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The Baby-Sitters Club #58
Stacey's Choice
Since Stacey's parents got divorced it hasn't been easy. Stacey hates being put in the middle of them. And even though she gets to see her dad often, Stacey misses him. Sometimes she wishes she were just a regular kid with a regular family. But now both of her parents are depending on her. They each need her--badly. And she can't be in two places at once. How will she ever choose between them--again?
Paperback
First published October 1, 1992
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About the author
Ann M. Martin
1,098 books3,047 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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July 20, 2021
Uh Oh.
When Stacey’s dad invites her to a special event being held for him in New York she is super excited…but a few days before she is set to go, her mother gets pneumonia.
Stuck between wanting to stay at home and care for her mom, or go to New York to support her dads big moment…poor Stacey just doesn’t know what to do.
I liked the concept of this story, but I feel like Stacey’s mom should have told her daughter to go and enjoy her time in New York with her dad since there were other people available to stay with the mom while she was sick. At 13 this felt like too much anxiety being put on Stacey’s shoulders and honestly it felt unfair to the dad in my opinion.
When Stacey’s dad invites her to a special event being held for him in New York she is super excited…but a few days before she is set to go, her mother gets pneumonia.
Stuck between wanting to stay at home and care for her mom, or go to New York to support her dads big moment…poor Stacey just doesn’t know what to do.
I liked the concept of this story, but I feel like Stacey’s mom should have told her daughter to go and enjoy her time in New York with her dad since there were other people available to stay with the mom while she was sick. At 13 this felt like too much anxiety being put on Stacey’s shoulders and honestly it felt unfair to the dad in my opinion.
June 8, 2016
this is my first time reading this book!
stacey's mom gets pneumonia and stacey thinks it's her job to take care of her (staying home from school, then enlisting the help of the neighbors to babysit her). meanwhile her dad gets a promotion and asks stacey to be a date to a party in his honor, but stacey is scared to leave her mom. she goes to nyc but spends the whole time thinking about her mom and has to leave the party early. her parents basically tell her to be a kid sometimes, and it's resolved. meanwhile in a partly inane, partly hilarious subplot, the bsc kids all start ordering miscellaneous crap from the backs of magazines and comic books. when they realize that they don't actually all want tie knotters, silver polish, needle threaders, and fake moondust, they get together and have a medicine show-style door-to-door sales pitch, and while nobody wants their crap, they make a bunch of money by putting on an entertaining show.
higlights:
-some of the stuff the kids order is really funny. vanessa pike gets a bust developer.
-the rosebud cafe opens in this book! logan ends up working here. also stacey's mom gets her job at bellair's in this book!
-there is a well-handled BRUTAL moment when stacey tells her dad she is staying in stoneybrook to take care of her mom instead of coming to the dinner. he says that he doesn't have anyone else he could possibly take to the dinner, sounding choked up. she responds that maybe he would if he weren't married to his job. WOWZA.
-the gullible bsc kids finally realize the stuff they're ordering is crap after all of them order moondust and it comes with a note that says that each of them is one of only twenty people in the world who has the moondust
-a great moment where they're in a cab and there's a sign on the back of the cabbie's seat that says, "Please be aware that: I know where I am going. I know how to drive. I have a complete grasp of the English language."
-stacey contemplates where homeless people die, saying that they must die in the streets or a park or grand central but you never hear about it. "you never hear on the news that someone found a dead person in the train station." this book really makes sense for stacey, since she is such a weirdly worldly city kid. of COURSE she thinks it's her job to take care of her sick mom.
lowlights/nitpicks:
-instead of listening to her dad who says he will get a nurse service to care for stacey's mom, stacey enlists the (free) help of all of her neighbors. uhhh...it's not their job to care for your mom. it's not yours either, but it's ESPECIALLY not the job of all your neighbors and friends to provide indefinite free nursing care.
-stacey is kind of annoying in this book. she refuses to listen to her dad about the nurse service, and she goes to his party but isn't present for it at ALL. and she never apologizes to him for the mean thing she said about how he doesn't have other loved ones because he's married to his job. she's kind of a turd.
stacey's outfit for her dad's dinner:
-"By the time I left I was carrying a shopping bag in which were folded a hot pink (fake) silk jacket which fell to my knees, new black leggings, pink-and-black socks, and a black body suit. I planned to wear the outfit with black flats, and to dress it up with some jewelry and maybe a couple of barrettes in my hair."
no snacks in claudia's room.
stacey's mom gets pneumonia and stacey thinks it's her job to take care of her (staying home from school, then enlisting the help of the neighbors to babysit her). meanwhile her dad gets a promotion and asks stacey to be a date to a party in his honor, but stacey is scared to leave her mom. she goes to nyc but spends the whole time thinking about her mom and has to leave the party early. her parents basically tell her to be a kid sometimes, and it's resolved. meanwhile in a partly inane, partly hilarious subplot, the bsc kids all start ordering miscellaneous crap from the backs of magazines and comic books. when they realize that they don't actually all want tie knotters, silver polish, needle threaders, and fake moondust, they get together and have a medicine show-style door-to-door sales pitch, and while nobody wants their crap, they make a bunch of money by putting on an entertaining show.
higlights:
-some of the stuff the kids order is really funny. vanessa pike gets a bust developer.
-the rosebud cafe opens in this book! logan ends up working here. also stacey's mom gets her job at bellair's in this book!
-there is a well-handled BRUTAL moment when stacey tells her dad she is staying in stoneybrook to take care of her mom instead of coming to the dinner. he says that he doesn't have anyone else he could possibly take to the dinner, sounding choked up. she responds that maybe he would if he weren't married to his job. WOWZA.
-the gullible bsc kids finally realize the stuff they're ordering is crap after all of them order moondust and it comes with a note that says that each of them is one of only twenty people in the world who has the moondust
-a great moment where they're in a cab and there's a sign on the back of the cabbie's seat that says, "Please be aware that: I know where I am going. I know how to drive. I have a complete grasp of the English language."
-stacey contemplates where homeless people die, saying that they must die in the streets or a park or grand central but you never hear about it. "you never hear on the news that someone found a dead person in the train station." this book really makes sense for stacey, since she is such a weirdly worldly city kid. of COURSE she thinks it's her job to take care of her sick mom.
lowlights/nitpicks:
-instead of listening to her dad who says he will get a nurse service to care for stacey's mom, stacey enlists the (free) help of all of her neighbors. uhhh...it's not their job to care for your mom. it's not yours either, but it's ESPECIALLY not the job of all your neighbors and friends to provide indefinite free nursing care.
-stacey is kind of annoying in this book. she refuses to listen to her dad about the nurse service, and she goes to his party but isn't present for it at ALL. and she never apologizes to him for the mean thing she said about how he doesn't have other loved ones because he's married to his job. she's kind of a turd.
stacey's outfit for her dad's dinner:
-"By the time I left I was carrying a shopping bag in which were folded a hot pink (fake) silk jacket which fell to my knees, new black leggings, pink-and-black socks, and a black body suit. I planned to wear the outfit with black flats, and to dress it up with some jewelry and maybe a couple of barrettes in my hair."
no snacks in claudia's room.
November 26, 2010
the book opens with stacey & mallory babysitting for the pike kids. they have magazines & comic books spread out everywhere, & they are ordering the cheap crap from the back pages--stuff like stamp moisteners & necktie-knotters. but it's keeping them entertained & out of trouble, so stacey & mallory don't think much of it.
back home, stacey notices that her mom seems a little pale & tired. stacey assumes it's because mrs. mcgill has been so busy lately doing temp work & looking for a permanent job. she's been lining up interviews left & right & wearing herself out. there's some brief commentary about mrs. mcgill receiving alimony & child support, which means that mr. mcgill's salary is now paying for a new york city apartment & a house in stoneybrook. seriously? mrs. mcgill receives so much alimony that she can make mortgage payments out of it? mr. mcgill must be LOADED. & they also must not have had a pre-nup.
mr. mcgill calls that evening to tell stacey that he's received a promotion at work, & there is going to be celebratory dinner in his honor at the end of the following week. he asks stacey to be his "date". stacey is proud of her father & agrees to go to the dinner. he tells her to buy a new outfit for it & put it on the charge card. god, stacey is so spoiled.
she shares the good news with the other members of the babysitters club, who are all happy for mr. mcgill as well--& for stacey, because she gets to choose a new outfit. they all decide to go shopping with her over the weekend to help her pick something really cute. after they shop (stacey selects an outfit at zingy's, the punk shop, & it sounds hideous: a hot pink silk jacket down to her knees, pink socks, a black bodysuit, & black flats, teamed with some "dad-appropriate" jewelry--horrifying), they swing by the new cafe in town, rosebud. this is the same fine establishment that is soon to being flouting child labor laws by employing logan as a 13-year-old busboy.
a few days later, stacey is in the middle of taking a math test when the secretary gets on the PA to ask her to come to the office. this scene is a little weird, because the person on the PA specifically asks for mr. zizmore, stacey's teacher, & asks him to send stacey to the office. & somehow mr. zizmore is in possession of technology that allows him to reply. what kind of crazy PA system is this? when i was in school, the system was wired to all the classrooms. you couldn't just send a message to one classroom, & there was certainly no mechanism for teachers to respond.
but anyway. stacey is worried, because the secretary told her to bring her coat, which means she's leaving school in the middle of the day. when she gets to the office, she learned that her mother collapsed on a job interview downtown & was taken to the ER. mrs. pike is on her way to pick stacey up & take her to the hospital. stacey is panicked.
it turns out that mrs. mcgill has pneumonia. she's pretty sick, but she doesn't have to stay in the hospital. stacey is very worried about her. she takes the following day off school so she can stay home & look after mrs. mcgill, bring her toast, give her her pills, etc. but stacey realizes that she can't just stay out of school until mrs. mcgill is all better--she acknowledges that she misses enough school when she is sick herself. so she starts calling around the neighborhood to recruit neighbors to take shifts looking in on mrs. mcgill. which makes me wonder...is pneumonia really THAT big of a deal? i know people sometimes die of it--generally if they are very old, very young, or in compromised health already. mrs. mcgill wasn't sick enough to have to stay in the hospital, so does she really need sitters? i once had whooping cough for four months straight, & no one took care of me. i don't know.
but without stacey's neuroses, we wouldn't have a book, so i guess we just need to roll with it.
