Inge en het geheim op zolder

The Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries #5

by Ann M. Martin

Inges moeder overleed toen Inge nog maar een baby was. Omdat het meneer Praet heel verdrietig maakt om over haar te praten, weet Inge nauwelijks iets over haar moeder. Inge respecteert haar vaders gevoelens, maar eigenlijk zou ze best meer over haar verleden willen weten. Ze moet achter de waarheid over haar moeder komen.
Daarom doet Inge iets waarvan ze weet dat het verkeerd is. Ze gaat naar de enge zolder in het huis waar zij en Betty wonen, om naar informatie te zoeken.
En daar ontdekt Inge iets dat ze liever nooit had willen weten...

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

124 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1992

About the author

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reviews

[FIND ME ON STORYGRAPH · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is my first time reading this book!

in this Ellen Miles-ghostwritten mystery, mary anne tries to track down information about her mom and her childhood. she discovers that after her mother's death, her father sent her to live with her maternal grandparents while he coped with his wife's death. when he finally decided he wanted her back, mary anne's grandparents don't want to give her back and a small custody battle ensued. years later mary anne's grandfather dies and her grandmother tries to develop a relationship with mary anne. mary anne villainizes her, thinking that she is trying to get custody again. eventually that all works out and mary anne goes to visit her. kind of a non-mystery mystery. subplot is that there is a stoneybrook heritage day to benefit the historical society in which many of the bsc kids participate (their classes sing songs, perform skits, recite a poem, create family trees, and more) and in which the bsc participate by creating local historical figure cutouts for photo posing.

highlights:
-in searching for heritage day stuff charlotte johanssen finds a locket with a photo of her great-grandmother in it and it looks just like her. I am not very wistful about where I come from, family tree stuff, etc. but I really like this part and would be super into finding a similar locket.
-the pikes have apparently always had big families (which makes nicky's family tree project a little rough), like their great-grandfather who had ten brothers and sisters, all with p names like "peter pike and polly pike and prudence pike and paul pike." hahaha those names
-mary anne giggles at gravestones with silly names like looney and stumpf but then she feels guilty about it. don't feel guilty, mary anne. near my parents' house there's a huge gravestone that you see from the road that says "BUTT" on it really big, and I continue to bless that person for dying and being buried there and having their last name written improbably largely on their gravestone, since I always get a good chuckle out of that.
-the bsc make historical people cardboard cutouts for the heritage day so folks can pose for photos with them. the ones they make are george and martha washington (based on the logic that george and martha washington once came to a town that is half an hour away from stoneybrook), plus old hickory (from Mary Anne's Bad-Luck Mystery) and sophie (from Mallory and the Mystery Diary). dawn is inspired to find out more about jared mullray (from The Ghost at Dawn's House. all the bsc ghosts (most of whom were introduced by ellen miles) coming together!
-when they're decorating the cutouts they get paint everywhere and logan takes off his shirt since it's covered in paint. mary anne gets shy. I LOVE THIS. little snippets of awkward 13-year-old budding sexuality!
-a census taker comes to the door but mary anne thinks she's a social worker coming to check up on how the spiers are living (sent by her grandmother in a custody battle fight). this is so perfectly 13-year-old also: her assumption that everything that ever happens directly relates to her experiences and her feelings.
-alma's (mary anne's mom's) letter to mary anne (she wrote it right before she died): "I would give anything to be with you today -- to be with you through all your days of growing up. I love you so much, and it hurts so badly to know that I have to leave you." there's something in my eye, guys. I'm not crying.
-some resolutions at the end: mary anne goes to iowa to get to know her grandmother. mary anne and richard (her dad) go to the cemetery to see alma's grave. richard and mary anne invite verna (mary anne's grandmother) for christmas.

lowlights/nitpicks:
-there's a reference to mary anne's sassy magazine. mary anne reads sassy? no way. she's not alternative or indie in any way.
-vanessa pike's poem for heritage day rhymes strong with strong. vanessa is way too experienced a poet to rhyme a word with itself.

