Abby and the Mystery Baby

The Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries #28

by Ann M. Martin

Discovering a baby boy on her porch when she returns from school one day, Abby and the other members of the Baby-sitters Club must find out where the baby came from and to whom he belongs. Original.

Genres: Middle Grade, Mystery, Fiction, Childrens, Young Adult, Collections, Friendship

137 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

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]

in this mystery by ghostwriter Ellen Miles, abby comes home to discover a baby has been left on her doorstep. the baby seems to have been taken care of (he has clean clothes and blankets and ample supplies). abby and her mom and sister tell the cops, and the cops + cps agree the baby should stay with the stevensons until they track down his parents (which is clue #1 -- why would they let the baby stay with strangers?). they get a nanny who seems really shifty. the agency said no one could come yet, but then the nanny just shows up out of nowhere unannounced. and she seems nervous and keeps calling the baby (who the stevensons have been calling eli temporarily) “e.j.” -- she’s suspect #1. suspect #2 is a woman from mal and jessi’s writing class who wrote a story about abandoning a baby. abby finds clue #2, a receipt from a drugstore in nyc on the doorstep near where the baby was left. abby’s mom keeps seeming to know more than she’s letting on (clue #3), and finally when she leaves the house in a rush, abby goes into her office to investigate. she finds a post-it with the name miriam written on it (clue #4) and remembers that miriam is her mom’s sister that she had a falling-out with years ago. abby finds a photo of miriam from when she was a baby and she has the same blanket eli showed up with (clue #5). it really takes abby getting hit over the head with clues to figure out that this baby is her cousin, but then she goes to nyc to try to find her mom (by hitting redial on the phone and discovering she had recently called a hospital). turns out miriam has out-of-control diabetes and doesn’t talk to eli’s (/daniel is the baby’s real name) father anymore. she planned to drop daniel with her sister when she was feeling particularly sick, but then she was too sick to stick around and had to be hospitalized. at the end, they reconcile and miriam and daniel plan to move to florida to be closer to miriam’s parents. the subplot is that there’s a bsc writing month ending in a poetry slam, and all the kids get interested in poetry/write lots of stories about a magical baby who shows up on someone’s porch because everyone thinks eli/daniel is cute.

highlights:
-abby says "you are the bestest, sweetest, oogiest little booger I ever saw." I’m definitely gonna call my cats boogers from now on.
-I love the description of the weird nanny: "a slightly built, mousy-looking woman with limp dark blonde hair and tiny hands, which she wrung nervously. she wore a tweed overcoat that looked about three sizes too big and carried a large brown leather bag, too big to be a pocketbook but too small to be a suitcase." she sounds exactly like roxanne in the john landis movie oscar.
-vanessa is bummed out that the other pikes are now poets because she’s the poet, so she feels like she’s losing her identity. to quote lisa simpson, "ever since that self-help guy came to town, you’ve lost your identity. you’ve fallen through the cracks of our quick-fix, one-hour photo, instant-oatmeal society."
-vanessa is also bummed that her siblings have near-rhymes in their poems because she thinks all poems have to rhyme. mal and jessi teach her about different types of poems. maybe she’ll be able to speak without the cadence of a roses are red, violets are blue poem from here on out!
-mal and jessi follow the lady from their class around and find that she has no baby and assume that means she gave up her baby, but actually it means she just doesn't have a baby. occam's razor, kids.
-abby can't figure out how to hail a cab in nyc and a little old impeccably dressed rich lady whistles really loudly to get her one
-some of the kids can’t think of anything to write for the poetry slam so they collaborate on writing and acting in a play and becca sings a song about chlorophyll.


lowlights/nitpicks:
-it’s really annoying how abby doesn’t figure out what’s going on almost immediately. I spent almost the whole book yelling at her in my mind.
-at one point abby's grandparents seem evasive when abby tries to talk about eli, but it turns out that it's just because abby's mom had made them think the baby showing up at their house is no big deal. but why would they keep being evasive and changing the subject? loose end alert!
-abby realizes the receipt is for a prescription so to see if it belongs to her mom she calls the pharmacy asking to refill a prescription for her mom's name (including trying her maiden name, rachel goldberg) and they say they have an m. goldberg but no rachel. first off, why would they tell someone else the first initial of a prescription they have that doesn’t belong to the person asking? isn't that privacy invasion? second, it's a pharmacy in nyc and they only have ONE goldberg? nyc is the land of many goldbergs. goldberg is one of the most common jewish last names and nyc is the city with the biggest jewish population in the entire world (and second biggest jewish population by metropolitan area, after tel aviv).
-chapter 11 has mallory's handwriting for stacey's notebook entry. using the wrong handwriting is always one of my biggest pet peeves in these books, because it’s just so damned careless.
-so I love the chlorophyll song and all, but becca wouldn’t be in the play because of her stage fright.