friday approaches, the day that stacey is supposed to go to new york for her dad's big dinner. she waffles for a while about leaving her mom alone, but finally decides to make the trip. she took a little too long to make up her mind, so she's really scrambling to pack, line up mom-sitters for while she'll be away, finish her homework, etc.
her train to new york is half an hour late, & the cab back to mr. mcgill's apartment gets caught in rish hour traffic, so a trip that ordinarily takes twelve minutes takes 45. they are really going to have to rush in order to be on time for the special dinner. & stacey holds them up even more by insisting on ironing her special hideous outfit. which is ridiculous. you're just some 13-year-old, stacey, i don't think it matters that much if your eye-wateringly ugly pink knee-length jacket is a little smushed. but it's important to stacey, so she irons, & she & her dad are only about fifteen minutes late to the dinner.
throughout the meal, stacey keeps jumping up to call her mom from the payphone in the hall & make sure everything is all right at home. & once all the speeches are finally done at around 10pm, stacey insists on leaving. she wants to catch the 6:30am train back to stoneybrook in the morning, so she wants to go home & go to bed. mr. mcgill is surprised, but agrees to leave his own dinner to take stacey home. even so, they don't get to bed until midnight, & stacey decides she has to be up at 4:30am to make the 6:30am train. even though we already established that mr. mcgill lives twelve minutes away from the train station. especially in early saturday morning traffic. call it a plot contrivance, because that's all it is.
in the morning, stacey & mr. mcgill have a bit of a tiff about leaving the party so early the night before. mr. mcgill hadn't wanted to go, & hadn't espected stacey to demand such an early train back home. he is disappointed. but stacey feels the need to rush home & make sure her mom is okay. mr. mcgill was also annoyed with how often stacey disappeared to call home, even though her mom was just sleeping every time she called. (didn't stacey worry that the ringing phone would wake her mom up?) when they get to the train station, stacey starts asking questions about all the homeless people milling around outside, & she gives $5 to one man wearing newspapers for shoes. mr. mcgill commends her generosity, but points out that stacey can't take care of the whole world. "but i can try," stacey replies. do i sense a heavy-handed application of theme?
mrs. pike is a bit short with stacey when she meets her at the train station back in stoneybrook. it turns out that mr. mcgill had hired a private nurse to take care of mrs. mcgill while stacey was away, but failed to share that information with stacey, who had lined up a bunch of mom-sitters among the neighbors (all of whom are women, might i add--why can't any of the men in the neighborhood help take care of a sick person?). & she got her wires crossed with a lot of the mom-sitters, so they were showing up at the wrong times & overlapping shifts. mrs. mcgill sits stacey down for a talk & explains that stacey's desire to help is commendable, but she also needs to take care of herself & trust in other people's abilities to look after themselves. plus, mrs. mcgill is on the mend, so all these mom-sitters & private nurses are no longer necessary anyway. stacey explains that she feels torn between her commitments to her parents because of the divorce. it's a struggle to be there for one when it means disappointing the other. somehow stacey & mrs. mcgill work everything out, & mrs. mcgill is called in for an interview to be a buyer at the big department store downtown.
& that wraps up our A-plot. in the B-plot, all the kids in town managed to spend all their money ordering useless junk from the backs of magazines, & they are now disenchanted with their purchases. they decide to organize a traveling olde-thyme-y roadshow to try to sell everything to unsuspecting neighbors. because that's exactly the kind of idea kids hatch on their own, amirite? they write songs, plays, raps, & poems to sell off their junk, & lug everything around in their wagons, performing on neighborhood doorsteps. the neighbors & parents show poor judgment in paying the kids for their performances (don't encourage them, adults of stoneybrook!), but the kids don't sell much. somehow they snow claudia into buying some wrinkle remover, but they do make a lot of their money back just from donations from amused adults. they make enough to buy yo-yos, in fact, & are now talking about organizing a neighborhood yo-yo contest. thankfully, we hear nothing more about this in future books.
this book could have been a lot better if it was more like "sophie's choice," & maybe the lives of two sitting charges were hanging in the balance. say...karen brewer versus jenny prezzioso? for one to live, the other must die. though the temptation would be strong to just let them both die.
back home, stacey notices that her mom seems a little pale & tired. stacey assumes it's because mrs. mcgill has been so busy lately doing temp work & looking for a permanent job. she's been lining up interviews left & right & wearing herself out. there's some brief commentary about mrs. mcgill receiving alimony & child support, which means that mr. mcgill's salary is now paying for a new york city apartment & a house in stoneybrook. seriously? mrs. mcgill receives so much alimony that she can make mortgage payments out of it? mr. mcgill must be LOADED. & they also must not have had a pre-nup.
mr. mcgill calls that evening to tell stacey that he's received a promotion at work, & there is going to be celebratory dinner in his honor at the end of the following week. he asks stacey to be his "date". stacey is proud of her father & agrees to go to the dinner. he tells her to buy a new outfit for it & put it on the charge card. god, stacey is so spoiled.
she shares the good news with the other members of the babysitters club, who are all happy for mr. mcgill as well--& for stacey, because she gets to choose a new outfit. they all decide to go shopping with her over the weekend to help her pick something really cute. after they shop (stacey selects an outfit at zingy's, the punk shop, & it sounds hideous: a hot pink silk jacket down to her knees, pink socks, a black bodysuit, & black flats, teamed with some "dad-appropriate" jewelry--horrifying), they swing by the new cafe in town, rosebud. this is the same fine establishment that is soon to being flouting child labor laws by employing logan as a 13-year-old busboy.
a few days later, stacey is in the middle of taking a math test when the secretary gets on the PA to ask her to come to the office. this scene is a little weird, because the person on the PA specifically asks for mr. zizmore, stacey's teacher, & asks him to send stacey to the office. & somehow mr. zizmore is in possession of technology that allows him to reply. what kind of crazy PA system is this? when i was in school, the system was wired to all the classrooms. you couldn't just send a message to one classroom, & there was certainly no mechanism for teachers to respond.
but anyway. stacey is worried, because the secretary told her to bring her coat, which means she's leaving school in the middle of the day. when she gets to the office, she learned that her mother collapsed on a job interview downtown & was taken to the ER. mrs. pike is on her way to pick stacey up & take her to the hospital. stacey is panicked.
it turns out that mrs. mcgill has pneumonia. she's pretty sick, but she doesn't have to stay in the hospital. stacey is very worried about her. she takes the following day off school so she can stay home & look after mrs. mcgill, bring her toast, give her her pills, etc. but stacey realizes that she can't just stay out of school until mrs. mcgill is all better--she acknowledges that she misses enough school when she is sick herself. so she starts calling around the neighborhood to recruit neighbors to take shifts looking in on mrs. mcgill. which makes me wonder...is pneumonia really THAT big of a deal? i know people sometimes die of it--generally if they are very old, very young, or in compromised health already. mrs. mcgill wasn't sick enough to have to stay in the hospital, so does she really need sitters? i once had whooping cough for four months straight, & no one took care of me. i don't know.
but without stacey's neuroses, we wouldn't have a book, so i guess we just need to roll with it.
friday approaches, the day that stacey is supposed to go to new york for her dad's big dinner. she waffles for a while about leaving her mom alone, but finally decides to make the trip. she took a little too long to make up her mind, so she's really scrambling to pack, line up mom-sitters for while she'll be away, finish her homework, etc.
her train to new york is half an hour late, & the cab back to mr. mcgill's apartment gets caught in rish hour traffic, so a trip that ordinarily takes twelve minutes takes 45. they are really going to have to rush in order to be on time for the special dinner. & stacey holds them up even more by insisting on ironing her special hideous outfit. which is ridiculous. you're just some 13-year-old, stacey, i don't think it matters that much if your eye-wateringly ugly pink knee-length jacket is a little smushed. but it's important to stacey, so she irons, & she & her dad are only about fifteen minutes late to the dinner.
throughout the meal, stacey keeps jumping up to call her mom from the payphone in the hall & make sure everything is all right at home. & once all the speeches are finally done at around 10pm, stacey insists on leaving. she wants to catch the 6:30am train back to stoneybrook in the morning, so she wants to go home & go to bed. mr. mcgill is surprised, but agrees to leave his own dinner to take stacey home. even so, they don't get to bed until midnight, & stacey decides she has to be up at 4:30am to make the 6:30am train. even though we already established that mr. mcgill lives twelve minutes away from the train station. especially in early saturday morning traffic. call it a plot contrivance, because that's all it is.
in the morning, stacey & mr. mcgill have a bit of a tiff about leaving the party so early the night before. mr. mcgill hadn't wanted to go, & hadn't espected stacey to demand such an early train back home. he is disappointed. but stacey feels the need to rush home & make sure her mom is okay. mr. mcgill was also annoyed with how often stacey disappeared to call home, even though her mom was just sleeping every time she called. (didn't stacey worry that the ringing phone would wake her mom up?) when they get to the train station, stacey starts asking questions about all the homeless people milling around outside, & she gives $5 to one man wearing newspapers for shoes. mr. mcgill commends her generosity, but points out that stacey can't take care of the whole world. "but i can try," stacey replies. do i sense a heavy-handed application of theme?
mrs. pike is a bit short with stacey when she meets her at the train station back in stoneybrook. it turns out that mr. mcgill had hired a private nurse to take care of mrs. mcgill while stacey was away, but failed to share that information with stacey, who had lined up a bunch of mom-sitters among the neighbors (all of whom are women, might i add--why can't any of the men in the neighborhood help take care of a sick person?). & she got her wires crossed with a lot of the mom-sitters, so they were showing up at the wrong times & overlapping shifts. mrs. mcgill sits stacey down for a talk & explains that stacey's desire to help is commendable, but she also needs to take care of herself & trust in other people's abilities to look after themselves. plus, mrs. mcgill is on the mend, so all these mom-sitters & private nurses are no longer necessary anyway. stacey explains that she feels torn between her commitments to her parents because of the divorce. it's a struggle to be there for one when it means disappointing the other. somehow stacey & mrs. mcgill work everything out, & mrs. mcgill is called in for an interview to be a buyer at the big department store downtown.
& that wraps up our A-plot. in the B-plot, all the kids in town managed to spend all their money ordering useless junk from the backs of magazines, & they are now disenchanted with their purchases. they decide to organize a traveling olde-thyme-y roadshow to try to sell everything to unsuspecting neighbors. because that's exactly the kind of idea kids hatch on their own, amirite? they write songs, plays, raps, & poems to sell off their junk, & lug everything around in their wagons, performing on neighborhood doorsteps. the neighbors & parents show poor judgment in paying the kids for their performances (don't encourage them, adults of stoneybrook!), but the kids don't sell much. somehow they snow claudia into buying some wrinkle remover, but they do make a lot of their money back just from donations from amused adults. they make enough to buy yo-yos, in fact, & are now talking about organizing a neighborhood yo-yo contest. thankfully, we hear nothing more about this in future books.
this book could have been a lot better if it was more like "sophie's choice," & maybe the lives of two sitting charges were hanging in the balance. say...karen brewer versus jenny prezzioso? for one to live, the other must die. though the temptation would be strong to just let them both die.
July 7, 2012
Either this wasn't Ms. Martin's finest moment, or this little nostalgia kick is coming to a blessed close. It started out promising enough; I especially loved the BSC's visit to the punk store at the mall to secure an outfit for Stacey's dad's dinner. The mail-order subplot among the BSC charges also had its amusing moments (and I say this as someone who tends to want to skip over the babysitting parts and get back to the fashion and boys). But all the escalating tension surrounding the central conflict—Stacey being torn between her mother and father—never culminated in a satisfactory confrontation or resolution. Instead it skirted the edges and then just sort of petered out in a glossy wisp of moralistic smoke (shut up, smoke can SO be glossy): don't try to be all things to all people.
Here's another moral, Stacey's parents: how about you grow up and be, well, Stacey's parents? She's pretty sick herself, you know. Would it have killed you to rise above your differences and directly communicate with each other to figure this whole pneumonia mess out? Cripes!
Okay, it may be time to put the BSC books down and back away slowly...
Here's another moral, Stacey's parents: how about you grow up and be, well, Stacey's parents? She's pretty sick herself, you know. Would it have killed you to rise above your differences and directly communicate with each other to figure this whole pneumonia mess out? Cripes!
Okay, it may be time to put the BSC books down and back away slowly...
February 18, 2017
In a reverse of many Stacey books, Stacey's mother gets sick and has to be cared for. Stacey takes on her mother's care, while she tries to figure out a plan for visiting her father in NYC to help him celebrate a big promotion. She is annoyed (again) about feeling caught between her parents.
Things I remember from reading this as a kid:
I don't remember this book very well. The only thing I remember is that Stacey overbooked her mother's caretakers and a bunch of them show up at once.
I seem to remember the subplot of this book much better. I remember the kids ordering free samples of everything, and then being stuck with cheap products. I remember they put on skits and songs to sell their junk door to door.
Things I've considered since reading this as an adult:
The baby sitters refer to Rosebud Cafe as "that new place." I had always assumed the Rosebud Cafe was a timeless staple of Stoneybrook, but I guess it was new to the series in this book. I guess it's in later books where the baby sitters have dates there, and Logan is inexplicably employed as a busboy at the age of thirteen.
With so many neighbors and friends to help them out I don't know why Stacey agonized so much about what she should do about her weekend with her father. It doesn't make sense until you realize that Stacey has witnessed her father be a jerk many times in her young life. He wouldn't let her come back to Stoneybrook to search for her friends when they went missing, he yelled at her mother for spending too much money, and he constantly works, often leaving his daughter, and his now ex-wife to fend for themselves. When he tells Stacey that she can still come to New York, and that he will hire a nurse to look after her mother for the weekend is when she starts having very serious doubts about leaving her mother. It does seem sort of selfish on the part of her father to absolutely insist on Stacey being there for his promotion, one that we can assume cost him his marriage, which put her into this mess to begin with. It's never explicitly said, but I feel that maybe she thinks that if her irresponsible, workaholic father thinks it's fine for her mother to be left alone, then maybe it's really not fine at all. She's also frustrated when she realizes for the rest of her life she will have to choose between her parents. Later she and Dawn can't decide what's worse -- being forced to choose between their parents for the rest of the their lives, or having their parents trapped in miserable marriages. I don't know if I would want to make that decision either. Thank god I don't have children so that I will never be forced to put them in this mess.
Every adult seems shocked that Stacey skips school to take care of her mother when she is sick, but I feel that this is learned behavior on Stacey's part. She knows firsthand how sick people feel, and how much care is often required for them. She's seen her own mother drop everything to spend days and days caring for Stacey while she's in the hospital, and it's natural for her to think that she has to do the same thing when her mother is sick. As a kid I probably didn't notice when Stacey said the house was a huge mess after a few days of her mother being sick, but as an adult who has a terrible time keeping her house neat, I completely sympathize. Stacey strikes me as a fairly neat person and becomes more overwhelmed by things slipping out of control, even things that don't matter too much (like a messy house). Living in a mess is a great way to feel like the rest of your life is chaotic (at least to me). Everyone's upset with her for double booking neighbors to look after her mother while she is away, but she was trying to be responsible about leaving her sick mother alone. (There's also a weird mention of "Mary Anne's mom" . . . shouldn't it be Dawn's mom? Or Mary Anne's stepmom? Maybe Sharon and Mary Anne were having an especially close week?) Her mother scolds her at the end of the book for trying to be "everything to everyone." She reminds Stacey to think of herself when making decisions, which is sound advice. However, I think it's admirable that Stacey tried to step up, knowing that her mother was sick, knowing what's it's like to be sick herself, and knowing that if they didn't live in a town as cozy and friendly as Stoneybrook that Stacey would be the only one to take care of her mother. I also think that Stacey's parents don't fully understand her dilemna. It wasn't just trying to please both her parents, it was how to weigh what was more important and pressing. Does a seriously sick mother trump a father who only has this one big night? Or does a father's lifetime achievement outweigh a sick mother who has lots of friends to care for her? Of course by trying to "be everything" to both her parents she ends up making more of a mess of things, which is to be expected, especially when she easily could have taken a later train back to Stoneybrook on Saturday morning. But her parents (especially her father) didn't help matters.
I've been finding the subplots tediously boring so far, but I actually liked this one. As someone who loves samples, I could understand how the kids get caught up with ordering stuff from magazines. It's nostalgic to think about now, but I totally remember seeing samples advertised in the back of magazines. I also remember there was always some scam like the kids run into with the moon dust. Someone was always selling some collectible that was sure to appreciate in value due to its rarity. I think it's funny that the kids decide to be medicine salesmen to get rid of their stuff. I didn't really know what "old-time medicine shows" were when I was a kid, but as an adult I know that those salespeople often scammed others into overpaying for useless or dangerous things that did nothing to cure them of illnesses, so it's fitting that the kids are thinking of this format for selling their junk. And I LOVED that Claudia bought the products to eliminate wrinkles and crow's feet! Stacey tells her she doesn't need them because she's only thirteen, and all the baby sitters laugh at her, but I would give almost anything to have been as rigorous with my skin care routine at thirteen, as I am now. "Well I don't want to look old . . . I decided not to resist anymore. I just couldn't. I felt I was putting my face in danger," is Claudia's justification. Right on, Claudia! Don't listen to the haters, and don't forget your sunscreen! Your fresh face, and perfect skin will keep you looking young while they will look old, used, and wrinkled by the time they're forty.
This was a surprisingly good book for this late in the series, especially since it featured Stacey, who is not my favorite baby sitter. I liked that she was impressed with her father's big promotion dinner since she usually acts so jaded about things that happen in New York City. She even admits that she's not as sophisticated as she always seems to think she is, since she's mystified by some of the things that happen during dinner, like the palate cleanser. She also seems to have a lot more sensitivity about homeless people than she has had in previous books. She and her father admit that they don't have any idea what happened to Judy, the homeless woman who lived in their old neighborhood, and reflect on the fact that you never hear about homeless people who die while living on the streets. Her father reminds her that when the homeless are kicked out of the train station they end up in the subway until they are kicked out of there, leaving the reader to wonder what the true solution of homelessness is. What do you do with such poverty when no one wants to deal with it, and when no one wants it in their backyard? How as society can we make it better? Stacey father tells her that this isn't her job to worry about this, and I like that spoiled, wealthy Stacey rebels in a small way against that sentiment by giving money to the next homeless person she sees. "I can try," she tells her father when he reminds her that she can't take care of everyone. I could interpret this in a snarky way by saying that Stacey is suffering under the delusion of the rich by thinking her five dollar donation to one man is going to change his whole life, but today I choose to think that this is Stacey's subtle way of telling her father to fuck off. If she wants to worry about the problem of homelessness in her hometown, then damnit she's going to do it, and maybe someday she will help work toward an alternative to homelessness. Of course, this little anecdote is to highlight how Stacey tries to do too much to take care of everyone, but I think it's still a nice moment.
Things I remember from reading this as a kid:
I don't remember this book very well. The only thing I remember is that Stacey overbooked her mother's caretakers and a bunch of them show up at once.
I seem to remember the subplot of this book much better. I remember the kids ordering free samples of everything, and then being stuck with cheap products. I remember they put on skits and songs to sell their junk door to door.
Things I've considered since reading this as an adult:
The baby sitters refer to Rosebud Cafe as "that new place." I had always assumed the Rosebud Cafe was a timeless staple of Stoneybrook, but I guess it was new to the series in this book. I guess it's in later books where the baby sitters have dates there, and Logan is inexplicably employed as a busboy at the age of thirteen.
With so many neighbors and friends to help them out I don't know why Stacey agonized so much about what she should do about her weekend with her father. It doesn't make sense until you realize that Stacey has witnessed her father be a jerk many times in her young life. He wouldn't let her come back to Stoneybrook to search for her friends when they went missing, he yelled at her mother for spending too much money, and he constantly works, often leaving his daughter, and his now ex-wife to fend for themselves. When he tells Stacey that she can still come to New York, and that he will hire a nurse to look after her mother for the weekend is when she starts having very serious doubts about leaving her mother. It does seem sort of selfish on the part of her father to absolutely insist on Stacey being there for his promotion, one that we can assume cost him his marriage, which put her into this mess to begin with. It's never explicitly said, but I feel that maybe she thinks that if her irresponsible, workaholic father thinks it's fine for her mother to be left alone, then maybe it's really not fine at all. She's also frustrated when she realizes for the rest of her life she will have to choose between her parents. Later she and Dawn can't decide what's worse -- being forced to choose between their parents for the rest of the their lives, or having their parents trapped in miserable marriages. I don't know if I would want to make that decision either. Thank god I don't have children so that I will never be forced to put them in this mess.
Every adult seems shocked that Stacey skips school to take care of her mother when she is sick, but I feel that this is learned behavior on Stacey's part. She knows firsthand how sick people feel, and how much care is often required for them. She's seen her own mother drop everything to spend days and days caring for Stacey while she's in the hospital, and it's natural for her to think that she has to do the same thing when her mother is sick. As a kid I probably didn't notice when Stacey said the house was a huge mess after a few days of her mother being sick, but as an adult who has a terrible time keeping her house neat, I completely sympathize. Stacey strikes me as a fairly neat person and becomes more overwhelmed by things slipping out of control, even things that don't matter too much (like a messy house). Living in a mess is a great way to feel like the rest of your life is chaotic (at least to me). Everyone's upset with her for double booking neighbors to look after her mother while she is away, but she was trying to be responsible about leaving her sick mother alone. (There's also a weird mention of "Mary Anne's mom" . . . shouldn't it be Dawn's mom? Or Mary Anne's stepmom? Maybe Sharon and Mary Anne were having an especially close week?) Her mother scolds her at the end of the book for trying to be "everything to everyone." She reminds Stacey to think of herself when making decisions, which is sound advice. However, I think it's admirable that Stacey tried to step up, knowing that her mother was sick, knowing what's it's like to be sick herself, and knowing that if they didn't live in a town as cozy and friendly as Stoneybrook that Stacey would be the only one to take care of her mother. I also think that Stacey's parents don't fully understand her dilemna. It wasn't just trying to please both her parents, it was how to weigh what was more important and pressing. Does a seriously sick mother trump a father who only has this one big night? Or does a father's lifetime achievement outweigh a sick mother who has lots of friends to care for her? Of course by trying to "be everything" to both her parents she ends up making more of a mess of things, which is to be expected, especially when she easily could have taken a later train back to Stoneybrook on Saturday morning. But her parents (especially her father) didn't help matters.
I've been finding the subplots tediously boring so far, but I actually liked this one. As someone who loves samples, I could understand how the kids get caught up with ordering stuff from magazines. It's nostalgic to think about now, but I totally remember seeing samples advertised in the back of magazines. I also remember there was always some scam like the kids run into with the moon dust. Someone was always selling some collectible that was sure to appreciate in value due to its rarity. I think it's funny that the kids decide to be medicine salesmen to get rid of their stuff. I didn't really know what "old-time medicine shows" were when I was a kid, but as an adult I know that those salespeople often scammed others into overpaying for useless or dangerous things that did nothing to cure them of illnesses, so it's fitting that the kids are thinking of this format for selling their junk. And I LOVED that Claudia bought the products to eliminate wrinkles and crow's feet! Stacey tells her she doesn't need them because she's only thirteen, and all the baby sitters laugh at her, but I would give almost anything to have been as rigorous with my skin care routine at thirteen, as I am now. "Well I don't want to look old . . . I decided not to resist anymore. I just couldn't. I felt I was putting my face in danger," is Claudia's justification. Right on, Claudia! Don't listen to the haters, and don't forget your sunscreen! Your fresh face, and perfect skin will keep you looking young while they will look old, used, and wrinkled by the time they're forty.
This was a surprisingly good book for this late in the series, especially since it featured Stacey, who is not my favorite baby sitter. I liked that she was impressed with her father's big promotion dinner since she usually acts so jaded about things that happen in New York City. She even admits that she's not as sophisticated as she always seems to think she is, since she's mystified by some of the things that happen during dinner, like the palate cleanser. She also seems to have a lot more sensitivity about homeless people than she has had in previous books. She and her father admit that they don't have any idea what happened to Judy, the homeless woman who lived in their old neighborhood, and reflect on the fact that you never hear about homeless people who die while living on the streets. Her father reminds her that when the homeless are kicked out of the train station they end up in the subway until they are kicked out of there, leaving the reader to wonder what the true solution of homelessness is. What do you do with such poverty when no one wants to deal with it, and when no one wants it in their backyard? How as society can we make it better? Stacey father tells her that this isn't her job to worry about this, and I like that spoiled, wealthy Stacey rebels in a small way against that sentiment by giving money to the next homeless person she sees. "I can try," she tells her father when he reminds her that she can't take care of everyone. I could interpret this in a snarky way by saying that Stacey is suffering under the delusion of the rich by thinking her five dollar donation to one man is going to change his whole life, but today I choose to think that this is Stacey's subtle way of telling her father to fuck off. If she wants to worry about the problem of homelessness in her hometown, then damnit she's going to do it, and maybe someday she will help work toward an alternative to homelessness. Of course, this little anecdote is to highlight how Stacey tries to do too much to take care of everyone, but I think it's still a nice moment.
July 3, 2007
Since when does a kid feel that much responsibility about a sick mother, that she doesn't even feel it sufficient that friends of the mother take care of her, but wants to skip school to do it herself? Stacey makes a lot of bad choices in this book which more or less feels like the flip side of "Stacey's Emergency".
February 12, 2025
Stacey’s Choice (Updated)
Stacey and Mallory walk home together. Then promise to see each other at 4. Stacey will be helping Mallory watch her brothers and sisters and then they’ll go to the BSC meeting. When Stacey gets home, her mother is looking pale and tired. Stacey says it’s from her being a single parent who’s job hunting and doing temporary work. She’s been on two this day but Stacey thinks it looks like 10. She says she’s lined up several more. Stacey tells her she doesn’t have to rush. Her dad is paying alimony and child support, but her mom says the money he’s putting toward their house and his apartment isn’t enough to cover everything.
Stacey tells her mother she should lay down and take a nap. She’ll start dinner and finish it when she gets back from the meeting. The phone rings and Stacey is hoping it’s Sam, but its her dad. He has good news. He got a promotion and has been named the vice-president of the company. He’ll be getting all the perks: higher raise, bigger office. There will even be a dinner in his honor and he invites her. It’ll be on a Friday and she can stay the weekend.
They can get tickets to something on Saturday and eat at “Tavern on the Green” Then on Sunday they can have brunch and do whatever else Stacey wants. He says she can also buy a new outfit. Mrs. Pike tells Mal and Stace she’ll only be gone an hour (to Claire’s school). The Pikes are ordering stuff from magazines. Stuff they don’t need like sample hair conditioner and a bust-developer and a trial pack of Ever-Flow baby bottle liners.
On the way to the BSC meeting, Mallory says it started when Adam found an ad in the book of a comic for “fool’s gold” for .50 and he ordered it. Now the others have been ordering things ever since. None of it has been delivered yet tho. At the meeting, Dawn gets a job with the Barrett’s. Mal tells them about her brothers and sisters latest shenanigans. Dawn remembers when she got 12 casettes for a dollar and fourty nine cents, but by doing this she’d joined a cassette club. Every month they’d send you a cassette and it was full price for each one. Dawn says she couldn’t afford it and her dad had to get her out of the club.
Kristy says she saw an add on TV for a collection of fifties and sixties rock and roll artist but when she got it they were old songs from a new group called the Original Artist. She thought it would be groups like The Drifters, Buddy Holy, the Chiffons and Gladys Knight and the Pips. Gladys Knight and the Pips? Really? Kristy never struck me as the type to be into RnB Soul. Maryanne gets a job with the Kuhns and then Stacey tells tem about her news. Claudia, Kristy, Maryanne, and Dawn make plans to go shopping with Stacey to help her pick out a new outfit and then go to the new ice-cream parlor. Jessi has a dance class. Mal has to visit her grandparents.
Stacey finds her outfit at Zingy’s. It’s a hot pink (fake silk) jacket that falls to her knees. Black leggings, pink and black socks, and a black body suit. No skirt. She also gets some black flats. Claudia thinks it’s the perfect outfit. When Stacey gets home, her mother is laying on the couch and says she’s tired. Stacey gives her a fashion show featuring her new outfit. Stacey’s mom says she spent the day cleaning. Someone did call her for an interview about the buyer’s job at Bellairs. Stacey is excited that if her mom gets the job that means they’ll get discounts. She volunteers to make dinner again and tells her mom to take another nap.
Stacey thinks about the dinner and how excited she is to be going to NY when she goes up to her room. Dawn sits for the Barrett’s. Buddy and Suzi are also ordering dumb stuff they don’t need. They’ve had a total of 12.00 but had spent some. So far, they’ve ordered a needle-threader for a dollar and twenty-nine cents. They thought their mother should have that. (She doesn’t even sew). They also find silver polish (not nail polish. Polish for silver items). Then the only thing that might make sense (a book for Marnie). You send them information and they make a customized book out of it. Buddy finds a book called How To Become Mr. Muscle.
Marnie is eating Kleenex. Matt and Haley come by. Haley and Matt also have a bunch of comic books and evelopes (and address labels). They said they found wart-remover. (Neither have warts but they bet someone they know does). Buddy finds one for a kitchen tool that allows you make your own garnishes. The Kuhns come by with more comic books. Jake says he has one that will let you make your own catnip. (They don’t have a cat but he says Maryanne does). Then Suzi finds pumpkin seeds. Nickey and Vanessa come by. Nicky said excitedly he got some stain remover in the mail.
Vanessa says she got some freckle remover. At least this one seems to work because Haley tells Vanessa her freckles look paler. And now I see. It’s not the useless junk their ordering. It’s GETTING MAIL itself that has them all excited. Stacey’s in the middle of taking a math test when she’s called to the office. She finds out that her mother fell out in the middle of an interview and had to be rushed to the hospital. Mrs. Pike is coming to pick her up.
When they get to the hospital, her mom hasn’t been seen yet. Stacey notices she’s burning up but her mother says she doesn’t think it’s the flu. She says doesn’t feel so hot tho. The doctors are nowhere to be found but she says they’ve taken a chest X ray and drawn blood. A bad thought hits Stacey. What if her mother has cancer? But they find out she has pneumonia. Then Stacey and Mrs. Pike take her home. All the BSC call and she has to tell them each what happened. Stacey misses the next meeting.
Tuesday, Stacey convinces her mom to let her stay home. Her mother doesn’t really have an appetite but Stacey not only fiixes her the toast and tea she asks for but fruit and hot cereal. Stacey’s mom is about to drift off when she asks about Friday. Her mom says she can still go. By Friday she’ll probably feel better and Dee (Mrs. Pike will be around if she needs her to do errands). Stacey calls her dad and lets him know what’s going on. He says he might can set something up with a visiting nurse but then tells Stacey how important she is too him (thus it’s important that she be there). Stacey doesn’t want to let her dad down but she doesn’t want to leave her mom either. She thinks maybe one day she’ll write a divorced kids handbook. She feels like she’s forever choosing between her mom and dad -and still will be when she gets married-.
Stacey decides she can’t keep missing school so she contacts some of her mother’s friends and her neighbots to arrange for them to come stay with her while she’s in school. They can do it in shifts. Then she asks Maryanne to find replacements for her sitting jobs during the next few days. She draws up a hourly chart and marks off the times when she’ll be in school. Stacey gets (on the next day she has to be back in school). Mrs. Arnold, Mrs. Braddock, and Mrs. Prezzioso (snorts yeah right the woman who practically has a heart attack if her daughter spills something on herself and gonna come take care of someone with something that’s contagious. She’ll probably have a mask on the whole time and talk to her through the door).
Stacey worries all day but comes home to find everything went smoothly. Her mom has been given her pills, she’s eaten most of her lunch, and she’s drinking lots of fluids. Stacey is gonna skip the BSC meeting, but Mrs. Pike comes by and her mother tells her she can go. The talk at the meeting is about how popular the mail-order thing has become. They ask Stacey what she’s going to do and Stacey says she doesn’t know yet. Stacey asks what they would do. Three say they’d go to NY. Three say they’ll stay. Stacey decides to stay and calls her dad and tells him her decision. He lays a guilt trip on her and says she’ll all he has. Stacey tells him well maybe if he wasn’t married to his job and then apologizes. She says she can’t leave her mother and he says he understands. Stacey knows he doesn’t.
Maryanne sits for the Kuhns. More talk of junk crap that they ordered. Laurel has on mood lipstick. There’s some stain remover and some moon dust. It’s real and it only cost .75 cents. Buddy and Nicky come by. Buddy also has moon dust making him one of the rare few of 20 to have it. Matt has also ordered moon dust. The mail comes. I think Buddy gets a stamp licker and Suzie gets moon dust. Buddy then realizes he’s been had. Nickey gets a mustache comb. Jake gets a pamphlet that says “So Your Going To Plan A Wedding”. Haley gets an ointment to remove crows feet and lines.
Stacey decides she can leave for NY on Friday afternoon, go to the dinner, then come back to Stoneybrook Saturday morning. Then she’d only be away from her other for less than 24 hours. Then she wouldn’t disappoint her father. She can line up people to sit for her again. She lets her dad know and then the doctor calls and confirms it’s just pneumonia (and only that). Stacey starts to get overwhelmed. She’s behind on her homework, the house is a mess, and she has to line up sitters before she leaves the next day. So, Mrs. Pike helps her out by arranging sitters while she gets her homework done at her house. But when she gets there she and Mal are distracted by the Pike kids discovering the junk they ordered is JUNK. Now the boys wish they had a yo-yo. But now they’re broke. Mal suggests that maybe their dad will give them advances. Stacey doesn’t get all her work done but she leaves in a better mood. Sam shows up at Stacey’s school to walk her home but she can’t accept because Mrs. Pike is picking her up to take her to the train station. There’s a delay with the train so Stacey gets to NY late. This makes Stacey and her dad have to rush to the dinner. The dinner is fancy and full of speeches.
They have two shrimp on lettuce, sherbert, roast beef, vegetables, salad, and white mousse for dessert. Stacy has fruit -and I don’t know who wrote this book but fruit has just as much sugar in it as mousse. Clearly they aren’t diabetic-. Stacey makes her dad leave the party early because she has to be back on the train at 4:30 in the morning.
Dad isn’t happy that Stacey’s leaving -and wanted to leave the dinner early-. Still, he doesn’t want Stacey to leave with him mad at her. There’s a homeless man and Stacey gives him some money and her dad tells her she can’t take care of everyone. When she gets home there’s some confusion about the nurse her dad hired and when the other neighbors were supposed to show up. Mrs. Pike takes the blame tho and says she never keep track of it. Mrs. Pike tells her she’s one of the most mature 13-year-olds she knows (later in the day) but she can’t be everything to everyone.
By Thursday, Stacey’s mom has a turn around and says she doesn’t need a sitter. She starts to sleep less and eat more. Mallory sits for the Barretts on this day. They invite over the other kids and they all bring their junk. They’re going to go from door to door singing, dancing, and selling their junk. They’ll get the triplets to rap. They make up 15 kits and songs. Like everything these kids do the door-to-door show is a hit. No one tho buys their junk. They do get some money here and there (probably just to get rid of them). It ends with (I think Mrs. Barett) actually buying the crow’s feet ointment. Mrs. McGill getting well and getting the job at Bellairs. Stacey getting to go on a date with Sam and her telling Claudia to make her dad a certificate for father of the year.
My Thoughts:
Not the best one in the series, but I thought Stacey did the best she could. She handled taking care of her mom in a mature way. It was smart of her to find sitters and set up times wfor them to watch her mom. When I first read this, I was surprised that she had such a strong community. On this read, I thought about my step mother (who just told me she has pneumonia) and I thought HEY. Pneumonia is CONTAGIOUS! Which is why I really didn’t believe that Mrs. Prezzioso would watch Mrs. McGill. If she’s particular about dirt, can you imagine how she feels about bacteria and germs?
Initially, I thought the hospital didn’t keep Mrs. McGill long enough. If she was still that sick when she left and wasn’t eating maybe another couple of days. Then they didn’t even have the results of the blood test. Since when do hospitals let you go before having this?
I wondered also why Mr. McGill didn’t mention to Stacey that he’d found a nurse. He told her he was going to but I definitely think he should told her he for sure found one. But overall, again Stacey did a great job. She worked out a compromise that was fair to both parents. As for the other plot, I just wondered why everything these kids do turn into some kind of show or event. This stuff sounded like stuff you find on the Publishing Clearinghouse website and it was VERY hard to believe that they’d spend *anything* on it. OR that their parents would actually let them order it. I could have seen if it were even little cheap toys but the things they ordered didn’t make any sense. But in a way I kind of *got it* because I LOVE to order stuff myself.
(Some I need. Some I probably don’t). So, it can be addictive. There were some other things I noted like, I remembered those ads that said you could get 12 CDS for a penny. I also remembered light up yo-yos back in the day. I remembered the bust developer from a Punky Brewster episode. (I must. I must. I must increase my bust. A bust. A bust. A bust is just a must). And then how dumb it sounded that Stacey said she never knew the meaning of the words “Move On!” (REALLY?) And ho dumb the ghost writer sounded writing that Stacey couldn’t have mousse but she could have a big thing of fruit which has just as much sugar as mousse.
Rating: 5
Stacey and Mallory walk home together. Then promise to see each other at 4. Stacey will be helping Mallory watch her brothers and sisters and then they’ll go to the BSC meeting. When Stacey gets home, her mother is looking pale and tired. Stacey says it’s from her being a single parent who’s job hunting and doing temporary work. She’s been on two this day but Stacey thinks it looks like 10. She says she’s lined up several more. Stacey tells her she doesn’t have to rush. Her dad is paying alimony and child support, but her mom says the money he’s putting toward their house and his apartment isn’t enough to cover everything.
Stacey tells her mother she should lay down and take a nap. She’ll start dinner and finish it when she gets back from the meeting. The phone rings and Stacey is hoping it’s Sam, but its her dad. He has good news. He got a promotion and has been named the vice-president of the company. He’ll be getting all the perks: higher raise, bigger office. There will even be a dinner in his honor and he invites her. It’ll be on a Friday and she can stay the weekend.
They can get tickets to something on Saturday and eat at “Tavern on the Green” Then on Sunday they can have brunch and do whatever else Stacey wants. He says she can also buy a new outfit. Mrs. Pike tells Mal and Stace she’ll only be gone an hour (to Claire’s school). The Pikes are ordering stuff from magazines. Stuff they don’t need like sample hair conditioner and a bust-developer and a trial pack of Ever-Flow baby bottle liners.
On the way to the BSC meeting, Mallory says it started when Adam found an ad in the book of a comic for “fool’s gold” for .50 and he ordered it. Now the others have been ordering things ever since. None of it has been delivered yet tho. At the meeting, Dawn gets a job with the Barrett’s. Mal tells them about her brothers and sisters latest shenanigans. Dawn remembers when she got 12 casettes for a dollar and fourty nine cents, but by doing this she’d joined a cassette club. Every month they’d send you a cassette and it was full price for each one. Dawn says she couldn’t afford it and her dad had to get her out of the club.
Kristy says she saw an add on TV for a collection of fifties and sixties rock and roll artist but when she got it they were old songs from a new group called the Original Artist. She thought it would be groups like The Drifters, Buddy Holy, the Chiffons and Gladys Knight and the Pips. Gladys Knight and the Pips? Really? Kristy never struck me as the type to be into RnB Soul. Maryanne gets a job with the Kuhns and then Stacey tells tem about her news. Claudia, Kristy, Maryanne, and Dawn make plans to go shopping with Stacey to help her pick out a new outfit and then go to the new ice-cream parlor. Jessi has a dance class. Mal has to visit her grandparents.
Stacey finds her outfit at Zingy’s. It’s a hot pink (fake silk) jacket that falls to her knees. Black leggings, pink and black socks, and a black body suit. No skirt. She also gets some black flats. Claudia thinks it’s the perfect outfit. When Stacey gets home, her mother is laying on the couch and says she’s tired. Stacey gives her a fashion show featuring her new outfit. Stacey’s mom says she spent the day cleaning. Someone did call her for an interview about the buyer’s job at Bellairs. Stacey is excited that if her mom gets the job that means they’ll get discounts. She volunteers to make dinner again and tells her mom to take another nap.
Stacey thinks about the dinner and how excited she is to be going to NY when she goes up to her room. Dawn sits for the Barrett’s. Buddy and Suzi are also ordering dumb stuff they don’t need. They’ve had a total of 12.00 but had spent some. So far, they’ve ordered a needle-threader for a dollar and twenty-nine cents. They thought their mother should have that. (She doesn’t even sew). They also find silver polish (not nail polish. Polish for silver items). Then the only thing that might make sense (a book for Marnie). You send them information and they make a customized book out of it. Buddy finds a book called How To Become Mr. Muscle.
Marnie is eating Kleenex. Matt and Haley come by. Haley and Matt also have a bunch of comic books and evelopes (and address labels). They said they found wart-remover. (Neither have warts but they bet someone they know does). Buddy finds one for a kitchen tool that allows you make your own garnishes. The Kuhns come by with more comic books. Jake says he has one that will let you make your own catnip. (They don’t have a cat but he says Maryanne does). Then Suzi finds pumpkin seeds. Nickey and Vanessa come by. Nicky said excitedly he got some stain remover in the mail.
Vanessa says she got some freckle remover. At least this one seems to work because Haley tells Vanessa her freckles look paler. And now I see. It’s not the useless junk their ordering. It’s GETTING MAIL itself that has them all excited. Stacey’s in the middle of taking a math test when she’s called to the office. She finds out that her mother fell out in the middle of an interview and had to be rushed to the hospital. Mrs. Pike is coming to pick her up.
When they get to the hospital, her mom hasn’t been seen yet. Stacey notices she’s burning up but her mother says she doesn’t think it’s the flu. She says doesn’t feel so hot tho. The doctors are nowhere to be found but she says they’ve taken a chest X ray and drawn blood. A bad thought hits Stacey. What if her mother has cancer? But they find out she has pneumonia. Then Stacey and Mrs. Pike take her home. All the BSC call and she has to tell them each what happened. Stacey misses the next meeting.
Tuesday, Stacey convinces her mom to let her stay home. Her mother doesn’t really have an appetite but Stacey not only fiixes her the toast and tea she asks for but fruit and hot cereal. Stacey’s mom is about to drift off when she asks about Friday. Her mom says she can still go. By Friday she’ll probably feel better and Dee (Mrs. Pike will be around if she needs her to do errands). Stacey calls her dad and lets him know what’s going on. He says he might can set something up with a visiting nurse but then tells Stacey how important she is too him (thus it’s important that she be there). Stacey doesn’t want to let her dad down but she doesn’t want to leave her mom either. She thinks maybe one day she’ll write a divorced kids handbook. She feels like she’s forever choosing between her mom and dad -and still will be when she gets married-.
Stacey decides she can’t keep missing school so she contacts some of her mother’s friends and her neighbots to arrange for them to come stay with her while she’s in school. They can do it in shifts. Then she asks Maryanne to find replacements for her sitting jobs during the next few days. She draws up a hourly chart and marks off the times when she’ll be in school. Stacey gets (on the next day she has to be back in school). Mrs. Arnold, Mrs. Braddock, and Mrs. Prezzioso (snorts yeah right the woman who practically has a heart attack if her daughter spills something on herself and gonna come take care of someone with something that’s contagious. She’ll probably have a mask on the whole time and talk to her through the door).
Stacey worries all day but comes home to find everything went smoothly. Her mom has been given her pills, she’s eaten most of her lunch, and she’s drinking lots of fluids. Stacey is gonna skip the BSC meeting, but Mrs. Pike comes by and her mother tells her she can go. The talk at the meeting is about how popular the mail-order thing has become. They ask Stacey what she’s going to do and Stacey says she doesn’t know yet. Stacey asks what they would do. Three say they’d go to NY. Three say they’ll stay. Stacey decides to stay and calls her dad and tells him her decision. He lays a guilt trip on her and says she’ll all he has. Stacey tells him well maybe if he wasn’t married to his job and then apologizes. She says she can’t leave her mother and he says he understands. Stacey knows he doesn’t.
Maryanne sits for the Kuhns. More talk of junk crap that they ordered. Laurel has on mood lipstick. There’s some stain remover and some moon dust. It’s real and it only cost .75 cents. Buddy and Nicky come by. Buddy also has moon dust making him one of the rare few of 20 to have it. Matt has also ordered moon dust. The mail comes. I think Buddy gets a stamp licker and Suzie gets moon dust. Buddy then realizes he’s been had. Nickey gets a mustache comb. Jake gets a pamphlet that says “So Your Going To Plan A Wedding”. Haley gets an ointment to remove crows feet and lines.
Stacey decides she can leave for NY on Friday afternoon, go to the dinner, then come back to Stoneybrook Saturday morning. Then she’d only be away from her other for less than 24 hours. Then she wouldn’t disappoint her father. She can line up people to sit for her again. She lets her dad know and then the doctor calls and confirms it’s just pneumonia (and only that). Stacey starts to get overwhelmed. She’s behind on her homework, the house is a mess, and she has to line up sitters before she leaves the next day. So, Mrs. Pike helps her out by arranging sitters while she gets her homework done at her house. But when she gets there she and Mal are distracted by the Pike kids discovering the junk they ordered is JUNK. Now the boys wish they had a yo-yo. But now they’re broke. Mal suggests that maybe their dad will give them advances. Stacey doesn’t get all her work done but she leaves in a better mood. Sam shows up at Stacey’s school to walk her home but she can’t accept because Mrs. Pike is picking her up to take her to the train station. There’s a delay with the train so Stacey gets to NY late. This makes Stacey and her dad have to rush to the dinner. The dinner is fancy and full of speeches.
They have two shrimp on lettuce, sherbert, roast beef, vegetables, salad, and white mousse for dessert. Stacy has fruit -and I don’t know who wrote this book but fruit has just as much sugar in it as mousse. Clearly they aren’t diabetic-. Stacey makes her dad leave the party early because she has to be back on the train at 4:30 in the morning.
Dad isn’t happy that Stacey’s leaving -and wanted to leave the dinner early-. Still, he doesn’t want Stacey to leave with him mad at her. There’s a homeless man and Stacey gives him some money and her dad tells her she can’t take care of everyone. When she gets home there’s some confusion about the nurse her dad hired and when the other neighbors were supposed to show up. Mrs. Pike takes the blame tho and says she never keep track of it. Mrs. Pike tells her she’s one of the most mature 13-year-olds she knows (later in the day) but she can’t be everything to everyone.
By Thursday, Stacey’s mom has a turn around and says she doesn’t need a sitter. She starts to sleep less and eat more. Mallory sits for the Barretts on this day. They invite over the other kids and they all bring their junk. They’re going to go from door to door singing, dancing, and selling their junk. They’ll get the triplets to rap. They make up 15 kits and songs. Like everything these kids do the door-to-door show is a hit. No one tho buys their junk. They do get some money here and there (probably just to get rid of them). It ends with (I think Mrs. Barett) actually buying the crow’s feet ointment. Mrs. McGill getting well and getting the job at Bellairs. Stacey getting to go on a date with Sam and her telling Claudia to make her dad a certificate for father of the year.
My Thoughts:
Not the best one in the series, but I thought Stacey did the best she could. She handled taking care of her mom in a mature way. It was smart of her to find sitters and set up times wfor them to watch her mom. When I first read this, I was surprised that she had such a strong community. On this read, I thought about my step mother (who just told me she has pneumonia) and I thought HEY. Pneumonia is CONTAGIOUS! Which is why I really didn’t believe that Mrs. Prezzioso would watch Mrs. McGill. If she’s particular about dirt, can you imagine how she feels about bacteria and germs?
Initially, I thought the hospital didn’t keep Mrs. McGill long enough. If she was still that sick when she left and wasn’t eating maybe another couple of days. Then they didn’t even have the results of the blood test. Since when do hospitals let you go before having this?
I wondered also why Mr. McGill didn’t mention to Stacey that he’d found a nurse. He told her he was going to but I definitely think he should told her he for sure found one. But overall, again Stacey did a great job. She worked out a compromise that was fair to both parents. As for the other plot, I just wondered why everything these kids do turn into some kind of show or event. This stuff sounded like stuff you find on the Publishing Clearinghouse website and it was VERY hard to believe that they’d spend *anything* on it. OR that their parents would actually let them order it. I could have seen if it were even little cheap toys but the things they ordered didn’t make any sense. But in a way I kind of *got it* because I LOVE to order stuff myself.
(Some I need. Some I probably don’t). So, it can be addictive. There were some other things I noted like, I remembered those ads that said you could get 12 CDS for a penny. I also remembered light up yo-yos back in the day. I remembered the bust developer from a Punky Brewster episode. (I must. I must. I must increase my bust. A bust. A bust. A bust is just a must). And then how dumb it sounded that Stacey said she never knew the meaning of the words “Move On!” (REALLY?) And ho dumb the ghost writer sounded writing that Stacey couldn’t have mousse but she could have a big thing of fruit which has just as much sugar as mousse.
Rating: 5
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 29, 2019
It didn’t take me a week to read actually when I started this book (when I logged my start date) I hadn’t even started reading. When I finally did open it to read it took me maybe an hour to read the full book.
Anyways the review for this book is:
It’s written well its apart of the classic Babysitters Club series! Martin doesn’t disappoint! She simply delivers like always. She’s a great writer & visualizer! She gives you a complete story. It’s good for a children’s book & as an adult reading it it’s nostalgic! The feelings to read things that children found “fun” compared to today is mind blowing! I truly miss those days! The very book I read had those ads in the back (they spoke of the same ads inside the book). Where I could send in my money order for a membership of the babysitters club for $4.95! It truly is amazing looking back at how things were. & that today 2019 I wouldn’t be able to send that in because that no longer exists!
The story rounded out perfectly with it focusing on the actual storyline of Stacey’s parents & the divorce to finish off the book. I didn’t like some things thou which were the reasons for my rating. I didn’t like that it seemed like the parents couldn’t even speak to get things figured out it always landed on Stace. Or how her father was upset with her because she wanted to stay with her sick mother. Or how he didn’t have proper communication with his daughter about the nurse so that way Stacey could have actually enjoyed her time at the “McGill Party”! I didn’t like that she truly did seem like she had to be a 13 year old adult & that all the parents had to say about it was “you don’t have to help everyone”. (Insert Minion saying “WHAT?”) No as parents you don’t put that weight on your child in-the first place!! They didn’t ask for their parents to divorce & their lives change drastically! I feel like both parents should have apologized to her they should have realized the damage & the affects of their divorce was on their daughter! She is mature for her age yet I feel like that doesn’t change that the parents needed to do more! She has a right to be a child/teen! & not have to worry about half the stuff she worried about on this book! The divorce rates are even higher now in 2019 so I can understand the topic being spoken on & was written in a children’s view but I feel like it showed a lack of parenting! I LOVED the kids they babysat for thou! They all seem so creative & spunky! This book was a good read just a few miss hits in the storyline that had me give this rating but Martin never disappoints! I also did notice a few typos! Not okay in my book when you’re in book #58 & you are such a big name your editors should have caught them.