-"the reference room was pretty empty, since it was a nice day" -- spoken like someone who doesn't understand libraries. nobody cares if it's pleasant outside, they still come to the library!
-the last chapter is all letters back and forth between mary anne (visiting her grandma) and her friends and family back home. it's kind of annoying to have this super special-style ending to a non-super special.
-mary anne goes on a date with a boring iowa boy. WHY? why does she date someone who isn't logan when they're clearly exclusive at this point. this isn't early in their relationship like in Mary Anne and Too Many Boys. mary anne, you dog!

claudia outfit:
-"That day she was wearing a lacy white top over a solid white bodysuit, a black mini skirt with white polka dots on it, lacy white leggings, and red high-tops. Plus some really outrageous black-and-white jewelry (earrings and bracelets and necklaces) that she'd made herself out of papier-mâché."

mary anne outfit:
-"That day I was wearing a pink sweater and chinos, with these cute little boots I'd just bought."

jackie disasters:
-runs into somersaulting archie while holding a plate of crackers, and the crackers fly everywhere
-tears the sleeve off his jacket when trying to put it on backwards for fun
-pulls out a drawer in the town hall's records and the files spill everywhere
-slides down the banister and almost knocks into the mayor (also at the town hall)
-breaks a vase
-spills kool aid all over the rug
-falls down the stairs

no snacks in claudia's room.

[Ciara · Rating 2 out of 5]

mary anne is sitting for charlotte johanssen, who is immersed in her project for heritage day at school. she is supposed to write a report about why her ancestors came to stoneybrook or something. charlotte is very fortunate in that she has tons of family pictures, letters, scrapbooks, diaries, & such forth to peruse. mary anne thinks charlotte is well on her way to having the best project in the school. they find photographs of charlotte's great-grandmother, berit. she looks just like a blonde version of charlotte. as mary anne watches charlotte surrounded by her family history, she begins to feel sad. she realizes that she doesn't have blood-related family besides her father. she has no memories of her mother, who died mere months after mary anne was born, & she stopped asking her father about her years before because she could see how sad it made him. she doesn't even know how her mother died (which seems crazy to me--all indications are that alma died after being sick for a while, & you'd think mary anne would need access to that information in case it's a genetic issue).

when she goes home, she starts to wonder if maybe there is some kind of information on her mother somewhere in the house--maybe photos & letters like charlotte has. she decides that if there's anything like that, it's probably in the attic. she realizes she has never been in the attic before. she's home alone, so she seizes her opportunity to snoop privately & heads on up. sure enough, she finds a box full of photo albums. many of the photos are of mary anne as a baby--but the adults in the photo are elderly people that mary anne doesn't recognize. she's with them in all kinds of different settings, dressed for summer & winter, but she has no idea who they are.

then she finds a bundle of letters with her mother's maiden name, baker, on the return address. they are addressed to richard. mary anne starts reading them & discovers they are from her maternal grandmother, verna. the bakers live on a farm in maynard, iowa, & the letters indicate that richard sent mary anne away to live with them shortly after alma died. mary anne is horrified. she thinks her father didn't want her...but then she wonders why she lives with him now. she keeps reading & discovers that richard eventually asked to have mary anne returned to him. the bakers were reluctant to let mary anne go...but finally conceded, with the caveat that it would be too difficult for them to see her again. mary anne is confused though. she thinks maybe the bakers had some kind of custody arrangement, & maybe this is why richard has always been so strict with mary anne. maybe the bakers were checking up on him, & if they found him wanting as a parent, they would take mary anne away again. she starts to panic over the possibility that she could be sent to live with her grandparents in iowa at any moment.

this is basically the whole plot of the book: mary anne panicking over something that is incredibly far-fetched, about which she could easily get the facts just by asking richard about the whole thing. she spends the next eight or so chapters freaking the fuck out & it gets really tedious. she doesn't even tell the other members of the babysitters club at first. which seems really out of character, considering how she's only throwing fits to get attention, & then acting like she's just really sensitive. ugh. i hate mary anne.

at one point, she decides to tell logan, but the phone rings before she can call him. she picks up just as her dad picks up on another extension. it's verna on the phone, calling to tell richard that her husband died, & it made her realize that agreeing not to see mary anne again was a mistake. mary anne interprets this as, verna is coming to get her & take her away to iowa forever.

