh, & the curator helps keep jessi from killing all the plants she is supposed to be plant-sitting. *yawn*
May 29, 2017
The mysteries were always super hit or miss for me. Some of them were fun, other ones were just dull. This one is somewhere middle of the road. I like genealogy, and always did even when I was young, so that part was pretty cool. Finding out potential ancestors of Kristy's and that sort of thing was by far the best part of this book. The actually missing fortune aspect not so much. I just appreciated that, in the end, they didn't find an actual "fortune". That was a nice change of pace for one of these books.
The plot within a plot about the arboretum was okay, nothing fantastic. Though it does remind me a BIT of the plot from the BSC movie where they turn the old arboretum into their future BSC office and then end up not using it after all.
The plot within a plot about the arboretum was okay, nothing fantastic. Though it does remind me a BIT of the plot from the BSC movie where they turn the old arboretum into their future BSC office and then end up not using it after all.
July 26, 2021
I know BSC fans all want a "where are they now?" adulthood sequel to the series, but do you want to know what I'd like to see Ann M Martin write instead? A history of Stoneybrooke. Give me Christina's story. Jared Mullray.
November 22, 2021
I don't love when the BSC mysteries don't tie in at all to babysitting. Yes, they take their charges to the arboretum to help clean up, but other than that there's literally no connection to the main "plot" of the series at all. It's annoying that the consistency between all of these books has started to get very shaky at this point, on another note. In the last book, there was a lot of work put into Stacey being flaky as a setup for Stacey vs. the BSC but this book drops that plotline completely, only for it to be the subject of the following book. It's the details, y'all.
Read
July 29, 2020As 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.
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.
November 2, 2022
“Absolutely NOT,” I said, when Jessi took a plant-sitting gig and it seemed like the B-plot of this novel would be caring for house plants. Unfortunately, it was only a smidge more interesting than that. This book was soooo predictable and just bluhhhhh
The Kristy mysteries are by far the worst. Don’t ask me why, because all these plots are so interchangeable it truly doesn’t matter which sitter is the narrator, but somehow Kristy’s are the most boring.
The Kristy mysteries are by far the worst. Don’t ask me why, because all these plots are so interchangeable it truly doesn’t matter which sitter is the narrator, but somehow Kristy’s are the most boring.
April 17, 2020
Cute story
Read
November 7, 2020Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: https://www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blo...
January 27, 2021
(LL)
This was a decent mystery. Considering the last few have been bad, it was nice to read a mystery that wasn’t so beyond unrealistic it took me out of the story.
This was a decent mystery. Considering the last few have been bad, it was nice to read a mystery that wasn’t so beyond unrealistic it took me out of the story.
October 30, 2021
Solid and fun, as always!
March 2, 2023
I love how positive everyone is that Kristy and Christina must be related just because they're both Thomases.
Also, I wish the twist at the end had carried on to other books!
Also, I wish the twist at the end had carried on to other books!
April 7, 2025
But like, wouldn't it be more fun to have them finally become friendly with Cokie Mason?
March 21, 2024
This was mildly interesting. On a miserable rainy day with her siblings Kristy decides to explore the library at home. While looking for the oldest book there she uncovers a girl named Christina Thomas who she think she's related to. Christina vanished mysteriously years ago. She's also rumoured to have left a fortune and the hunt is on. The b plot ties in with the main plot as Stoneybrook and the kids want to save the arboretum or conservatory. It has a tiny budget and developers are salivating to get their hands on it. It ties in as it's in the house that Christina lived in all those years ago. It's always fun to go to these back in time mysteries we never do learn what happened to Christina but we do find out about the fortune. Most amusing of all Kristy and arch enemy Cokie Mason just might be related.
January 6, 2011
One of the better mysteries, even if it did have its usual share of incredible coincidences.
December 15, 2024
I enjoyed the afternoon tea scene, but Cokie being the deus ex machina was a bit much.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews