Karen's Tea Party

Baby-Sitters Little Sister #28

by Ann M. Martin

Sent to charm school to learn how to improve her table manners, Karen returns with new skills and decides to throw a party, excluding the boys and teaching them a lesson about good breeding

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

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 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

[koza]

Who eats rice with pot roast? Is it somehow because Watson's a millionaire?

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karen and her siblings have bad table manners, so her dad enrolls Karen and David Michael in charm school. The girls love it and the guys can't stand the class. The girls are tired of the boys behaviour, so Karen decides to throw a fancy tea party for all the girls in her class, but the boys show up to crash the party, though they ended up being well mannered and enjoyed themselves too. On a side note, Karen tried to cook rice, cookies and pudding and kept messing it up, until she and Nannie made brownies together for the tea party. I also liked the part where Karen got a pretty new dress and gloves for the class

[Alex Grant]

This was nice. In this story some girls and boys go to a class. (I'm forgot which one.) Anyway the boys think the class is dumb. But the girls love the class. When the girls have a tea party will the boys crash it or join in?
(I'm not sure when I finished this book.)

[25cldutraweymouthps.Org · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought the tea party idea was good on the cover and it souned cute. But the charm school idea was a bit werid. I mean the the whole stroy could have been avidoed if Waston and Elzatbeth just taught the kids table manners intstead of sending them to some school.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lol at the boys hating charm school and the girls totally eating it up. Boo on the boys for crashing Karen's girls-only tea party (seriously, Kristy? You totally could've stopped them.) But I'm glad they behaved and didn't actually ruin things.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not like how Karen and her friends stereotyped boys, particularly those attending Mr. Peabody’s School of Dance and Charm, as uncooperative and ill-mannered. They said some terrible things about the boys. I was glad Nannie gave Karen some perspective into the boys' behavior. "'Maybe the boys [at Mr. Peabody's school] do not like getting dressed up and having to act a certain way,' said Nannie. 'But they have good manners most of the time, don’t they? After all, manners are really ways to be considerate of other people’s feelings.'"

I also did not like that Kristy let the uninvited guests crash Karen's tea party. She could have done more to redirect David Michael and company. It honestly didn't matter that Karen enjoyed their company once they were there. She should not have been put in that position. Also, this is not the first time Karen's male classmates have made plans to crash her party (see also: Karen's Sleepover), which is weird to me.

[Em's Adventures · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't love the way she talks about Natalie in these books. I was a bit like Natalie when I was at school, slow to catch on, mixing things up easily and being a bit uncoordinated. I guess this is realistic to how a seven year old would see other people but it still feels a bit judgemental for a children's book. It would be nice to see some more positive attitudes come through, it also comes through in the way that Karen judges the next door neighbor and calls her a witch.
Okay that's my piece said. :)

[Annora · Rating 1 out of 5]

Karen was just AWFUL in this one and no one cared!!

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charmed, I'm sure.

[V. Arrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most memorable of the series. I love the side plot about Karen's cooking failures.

[Luna · Rating 2 out of 5]

In today's issue of Baby-Sitters Little Sister, Karen learns a very important lesson: if something is too hard to teach, fob it off to somebody else. In this case, Karen and her step-brother David Michael have poor manners. Instead of taking the time to parent their children, Daddy and Elizabeth shove them to Mr Peabody's School of Charm. However, I'm not sure what kind of manners Karen and David Michael learnt, as we only ever see them learning how to dance, accept dances, accept compliments and talk. Poor choice there, Daddy B.

[Sayo -bibliotequeish- · Rating 3 out of 5]

When you were too old for childrens books, but too young for The Baby Sitters Club.
Ann M. Martin really is a genius to piggy back on the success of The Baby Sitters Club.

After reading the little sisters series I remember feeling like a real adult opening up that first BSC book.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved how the interactions between the children played out gracefully and realistically. Ann Martin has a way of letting kids be kids and finding their own solutions to problems.

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

The idea of attending that charm school makes me nearly break out in hives.

[Hannah S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like the idea of it;very fancy.

[Moria Loyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't my favorite. It was OK.

[Mellanie C]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14565561