meanwhile, in our B-plot, the whole town has gone crazy for heritage day. all the little kids are doing school projects & heritage day itself is going to consist of a big town fair. of course the babysitters club can't let a fair happen without getting involved somehow. they decide to make life-size cut-outs of famous stoneybrook personalities, including old man hickory, sophie (the girl whose diary mallory found in book #29), & george & martha washington (who allegedly stayed the night once in a town thirty miles away--"close enough," says the babysitters club). they'll set the figures up & take people's photos & donate the proceeds to the historical society. what fun.

everyone is over at dawn & mary anne's house to paint the figures. & everyone is making a mess. logan spills a jar of paint, & then dawn spills a jar of paint, & then logan spills paint all over mary anne, & then mallory decides to make cookies (in someone else's house?) & drops the eggs on the floor. a paint fight breaks out & logan becomes so paint-covered that he strips off his shirt. in the midst of this, someone knocks on the door, wanting to "ask a few questions". mary anne immediately assumes it's a social worker, & that her family situation isn't looking so hot right now, seeing as it is paint/egg-covered & topless. she pretty much starts hyperventilating & spills the beans to the rest of the club. dawn sensibly encourages mary anne to ask richard about the whole thing, but mary anne is reluctant to do so...for some reason. no one else seems to have anything helpful to say.

at one point, mary anne goes to the cemetery to visit her mother's grave, & she realizes that she doesn't know where it is. seriously? seriously?! richard has never taken mary anne to her mother's grave? that dude kind of has issues, doesn't he? while mary anne is looking, she narrates that she "knows she was buried near her family," so she's looking for tombstones that say "baker". but then mary anne finds out that alma's family is in iowa. so who told her that alma was buried near family in stoneybrook? i am confused.

anyway, mary anne finally asks richard about everything. he explains that he was devastated after alma died & didn't know how to be the parent she needed. so he sent her to iowa to live with alma's parents while he pulled himself together. after about a year, he was ready to take her back, but the bakers were reluctant to give her up. they finally did, after suggesting that they not see mary anne again because it would be too hard for them. which makes NO sense whatsoever. you don't want to give the child up, so you only do on the pre-condition that you never see her again? seems like the bakers have some issues too. no wonder mary anne is such a dramatic mess. her whole family is crazy.

anyway, richard says verna called because she would like to see mary anne again after all--for a visit. mary anne decides she would like that.

the heritage fair happens & it goes well. the babysitters club booth of course makes the most money because everything these girls do is perfect (except for the baby parade). bor-ing.

mary anne flies to iowa to visit with verna. the whole last chapter is letters she writes home to dawn, kristy, logan, & richard, & then letters she writes to verna when she's back home in stoneybrook. mary anne & richard invite verna to come visit them for xmas. & richard gives mary anne a letter that alma wrote to her before she died. there's something in the letter about how alma knows mary anne will be in good hands with richard & how she knows that the bakers will also want to play a big role in mary anne's life. yeah, except for that part about having nothing to do with her until she was thirteen years old. i can't help but think that alma would be kind of pissed about that.

[Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I actually started reading around age 3 (thank you, my Granny's Dick and Jane books!), this series is what I remember most about loving to read during my childhood. My sister and I drank these books up like they were oxygen. I truly think we owned just about every single one from every one of the series. We even got the privilege of meeting Ann M. Martin at a book signing, but of course little starstruck me froze and could not speak a word to my biggest hero at that time. Once in awhile if I come across these at a yard sale, I will pick them up for a couple hour trip down memory lane, and I declare nearly nothing centers and relaxes me more!

[Liesl]

Mary Anne was always my favorite baby-sitter, the one that I felt most connected to growing up. I often felt shy and insecure when I was younger (though unlike Mary Anne, I overcompensated not with silence but with hyperactivity) but we had other commonalities too: a love of reading, a sense of organization, a deep love for our family. Ironically, there's now one more thing we have in common -- dead moms.

Who knows how I would have related to this book if I'd read it for the first time twenty years ago, before my own mother had passed? All I know is that reading it at age 32, ten years after my mom's death, I was able to relate to Mary Anne in a way I never have before. Obviously it's different to lose your mom when you're a baby than it is to lose her when you're in college, but it's not a hurt that goes away or lessens over time. It's just a weight that you get more used to carrying. And the sense of curiosity about my mother's life has only grown, even though I was able to learn a lot about her when she was alive. But it's not enough.

Sorry, this got weirdly introspective for a review of a BSC book. I liked this one. It kind of made me want a Richard spin-off, detailing the time between his wife dying and getting Mary Anne back from the grandparents.

[Addison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great bookcase purge of 2017: I haven't gotten rid of a single book since 3rd grade so I'm rereading everything and deciding if I want to keep it. So yeah, there's going to be some weird choices.

These books used to be my jam, as illustrated by the fact that I own like all of them. I even used to be in the club where they sent you the books as they were published. But now here I am, a grown ass woman reading juvenile fiction.

Some things:

1. I'd forgotten how all these books start with a massive info dump about every character that appears in this series, even the ones that don't appear in this book. Did "show, not tell" not exist during my childhood.

2. I used to consider Claudia my fashion inspiration and I now realize that she would look like an idiot in real life.

3. Dawn is written like what would happen if someone googled "what kind of things do hippies like?" and "stereotypical Californian".

4. Nobody would enjoy babysitting these kids. Especially not a teenager. These kids are obnoxious as shit. There's one who speaks in rhyme. Do you know what you'd do if you were around a child who spoke in rhyme? You'd drop kick them.

5. The entire plot of these book could be resolved in 8 minutes if anyone talked to anyone.

6. Logan takes his shirt off and his 12 year old boy nipples scandalize Mary Ann. Uncomfortable.

7. Mary Ann doesn't know where her mother's grave is. That's some fucked up parenting.

8. I've completely forgotten how to read cursive writing. It's 2017.


Decision: Do not keep pile.

[The Kawaii Slartibartfast · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably one of my favorite BSC books. It made sense to me that Mary Anne wouldn't want to talk to Richard about what she found and I adored the fact that none of the BSC really pushed her to talk about what was bugging her; they just let her tell when she was ready.

The census taker part was kind of funny, too.

[Maria Elmvang · Rating 3 out of 5]

- Mary Anne not talking to her Dad right away. Sheesh, when will these girls LEARN?!?!
+ learning more about Mary Anne's history.
- wondering if that history will ever be referred to again in later series.
+ the letter from Mary Anne's mother. Very, very sweet.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes Mary Anne is far too wishy washy for me, but this book is perfect Mary Anne. I love the family history aspect, and think this is a great book for young girls. One day I hope to have a daughter that I can share these with.

[lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mary Anne is curious about her early life, and goes looking for her baby pictures. What she finds confuses her: her baby pictures seem to have been taken with unfamiliar people, at an unknown location. She explores the attic of her home, hoping to get the story of why her father sent her away.

Things I remember from reading this as a kid:
I was completely fascinated by this book when I was a kid. I think I read this when I was nine or ten. At this point in the series, we didn't know much about the baby sitters lives before Kristy's Great Idea. Later in the series we get the Portrait Collections, and the Baby Sitters Remember Super Special, but at this point there was hardly any information about Mary Anne's very early childhood. We know her mother died when she was a baby, and that her father was strict with her, but even as a kid I could see that a man dealing with the grief of losing his wife, would feel that he couldn't care for a baby as well. I could understand Mary Anne's anger too, that he kept such a huge part of her life from her, and seemingly would never have told her, if she hadn't gone looking for answers on her own.

I remember the baby sitters throwing a party to paint something, and then a well dressed woman that Mary Anne assumes is a social worker shows up and sees Logan with his shirt off, and paint in his hair, and hears Mallory shouting about spilling things on the floor, and the loud music that's playing. This is how the BSC parties!


Things I've considered since reading this as an adult:
While I no longer consider many of the stories in the Mystery series to be true mysteries, and I think the baby sitters are not the great "sleuths" they think they are, I do think this is a good sort-of mystery, and a great addition to the story of Mary Anne. I don't think it makes perfect sense, especially the part about Mary Anne's grandparents not wanting to see her again after they let Richard take her back. But I like how Mary Anne sees the kids of Stoneybrook get caught up with Heritage Day where they research the history of Stoneybrook, and their families. She sees Charlotte Johanssen who has boxes and boxes of letters, photographs, and trinkets (clearly there's a hoarding gene in her family; also I don't buy that Charlotte's family completely forgot about a gold locket with diamond chips in it, which is buried at the bottom of a box) and she's jealous that Charlotte has so much of her family's information right at her fingertips. This prompts her to search the attic looking for her own history. I also liked that she's reluctant to ask her father to answer some basic family questions for her. She knows he's happy with his new wife, and the life he has now, and she doesn't want to turn him back into the sad, strict man she remembers from her childhood.