3 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️ & I will always continue to read this series! It was written in my era! It’s impossible not to be a Babysitter Club fan!
Anyways the review for this book is:
It’s written well its apart of the classic Babysitters Club series! Martin doesn’t disappoint! She simply delivers like always. She’s a great writer & visualizer! She gives you a complete story. It’s good for a children’s book & as an adult reading it it’s nostalgic! The feelings to read things that children found “fun” compared to today is mind blowing! I truly miss those days! The very book I read had those ads in the back (they spoke of the same ads inside the book). Where I could send in my money order for a membership of the babysitters club for $4.95! It truly is amazing looking back at how things were. & that today 2019 I wouldn’t be able to send that in because that no longer exists!
The story rounded out perfectly with it focusing on the actual storyline of Stacey’s parents & the divorce to finish off the book. I didn’t like some things thou which were the reasons for my rating. I didn’t like that it seemed like the parents couldn’t even speak to get things figured out it always landed on Stace. Or how her father was upset with her because she wanted to stay with her sick mother. Or how he didn’t have proper communication with his daughter about the nurse so that way Stacey could have actually enjoyed her time at the “McGill Party”! I didn’t like that she truly did seem like she had to be a 13 year old adult & that all the parents had to say about it was “you don’t have to help everyone”. (Insert Minion saying “WHAT?”) No as parents you don’t put that weight on your child in-the first place!! They didn’t ask for their parents to divorce & their lives change drastically! I feel like both parents should have apologized to her they should have realized the damage & the affects of their divorce was on their daughter! She is mature for her age yet I feel like that doesn’t change that the parents needed to do more! She has a right to be a child/teen! & not have to worry about half the stuff she worried about on this book! The divorce rates are even higher now in 2019 so I can understand the topic being spoken on & was written in a children’s view but I feel like it showed a lack of parenting! I LOVED the kids they babysat for thou! They all seem so creative & spunky! This book was a good read just a few miss hits in the storyline that had me give this rating but Martin never disappoints! I also did notice a few typos! Not okay in my book when you’re in book #58 & you are such a big name your editors should have caught them.
3 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️ & I will always continue to read this series! It was written in my era! It’s impossible not to be a Babysitter Club fan!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 8, 2017
I very distinctly remember the first time I read this book as a kid, and how much it made me dislike Stacey's father. I never cared about him one way or another until after the McGill divorce. After that I remember thinking that he was a bit of a jerk. Not all the time, I didn't hate him in the NYC SS so much, but yeah. He was just this work alcoholic sort of jerk of a guy, and I always thought in this one that he was pretty unfair. Stacey was clearly worried about her sick mother, and he was more interested in making sure his night went well.
I still don't like him in this book even now. Just the whole thing with her parents was a bit of a mess in this one, and the 13 year old kid was trying to be the adult and take care of both her parents in a way. Her mom couldn't help being sick, but her dad could have been a little more easy on her. Show some compassion, ya jackass!
I always liked the subplot in this one too. All kids like getting mail (come on, us adults do too) and this is totally something I did to an extent. Ordering free or cheap things out of magazines and comic books is a very realistic kid thing to do, and then you're suddenly stuck with a bunch of junk. Sounds about right!
I still don't like him in this book even now. Just the whole thing with her parents was a bit of a mess in this one, and the 13 year old kid was trying to be the adult and take care of both her parents in a way. Her mom couldn't help being sick, but her dad could have been a little more easy on her. Show some compassion, ya jackass!
I always liked the subplot in this one too. All kids like getting mail (come on, us adults do too) and this is totally something I did to an extent. Ordering free or cheap things out of magazines and comic books is a very realistic kid thing to do, and then you're suddenly stuck with a bunch of junk. Sounds about right!
December 15, 2020
(LL)
While there are important issues in the book about how a divorce can change both the parent’s and kid’s lives down the road, this didn’t feel like it needed to be a full book as it could have been the subplot of another book and the reader would learn plenty of important lessons without it being a 140 page storyline. With that being said, this was a good example of what kids of divorce go through, so I gave it three stars for it being mostly accurate in its depiction.
As an aside: It is highly unlikely that all those neighbors and friends would be easily available. Like do any of the women in these books work or are they all stay at home moms? If Stacey’s mom was so sick she needed round the clock care and a child was the only person to take care of her it’s highly doubtful the hospital wouldn’t at least give Stacey and her mom some resources or numbers to call for help.
While there are important issues in the book about how a divorce can change both the parent’s and kid’s lives down the road, this didn’t feel like it needed to be a full book as it could have been the subplot of another book and the reader would learn plenty of important lessons without it being a 140 page storyline. With that being said, this was a good example of what kids of divorce go through, so I gave it three stars for it being mostly accurate in its depiction.
As an aside: It is highly unlikely that all those neighbors and friends would be easily available. Like do any of the women in these books work or are they all stay at home moms? If Stacey’s mom was so sick she needed round the clock care and a child was the only person to take care of her it’s highly doubtful the hospital wouldn’t at least give Stacey and her mom some resources or numbers to call for help.
August 10, 2018
My daughters review:
In Stacey’s choice, Stacey’s Mom has pneumonia and Stacey’s Dad has this really important dinner bc he’s getting promoted! Stacey TRIES to be like, in both places but it doesn’t work out. The morale of this book is to “remember to take care of yrself don’t just worry about others, etc.” the second part is funny- a bunch of kids are ordering stuff from the back of magazines and comic books but realize like, THIS IS USELESS a long time after ordering it. It’s so funny but not practical even for kids. Now back to the first part /plot: Stacey gets the parents of the kids she sits for and deliberately ASKS them to do that thing i really hate in this book——watch her Mom. That’s just weird. But besides the other stuff, I’d say that this book was great!!!!!!
In Stacey’s choice, Stacey’s Mom has pneumonia and Stacey’s Dad has this really important dinner bc he’s getting promoted! Stacey TRIES to be like, in both places but it doesn’t work out. The morale of this book is to “remember to take care of yrself don’t just worry about others, etc.” the second part is funny- a bunch of kids are ordering stuff from the back of magazines and comic books but realize like, THIS IS USELESS a long time after ordering it. It’s so funny but not practical even for kids. Now back to the first part /plot: Stacey gets the parents of the kids she sits for and deliberately ASKS them to do that thing i really hate in this book——watch her Mom. That’s just weird. But besides the other stuff, I’d say that this book was great!!!!!!
January 27, 2023
I read this one repeatedly as a kid because my mom had decided the BSC was bad for me and forbidden it, but my grandparents had an assortment of kids' books from library book sales and this was one of them, so every time I was at their house, I'd reread this one to get my BSC fix.
So I just revisited Stacey's Choice as an adult and the thing that strikes me is how parentified Stacey is--her parents aren't doing the greatest job of parenting and navigating their divorce civilly and it really shows how caught in the middle she feels. The B plot with all the kids in the neighbourhood ordering random junk from magazines doesn't match up with Stacey's plot at all, but it is hilarious. Anyway, I still like it, but it definitely hits differently now than it did then.
So I just revisited Stacey's Choice as an adult and the thing that strikes me is how parentified Stacey is--her parents aren't doing the greatest job of parenting and navigating their divorce civilly and it really shows how caught in the middle she feels. The B plot with all the kids in the neighbourhood ordering random junk from magazines doesn't match up with Stacey's plot at all, but it is hilarious. Anyway, I still like it, but it definitely hits differently now than it did then.
November 12, 2025
As someone who’s been working A LOT on codependency in therapy lately, I found this story of Stacey getting all stressed from taking on the bulk of the work caring for her sick mother when literally no one asked her to do that profoundly relatable. Not that I necessarily think Stacey’s codependent… but she’s definitely being a bit of a compulsive caretaker in this one. I really think Stacey was the best character for a story like this, and I liked how it explored how her perceived maturity isn’t always the healthiest thing.
On a lighter note, the subplot with the kids getting really obsessed with buying junk from catalogues was so funny. (Especially Vanessa buying a bust-developer and all the jokes that came from that.) I don’t usually like the babysitting charges’ plotlines, but this was such a wonderful exception.
On a lighter note, the subplot with the kids getting really obsessed with buying junk from catalogues was so funny. (Especially Vanessa buying a bust-developer and all the jokes that came from that.) I don’t usually like the babysitting charges’ plotlines, but this was such a wonderful exception.
January 15, 2022
Stacey's dad invited her for a work dinner in NYC after he got promoted, and she and her friends went to go buy a trendy hot pink and black outfit that sounds very 90's. One day when Stacey is in school, her mom comes down with pneumonia and she takes care of her mom and arranges for neighbours to look after her. Stacey can't decide whether to stay with her mom or go to NYC for the dinner and is caught in the middle once again. I'm sure those with divorced parents would be able to relate to this.
May 28, 2023
Sadly realistic look at the pressures that kids of divorced parents face in trying to care for both their parents. Stacey's dad is promoted to VP at his company. He invites her to a weekend in NYC so she can be his +1 at a work dinner honouring him. But then her mom falls sick with pneumonia around the same time, and Stacey doesn't feel right leaving her alone. Stacey's in a tough spot. I also appreciate how well both parents handle the situation, coz it shows how even if all parties do their very best, divorce is a tough situation and sometimes, no matter what you do, people end up hurt.
March 23, 2020
Stacey’s very mature and understandably caring towards her mother. After all, Jim Henson had died of pneumonia almost 2 years and 5 months before this particular book was written. (I looked it up.) But this book lifts up the tension with its funny subplot and great taste in fashion:
pg. 29: black and white checked leggings (Claudia)
pg. 30: long hot pink fake silk jacket, black leggings, pink and black socks, and black bodysuit (Stacey)
pg. 123: blue jeans and sweatshirt (Mrs. Barrett)
pg. 29: black and white checked leggings (Claudia)
pg. 30: long hot pink fake silk jacket, black leggings, pink and black socks, and black bodysuit (Stacey)
pg. 123: blue jeans and sweatshirt (Mrs. Barrett)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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.