claudia outfit:
-"She was wearing a typical Claudia outfit: a funky red-flannel minidress layered with a black-and-white-checked thrift-shop man's vest, black tights, and red high-tops. Her hair was in this sort of sideways ponytail...held by a red scrunchie."

stacey outfit:
-"Next to her on the bed was Stacey, who was polishing a green Granny Smith apple on her jeans...They were stonewashed to a perfect degree of faded blue, and torn at the knee in this casual-yet-not-sloppy way. She wore them with a crisp white shirt, a green V-neck sweater, and brown Hush Puppies."

snacks in claudia’s room:
-hershey's miniatures (n.s.)

[Jaclyn]

A bit far-fetched, coz like:
- there was a note from Abby's aunt and no one but her mom (who arrives late to the scene) notices it???
- Abby's mom guesses all along the baby belonged to her estranged sister, but then keeps it (HUGE news!) from Abby and Anna...for reasons?
- the nanny applicant acts legit creepy and weird, and Abby's mom is just like, cool, I trust you in my house??? She didn't even bother interviewing other candidates, and her 'reference check' was hilarious. (She literally just looked at the nanny's listed references and is like "Ok, your references look good, thanks.") This woman is going to be in your house with your twin daughters and a baby???? And it turns out okay in the end, coz it turns out the nanny was just nervous as she was experienced in child-care but it's her first formal nanny job, but like legit she was giving off creepy red flags vibes at the interview!!!
- long estranged aunt whom Abby doesn't remember at all till it's almost time for the big reveal. LOL. Agatha Christie would never.

Still, kudos to ghostwriter Ellen Miles for coming up with an explanation that actually made sense. The aunt had a diabetic episode and was too lightheaded to wait around for Abby's mom to get home, so she could explain about the baby. But also, not really? How'd she manage to drive all the way to the hospital then?

B-plot was about the Stoneybrook kids doing a poetry slam. It was okay.

[Alex]

I think I've only read this book once before, but even so I feel like I should have remembered how utterly ridiculous it is. Abby's mom in particular handles things terribly, and it makes the entire book just laughable. Of course, that is part of the fun for me, and so I actually enjoyed reading this BECAUSE it was so ridiculous.

But seriously, how did Abby, Kristy, AND Nannie all miss seeing the note?

[Rachel]

This was my first BSC mystery and my first Abby book. When I was a kid, I avoided her books because I thought she was a curly headed demon sent in to dismantle and ruin the integrity of the club. Now, I know that I was wrong. Sorry, Abby. You’re all right, in my book.

[Stephanie]

It's pretty obvious almost from the start that the baby is not nearly so "mysterious" to the adults--they just don't bother to tell kids anything.

But come on, Eli/Daniel's mom abandoned her baby because she was too sick to think straight and ends up in the hospital with DIABETES? That thing we know all about from Stacey? That's the worst coded "this book is for kids, so we can't talk about drugs" I've ever seen.

[Leigh]

This was ridiculous. Abby finds a baby on her front doorstep her mom seems to know something about it but won't talk. Come on Abby you're smarter than this. The b plot is semi interesting the charges hold a writing contest and poetry slam and Vanessa Pike gets upset that everyone else is writing poems and even worse they don't even rhyme! It's a convoluted mess really and not that engaging.

[Ciara]

i don't know exactly when the babysitters club mystery series jumped the shark. maybe the mere existence of a babysitters club mystery series is in fact a bridge too far. but the premise of this book is beyond ridiculous.

abby comes home from school one day & finds a baby on her doorstep. he's all buckled into a carseat & has come with a fully-equipped diaper bag packed with bottles, formula, extra clothing, diapers, & more. parents everywhere laugh at the fiction that a stocked diaper bag could fit into a carseat with a baby. abby estimates the baby to be around four months old, & she doesn't see any note or anyone lurking in the bushes, making sure the baby gets found. she takes him inside & goes into babysitter mode, but after like half an hour, she's like, "holy shit! i found a baby on my doorstep! what the fuck do i do now?!" her mom isn't working that day, but she is out running errands, so abby phones kristy, who rushes over with nannie. while nannie frets over the baby, kristy takes charge & calls sergeant johnson, who shows up with a social worker from children's protective services right around the same time as mrs. stevenson. sergeant johnson & the social worker interview everyone who has been with the baby so far privately & one-on-one to try to cobble together some information that might lead to identifying the baby & possibly tracking down his parents.

can i just mention that it was a pretty bad idea for the currently-mysterious parent(s) to leave the baby on the stevensons' doorstep? only three people live there. mrs. stevenson works in manhattan & has a lengthy commute home from work every evening. anna often stays at school after-hours for orchestra practice, & abby often stays late after-school for sports practices. abby found the baby on her doorstep in the early afternoon--around 3pm-ish. but there was an equally good chance that no one would have found him until hours later, & it's worth noting that abby describes this as a chilly late winter/early spring day. she says that even in her jacket, having jogged home from school, she was feeling the cold. so how cold must a little baby strapped into a carseat be, just sitting on a porch for god knows how long? this is a babysitters club book, so we know pretty much from the word go that the baby-dumping mom will be found, & she'll have an excellent reason for having abandoned her baby, & he will be returned to her with no intervention from child welfare authorities, which is pretty goddamn fucked up considering that she dumped him on a doorstep where he easily could have frozen to death.

anyway, everyone pretty much falls in love with this baby. they decide to call him eli, since they don't know his real name, & sergeant johnson & the social worker are cool with letting the stevensons hang on to him for the time being. this makes sense once we find out the circumstances of why he was left on their doorstep (i mean, as much sense as an abandoned baby story can really make), but it should have been a clue to both abby & the reader that this isn't just some strange baby with no connection to the stevenson family. they don't usually just let whoever finds an abandoned baby keep it. he's not a puppy. anyway, all the neighborhood kids want to come over & coo over eli, even though plenty of them have their own baby siblings & no one seems to care. he is like a magical baby.

the babysitters club subplot is an idea spawned by mallory & jessi. they are taking a six-week writing class at the local library & they think it would be fun for the charges to write as well, & perhaps share their writing at some kind of "poetry slam" event. they describe poetry slams as the hip new thing the kids are doing, which i guess was kind of true in the mid-90s. how were they to know that it would not hold up to the test of time? here's another idea: have the kids put on khakis & then go swing dancing. i hear that's really current! oh wait.

so a bunch of the kids end up writing about baby eli. one of shannon kilbourne's sisters writes something about how he arrived in a green car. abby calls her to get more info on this green car, & maria (i think it was maria) explains that she was home sick from school & saw a green car pull up to the stevenons' house the same day that eli was discovered. abby goes out into the yard to look for clues & finds a recepit to a drugstore in manhattan. but she's not sure it's a clue. it could be her mom's, since her mom works in manhattan. she also totally fails to share this "green car" clue with sergeant johnson or any other halfways responsible adult.

abby also notices that her mom is acting kind of weird & secretive. she wonders if her mom knows something more about baby eli's origins than she is letting on, but she doesn't know how to ask or find out. she finally asks outright if mrs. stevenson is hiding something, & mrs. stevenson is all, "i guess it's time i shared the truth with you..." but then the doorbell rings & mrs. stevenson is all, "you better answer that. okay, see ya!"

oh, also, the stevensons hire a nanny to look after eli while the girls are at school & mrs. stevenson is at work. abby doesn't like the nanny. she repeatedly describes the nanny as "strange". she seems nervous & perhaps too emotionally attached to eli. abby seriously thinks that maybe she is eli's mother & she's the one that dumped him on the doorstep...knowing, i guess, that the stevensons would get to keep him, but they would require a nanny, & that she would be hired for the job? really, abby? that's a bit convoluted. jessi & mallory also suspect a woman in their writing class, who wrote a "fiction" story about abandoning a baby on a doorstep. they wonder if it was perhaps an early example of the memoir boom that would sweep the literary world in the early 2000s. once again, mallory, the aspiring writer, displays a shocking lack of comprehension that not all fiction-writing is true. they decide to tail the woman all over town & their suspicions only deepen when they never see her with a baby. she is never in possession of baby-related goods & she never goes on baby-related merchandise. seriously? that's their proof that she dumped her baby? clap me in irons then, because you will almost never see me with a baby or running up to the store for a package of diapers either. surely that means that i DID have a baby but then dumped it on someone's front porch. or it could mean that i just don't have a baby & never did. the world may never know.

one day, mrs. stevenson bustles out of her office & tells abby & anna that they have to look after eli while she takes care of some business. she does not tell the girls what she's doing, but abby thinks she must have found eli's mother. she sneaks into the office & snoops for clues. she gets a break in the case when she finds a post-it note that just says the name "miriam" on it. abby suddenly remembers that she has an aunt miriam--her mother's younger sister. she's kind of the black sheep of the family & no one talks to or about her. abby had kind of forgotten that miriam existed. but what if miriam is eli's mom? abby looks in a photo album for pictures of miriam & finds a photo of her mother & miriam as children, sitting on a porch. miriam is clinging to a blanket that looks a lot like the blanket that was wrapped around eli when he was left on the porch. abby then hits redial on her mom's phone, & it dials a hospital in manhattan. abby makes a wild guess & asks to be connected to miriam goldberg's room. she is informed that miriam goldberg is sleeping.