The Pike triplets refers to themselves as "ace reporters" and the names of some of their "hot stories" include "Moving Pictures to Debut." I get a BIG kick out of the kids of Stoneybrook sometimes when they talk like B-characters in an old movie.

I think one of my favorite things about this book is that once Mary Anne finds out that her father let her grandparents raise her, and then wanted her back, she assumes all kinds of crazy things. She's sure that her grandparents have custody rights, that they are coming to take her away, that she will have to live in Iowa, etc. This is exactly the kind of thing a teenager would assume, the most dramatic outcome. She really doesn't want to ask her father about the situation, even though Dawn presses her to do so. When she finally confronts her father about this he says that although there was a custody fight, her grandparents were reasonable enough to realize that Mary Anne should be raised by her father, and they don't have custody rights. Mary Anne's grandmother wants her to come visit, but she has no intention of making her live with her again. Which isn't an overly dramatic ending, just a normal one.

It drives me insane that grandparents who cared so much about baby Mary Anne that they were willing to go to court for her would then say that they didn't want to see her again. This just doesn't make any sense at all. Why wouldn't they come visit Mary Anne and watch her grow up? Why wouldn't she visit their farm in Iowa as a kid? In past books Mary Anne has mentioned that she and her father were all alone in the world because all her relatives were dead (although she mysteriously mentions her grandfather having shingles in one of the more recent books; weird). Part of the reason she so excited when her father marries Sharon is because she finally has a larger family, and more of a support system which gives her peace of mind. What kind of adult would take that away from a child? What kind of people would care for a baby, ask to keep her, and then when they can't, say "Well it's too painful to see her anymore. Let's just pretend this never happened." This makes even less sense because Verna and Bill Baker were Mary Anne's maternal grandparents. So they lost their only daughter, and then they refuse to have a relationship with their only granddaughter?

This book feels much more traumatic than I remember it being as a kid. Mary Anne is forced to confront a pretty big part of her life that she didn't know anything about. It also triggers her longing for a mother, and everything she missed out on by not growing up with one. Later in the series we get a more nuanced insight into Mary Anne's childhood. The series seems to veer away from portraying Mary Anne's father as strict and serious and dire. He has a sense of humor, and seems pretty sensitive to Mary Anne's needs as a child. If I imagine growing up with a father who seemed loving, but strict; who obviously cared for me, even if he did make stupid rules, then I can't begin to imagine what I would feel like knowing he didn't care for me for a year of my young life. I can't imagine how I would feel if I learned that my father wasn't at my first birthday because he had given me away to grandparents I didn't even know I had. This is a devastating event for Mary Anne, and she doesn't quite know what to do with herself. As a kid I was so desperate to get to the conclusion of this story that it didn't occur to me that Mary Anne clearly has a very hard time coping with learning these secrets of her early childhood. "I decided I felt so bad already that nothing I found out could make me feel much worse," she thinks right before she talks to her father, which is a pretty hard thing for anyone to acknowledge, much less a teenager. When her father reassures her we get a glimpse of the man who loved his daughter enough to insist that he raise her, even if he made some mistakes. Mary Anne seems to forgive everyone involved, but I wonder if she will look back on this as an adult, and realize what the adults in her life did to her by denying her an extended family.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I contributed this review to Really Into This

Check out all of our reviews at https://reallyintothis.com
Happy Reading, friends!

These are what I call bathtub reads. Honestly, I dropped so many of my BSC books in the tub back in the day. You can burn through this book at the same time it takes you to take a load off with a relaxing soak.

Let's dive in. Mary-Anne is the "good" member of the BSC. How did I forget that she goes on a date with someone in Kentucky when she has sweet Logan back in Stoneybrooke? And what's with Dawn's mom. Oops, actually I think I may have turned into Dawn's scatterbrained mom. Remember her? She was always putting crackers in the freezer or something like that. She was on the caboose of the first hot mess express train.