July 26, 2021
Not a ton of plot or a lot of the other BSC members outside of their mall trip (which was fun) but I (mostly) like Stacey books and her relationship with her mom so I'm cool with it. Plus, it's nice seeing the adults be friends with and take care of each other.
BUT there's this glaring error in the book where it says Mary Anne's mom came to check on Stacey's mom...? Did she come from the grave?
BUT there's this glaring error in the book where it says Mary Anne's mom came to check on Stacey's mom...? Did she come from the grave?
March 5, 2023
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.
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.
Read
January 25, 2021I think Ann Martin was getting a little burned out at this point because there's some details that are blatantly opposite of what is told repeatedly through the rest of the books (one example is that Mary Ann's mother comes to watch Stacey's mother).
October 8, 2023
3 stars. Poor Stacey. Her parents are so selfish and didn’t once take her feelings into consideration here. That was all way too much to put on her. Stacey is a wonderful character and is one of my favorites of the girls but this story was frustrating.
Read
July 31, 2024Lessons learned from this one:
Don't order cheap things from the mail
Taking care of everyone and overextending yourself only lasts for so long
I can't help that Stacey's character fell flat to push the plot forward.
Don't order cheap things from the mail
Taking care of everyone and overextending yourself only lasts for so long
I can't help that Stacey's character fell flat to push the plot forward.
October 6, 2019
Review on www.Audible.com please listen to this book
January 18, 2020
I have never seen or heard anyone use the word "swan" in any context other than the bird, and I have no idea what it means or if it's even pronounced the same way.
Read
August 27, 2020Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: https://www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blo...
October 10, 2021
Actual rating: 2.7
December 9, 2021
I feel like there's five different variations of this book that I've read so far.
June 17, 2022
Not my favorite. It took me like 3 days to get through it because it wasn’t great. Someone please tell me how the cover matches the story…..anyone?
January 15, 2024
Loved the book it made sense and I didn’t like how it finishes some of the baby sitters club books could be a little longer then 15 chapters.
September 20, 2017
This is such a classic BSC cover. Their outfits are a little understated for their personalities, but it's still quintessential BSC. And that is the best thing I'll say about this book, unfortunately. I've hit a string of duds lately. But they're also not as well-known to me, which is kind of nice.
The story opens with Stacey and Mallory walking home from school and enjoying the crisp autumn air. I am so ready for fall and Halloween, it is not even funny! I've been stockpiling Halloween decorations for my new apartment for weeks now. It's going to be awesome. :) And now I'm trying to remember if there are any BSC Halloween books? Why can't I think of any? Anyway, the girls are walking home, Stacey loves math, Mallory has a lot of siblings, etc. Stacey gets home and her mom is there and looks really tired and worn down. She went on two job interviews and goes to take a nap. I always remember her mom working at Bellair's but she doesn't get that job til the end of this book. So I obviously read plenty of books after this one.
Stacey's "Old Dad" calls her and tells her he got a huge promotion at work, with a raise, and they're having a big dinner for him. He wants Stacey to come to the city for the weekend and be his date and even tells her to buy a new outfit. Which is as good a time as any to do What Stacey Wore to the dinner.
"Zingy's! That's all punk stuff!" (Mary Anne)
"I like to think of myself as the Sherlock Holmes of fashion," [Stacey said] "I'll put together the perfect outfit at Zingy's. Trust me. It'll be perfect for me and my dad."
By the time I left I was carrying a shopping bag in which were folded a hot pink (fake) silk jacket which fell to my knees, new black leggings, pink-and-black socks, and a black body suit. I planned to wear the outfit with black flats, and to dress it up with some jewelry and maybe a couple of barrettes in my hair.
The girls go shopping at the mall for Stacey's outfit and hit the new restaurant, The Rosebud Cafe. (Another thing I remember being there forever.) This is another classic BSC moment, the girls at the mall. It brought back memories of the hundreds of times I went to the mall with friends and my sister. Mall rats of the 90s unite!! :D
Okay, so let's get to the main story-line finally. "Stacey's choice" Stacey is at school when she gets called to the office over the loud speaker (tre embarrassing). The secretary tells her that her mom collapsed during an interview and that Mrs Pike is on her way to take Stacey to the hospital to see her mom. She's frantic, of course, and thinks the worst. But Mrs McGill just has pneumonia. Which okay, is pretty bad, but I feel like Stacey went waaay overboard. She stays home from school, sets up a schedule of adult sitters when she does have to go back to school, and decides to cancel her trip to NYC. Which of course pisses her dad off. And Stacey says some ugly stuff: "Maybe if you weren't a workaholic, there'd be something more in your life. But you're married to your job." ooh, harsh!!
In baby-sitting news, all the neighborhood kids are obsessed with ordering free/cheap crap from magazines. Like a stamp licker, bust developer, moondust, you know...crap. It's all fun at first, especially when they start getting the stuff in the mail. Who doesn't love fun mail?? But then they run out of money and they finally realize they don't need all this junk or it doesn't work or they're not that special with their moondust. And hey, they really want a yo-yo, the cool new fad. So they gather all their junk together and come up with a travelling road show, with skits and dances, to pawn their useless crap on other people. No one wants it of course, but they do pay for the performances. (The Pike triplets rap. I see a Vanilla Ice-esque career in their future.) In the end, the kids make back their money and get their yo-yos and everyone's happy.
Back with Stacey, she finally decides to go to NYC for the dinner on Friday night and come straight back home Saturday morning. Good compromise, right? Well, the train is late, there's traffic, Stacey has to iron her outfit, and they get to the dinner about 15 minutes late. Stacey gets up multiple times during the dinner to check on her mom and then wants to leave at like 10:00, before the fun even starts. Her dad is naturally annoyed, but Stacey doesn't care. There's a weird part at the train station where Stacey questions what happens to the homeless people when they die and no one ever hears about it. Morbid much? Stacey gives a guy five bucks and her dad tells her she "can't take care of everybody"; she replies "but I can try". Wow, subtle Stace.
A week or two go by, Stacey's mom is all better, Stacey hasn't talked to her dad, and Claudia buys the kids' wrinkle-away lol. (Trust me, it's never too early to start preventative measures!) Stacey realizes she shouldn't have had to choose between her parents and makes up with her dad. The end. Oh! There's baby pictures in the back of this one, I guess they started doing that now. Kind of fun.
Blogged at SeeJennRead!!
The story opens with Stacey and Mallory walking home from school and enjoying the crisp autumn air. I am so ready for fall and Halloween, it is not even funny! I've been stockpiling Halloween decorations for my new apartment for weeks now. It's going to be awesome. :) And now I'm trying to remember if there are any BSC Halloween books? Why can't I think of any? Anyway, the girls are walking home, Stacey loves math, Mallory has a lot of siblings, etc. Stacey gets home and her mom is there and looks really tired and worn down. She went on two job interviews and goes to take a nap. I always remember her mom working at Bellair's but she doesn't get that job til the end of this book. So I obviously read plenty of books after this one.
Stacey's "Old Dad" calls her and tells her he got a huge promotion at work, with a raise, and they're having a big dinner for him. He wants Stacey to come to the city for the weekend and be his date and even tells her to buy a new outfit. Which is as good a time as any to do What Stacey Wore to the dinner.
"Zingy's! That's all punk stuff!" (Mary Anne)
"I like to think of myself as the Sherlock Holmes of fashion," [Stacey said] "I'll put together the perfect outfit at Zingy's. Trust me. It'll be perfect for me and my dad."
By the time I left I was carrying a shopping bag in which were folded a hot pink (fake) silk jacket which fell to my knees, new black leggings, pink-and-black socks, and a black body suit. I planned to wear the outfit with black flats, and to dress it up with some jewelry and maybe a couple of barrettes in my hair.
The girls go shopping at the mall for Stacey's outfit and hit the new restaurant, The Rosebud Cafe. (Another thing I remember being there forever.) This is another classic BSC moment, the girls at the mall. It brought back memories of the hundreds of times I went to the mall with friends and my sister. Mall rats of the 90s unite!! :D
Okay, so let's get to the main story-line finally. "Stacey's choice" Stacey is at school when she gets called to the office over the loud speaker (tre embarrassing). The secretary tells her that her mom collapsed during an interview and that Mrs Pike is on her way to take Stacey to the hospital to see her mom. She's frantic, of course, and thinks the worst. But Mrs McGill just has pneumonia. Which okay, is pretty bad, but I feel like Stacey went waaay overboard. She stays home from school, sets up a schedule of adult sitters when she does have to go back to school, and decides to cancel her trip to NYC. Which of course pisses her dad off. And Stacey says some ugly stuff: "Maybe if you weren't a workaholic, there'd be something more in your life. But you're married to your job." ooh, harsh!!
In baby-sitting news, all the neighborhood kids are obsessed with ordering free/cheap crap from magazines. Like a stamp licker, bust developer, moondust, you know...crap. It's all fun at first, especially when they start getting the stuff in the mail. Who doesn't love fun mail?? But then they run out of money and they finally realize they don't need all this junk or it doesn't work or they're not that special with their moondust. And hey, they really want a yo-yo, the cool new fad. So they gather all their junk together and come up with a travelling road show, with skits and dances, to pawn their useless crap on other people. No one wants it of course, but they do pay for the performances. (The Pike triplets rap. I see a Vanilla Ice-esque career in their future.) In the end, the kids make back their money and get their yo-yos and everyone's happy.
Back with Stacey, she finally decides to go to NYC for the dinner on Friday night and come straight back home Saturday morning. Good compromise, right? Well, the train is late, there's traffic, Stacey has to iron her outfit, and they get to the dinner about 15 minutes late. Stacey gets up multiple times during the dinner to check on her mom and then wants to leave at like 10:00, before the fun even starts. Her dad is naturally annoyed, but Stacey doesn't care. There's a weird part at the train station where Stacey questions what happens to the homeless people when they die and no one ever hears about it. Morbid much? Stacey gives a guy five bucks and her dad tells her she "can't take care of everybody"; she replies "but I can try". Wow, subtle Stace.
A week or two go by, Stacey's mom is all better, Stacey hasn't talked to her dad, and Claudia buys the kids' wrinkle-away lol. (Trust me, it's never too early to start preventative measures!) Stacey realizes she shouldn't have had to choose between her parents and makes up with her dad. The end. Oh! There's baby pictures in the back of this one, I guess they started doing that now. Kind of fun.
Blogged at SeeJennRead!!
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