so abby puts on HER coat & takes a cab to the stoneybrook train station, where she catches a train to manhattan & acts helpless until an old woman hails her a cab. she takes the cab to the hospital in question & gets directions to miriam goldberg's room. as awesome as it would be if miriam goldberg turned out to be, like, some old woman with no connection to abby's family or baby eli, & then somehow abby had to get herself home again, abby sees her mom sitting in the room & knows that this miriam goldberg is in fact her aunt. miriam & mrs. stevenson confirm this, as well as the fact that miriam is eli's mom. eli's name is actually david or something. mrs. stevenson had suspected all along, both because of the blanket & (get this) THE MOTHERFUCKING NOTE THAT MIRIAM LEFT IN ELI'S CARSEAT. which i guess abby, nannine, & kristy all overlooked. NICE JOB, GUYS! it said something like, "dear older sister, please look after my baby for a while as i get some much-needed emergency medical care. signed, your little sister miriam." yeah, that's a pretty good clue. mrs. stevenson shared her "suspicions" with sergeant johnson & the social worker, which is why the stevensons were allowed to keep the baby. mrs. stevenson then dedicated herself to finding miriam, but they hadn't spoken in years & she didn't know where to begin. she finally got the bright idea to call hospitals (swift thinking) & tracked her down.

turns out miriam is diabetic & has been having trouble controlling her blood sugar. baby david/eli's dad is no longer in the picture & miriam knew she needed some help with him, & that she needed to check herself into a hospital. she figured out where mrs. stevenson lived & decided to leave the baby with her. she was intending to ask in person, but she felt really sick & it seemed like a nice neighborhood, plus she wasn't thinking clearly, so she just left him, along with the note. now she is feeling better & will be ready to take the baby back soon. mrs. stevenson helps miriam reconnect with their parents, who live in florida (i thought both sets of abby's grandparents lived in long island?). they are delighted to have a new grandbaby & offer to let miriam & david move in with them until miriam can get back on her own two feet.

what the fuck. the book with the kids living in the mall is still more ludicrous when it comes to plots that should more heavily feature child protective services, but this is up there for sure.

[A]

I used to love this series as a kid. Rereading it as an adult 20+ years later, I'm surprised at how careless Abby's mom was in this book. Rachel kept the truth of the "mystery" from her 13 year old daughters, yet expected them to be responsible for a baby while she herself was acting shady (which the girls quickly picked up on). I understand Rachel wanting to make sure she had all the facts first, but Abby & Anna were old enough for her to confide in, and she could've definitely handled the situation better. I personally wouldn't trust my 13 year old to take care of a 6 month old baby by herself, though.

[Devon]

I don't like the mysteries that can't be solved without information the book withholds from you completely--I feel like this could have actually been more fun if we explored some of the other possibilities a bit (even when they were a little silly). But Abby is so much fun, I almost don't mind. What I do mind is that the other babysitters don't get much storytime outside of ooh-ing and aah-ing over the baby.

[Ashley]

This is very much a non-mystery, since Abby's mom knew who the baby belonged to. I'm happy it wasn't a "the Baby-sitters are smarter than the adults!" situation again, but we miss out on BSC sleuthing shenanigans. We also get a LOT of B-plot about the BSC holding a writing festival, so all the Stoneybrook kids are aspiring poets. (Which it's hilarious seeing Vanessa's feathers get ruffled.)

[Cloud]

I always enjoy the books that tell us more about Abby. While the mystery was incredibly far-fetched, it was very interesting to learn more about her family. I think an interesting way this story could've ended would've been Miriam staying with the Stevensons instead because I feel like Abby's character and family life needs something more to it.

[Samantha]

Uhhhh. What?

There are so many problems with this book I don't even know where to start. Whoever gave the green light for an entire BSC mystery series probably spent a lot of time rethinking their life choices.

[Tonia Christle]

While Abby is not my favorite character, this one was an interesting read and I enjoyed that it wasn't necessarily a traditional BSC mystery. I also (as a writer) really liked the inclusion of BSC Writing Month - so much fun.

[Christy]

This one was super roughly a "mystery". I think a lot of these kids have family issues that need to be worked out. The side plot was forgettable. To the point that I actually forgot about it until it came up again at the end! Oops. Eh. Not my fave.

[Amanda]

mystery was somewhat predictable but good...and true to how life can be sometimes.

[aem]

Cute

[Christina]

Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blog/abby-a...

[Brenda]

Still working my way through the entire series!

[Kara]

A-ha. Another somewhat realistic BSC mystery. Well done random ghost writer.

[Melenia]

Decent read

[Kayla]

Ugh, babies. This is possibly the most convoluted plot of all the mysteries.