This is a pretty solid mystery. I'm proud of Mary-Anne for digging deeper to get to the truth about her mom. I can't wait to re-read more BSC books!

[Really Into This · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sarah contributed this review to Really Into This

Check out all of our reviews at https://reallyintothis.com
Happy Reading, friends!

These are what I call bathtub reads. Honestly, I dropped so many of my BSC books in the tub back in the day. You can burn through this book at the same time it takes you to take a load off with a relaxing soak.

Let's dive in. Mary-Anne is the "good" member of the BSC. How did I forget that she goes on a date with someone in Kentucky when she has sweet Logan back in Stoneybrooke? And what's with Dawn's mom. Oops, actually I think I may have turned into Dawn's scatterbrained mom. Remember her? She was always putting crackers in the freezer or something like that. She was on the caboose of the first hot mess express train.

This is a pretty solid mystery. I'm proud of Mary-Anne for digging deeper to get to the truth about her mom. I can't wait to re-read more BSC books!

[Solomonbb · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5, this book made me tear up! So crazy to reread a series that meant so much to me as a kid, I get why I loved these so much!

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Babysitters Club
Mary Ann and The Secret In The Attic
Author Ann M. Martin



I loved the book Mary Ann and the secret in the attic it was secretive and full of surprises.
The main characters in this book is Mary Anne Spier, Dawn Shafer, Richard Spier, Her grandparents Verna and Bill.
Mary Ann had a dream about her when she was a baby she was yelling for her mama she was also holding a kitten and she wants to know more so she goes up into the attic of hers and dawns house and looks in some boxes to see if she can find anything about her mom and she finds pictures of her with these old man and woman and she doesn't know who they are then she starts reading the letters she finds out that those people she was with in the pictures were her grandparents.
One day she heard a phone call and her father picks it up so she does to and listens on to the conversation and she’s wondering if her grandmother was sorry to give and want her back.
She wants to know more answers even when she’s babysitting.so she tells her father and her stepsister Dawn and friends. I think i liked this book because i like books with secrets and hiding family pasts. People should read this book because they might like to read secretive books with surprises inside.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the Mystery ones so much I continued to read them once I had moved on from Babysitters club to bigger (and some may say better) things.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually found this bit of backstory for Mary Anne to be quite interesting. And I was never that huge on Mary Anne.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mary Anne has uncovered a mystery from her past - did her father abandon her after her mother died? Who are these strange old people holding her as a baby?

[Amanda Kay]

I don't really remember much about this one... read it in 1997

[Donna]

Charlotte Johanssen? So that's why ScarJo's name always sounded so familiar to me...

[Sarah Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the series as a kid. I never read them in order because the library didn't have all of them. I think my favs were the Super Specials.

[Deborah Harris]

AR Quiz No. 19355 EN Fiction
Accelerated Reader Quiz Information IL: MG - BL: 4.4 - AR Pts: 4.0
Accelerated Reader Quiz Type Information AR Quiz Types: RP

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure this book should have been a mystery. I enjoyed it nevertheless.

[Helen Falcon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok

I think this was an OK book. When I bought it I thought it would be more exciting. I though the secret was going to be very shocking like something about her mother.

[probably not cam geary]

"Hi, Bart. Boy, you look nice!" I blurted it out before I had time to think about how it would sound.

Bart blushed, which actually made him look even nicer. (M4, Kristy and the Missing Child)

&

He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off.

"Woo!" said Kristy.

Logan blushed. (M5, Mary Anne and the Secret in the Attic)

This is very funny to me.

-

A mini-classic, outrageous coincidences and unconvincing secrets and all. Super adorable chapter 11 (Kristy's little "here for you" punch*, the latest ~Gary Rockman~ tape, paint fight, Mary Anne thinking she's talking to a social worker and freaking out, MA crying & everybody joining her on the porch & her crying about how she's going to be sent to Iowa & Stacey being like WHAT). And the historical society subplot warms this BSC nerd's heart, a funny kind of joy in seeing Stoneybrook ghosts meet as cardboard cutouts. Severe lack of Ben Brewer references, to be sure, but then he's more of a Karen thing than a town legend. Also, it might've been a little inappropriate to use Watson's grandfather like that...?

Important Stacey fact: can't tell a cactus from a palm tree.

*Since I just talked about how Kristy and Mary Anne's bff bond often feels more like a Thing That Supposedly Exists than anything else, I feel that I must say they're sweet in this book. K's letter: "Dear Mary Anne, as your president I hereby order that you COME HOME SOON."

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember vaguely reading this one as a kid, but I had forgotten the finer details of it. I remember that Mary Anne found out about her grandmother, Verna, in Maynard, Iowa but that was about it. I only honestly remembered that much because the grandmother turns up again in other books, or at least in BSC In The USA.

I can understand Mary Anne at the beginning of this book, and I even feel sort of bad for her. All the kids are working on projects for Heritage Day, and Charlotte Johannsen has loads of great stuff. Pictures, letters, even a diary from her great-grandmother. It makes Mary Anne long to know more about her mother, so she goes snooping. She finds a lot of photographs and some letters that leave her feeling pretty confused, and ultimately she does confront her father. He explains everything, and life goes on.

The Heritage day B-plot was actually pretty interesting! I would have loved that sort of project as a kid, made me a little jealous to be honest! The best part of the entire book though is when Logan takes shirt off and Kristy responds with "WOO!" Atta girl, Kristy!

[Alysia PARKER-FUSCO · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this a long time ago but it still stays in my memories. I remember how sad I felt for Mary Anne being confused about her life during her baby years and to learn that her grandparents had raised her for at least 2 years of her life unknowingly.

I mean it was like one whole part of her life was kept away from her which she happens to find out by accident, then she learns more and begins to freak out and assume that her life is going to change where she might be leaving her home and all those she loves.

Eventually Mary Anne finds out that she won't be leaving her home and those she loves yet she can now start a relationship with her grandparent she barely knew.

I love her autobiography more than this one though, this one is good but it feels a bit lacking, she really solves the secret early on but doesn't go to anyone for help in it.

Not a horrible book but it feels meh compared to the other books.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

As in Claudia and the Great Search , this book shows that the BSC writers love a secret personal history, though this one was a little jucier than just "yo, we were busy with a toddler so we didn't take pictures of you." But, in true BSC fashion, this could have been solved much earlier if Mary Anne just talked to her dad or any other adult. There are things that are a little unbelievable - Mary Anne's never been to her mom's grave? She had no relationship with her mother's parents? They didn't reach out to her in the past decade? - but any of that would have made this less of a mystery.

I really liked the part with Mimi's grave. I like that Mimi gets mentioned a lot, and not just in Claudia's books. She's the best BSC character, hands down.

[Jamie (TheRebelliousReader) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars. Mary Anne is not a favorite of mine. As I’ve gone through my re-read of all of the series she’s actually my least favorite character along with Kristy. Mary Anne is just too whiny and annoying for my tastes but I will say that I really enjoyed this book and found her to be likable and I completely understood her feelings in regards to everything that was going on. This book is about her learning about a time in her life that she way too young to remember and her dealing with it and it was very good. I loved it and thought that it was emotional, especially the letter that she reads from her mother. This was a really good read.

[Devon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one sucker punched me in the feels (until the last annoying chapter written all in letters--Mary Anne's is my least favorite handwriting to decipher). I may or may not have gotten a little choked up about Mary Anne being sad after the picnic, going to Mimi's grave, and about the letter her mother wrote her...and I may or may not be a little sad just thinking about it hours later.

Pretty sure we learned in a much earlier book Mary Anne was a little older than this when her mother died but I'm not TOO torn up by the fracture in the canon (or the fracture in my memory, possibly, but I thought she was 1 or 2? Not six months?)

[Kayla Wiklanski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taking a step or giant leap back to my childhood. I remember watching the Babysitters movie when it came out. I had many of these books. As I sat and began this memories came floating back reading these in my poster filled bedroom.
Mary Anne wants to learn about her mother. She's too afraid to speak with her father so she does her own investigation. In turn she discovers things that upset her, however with encouragement she speaks with her dad and ends up in a place she learns all about her mom.
Great books for any age.

[Sayo -bibliotequeish-]

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