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Girl Talk #42
Allison's Baby-Sitting Adventure
Paperback, 116 pages Published January 1st 1993 by Western Publishing Company Girl Talk #42
- GenresChildrens
116 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1993
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June 24, 2024
Allison’s Baby-Sitting Adventure
The story really starts when Mr. Handson makes an announcement about The Magic Star Foundation which grants the wishes of sick children. Their local chapter has sponsored a give-a-thon to see who at Bradley can raise the most money. They get to pick how to do this. You have to register your teams and turn in the forms. There will be prizes given by the community. Of course, Stacey volunteers herself and her friends. Allison sees that Randy and Katie are down/ The first prize will be a skating party, the second a certificate to DARE, and the third are tickets to the Nature lecture series. So, Allison volunteers the rest of her friends. Sam, Nick, Arizona, and Jason form a team. The teacher says the deadline is in three weeks. Allison hopes they’ll be able to think of something fun to do.
Sabrina suggests a garage sale but neither Katie nor Randy say they have a lot to sell. Then Katie suggests a bake sale. But they all agree they can’t cook. UH, WHAT/ Didn’t Allison win a baking contest with a killer chocolate cherry pie? Then they decide to babysit. UH BUT ISNT THAT RIPPING OFF THAT OTHER CLUB? So far, Sam and the guys haven’t thought of anything, but they say they’ll think of something. They discuss the prizes. They think the party is cool but the other two are lame. But they all agree that if each other win the party, they’ll invite theother.. Stacey of course does her bragging thing. As usual she and Randy argue. Stacey hasn’t thought of anything either yet. They will NOT be invited to the party if Stacey wins. You can only invite 50 people and she’s just planning on inviting eighth graders. But they call her on this because the teacher didn’t say anything about the fifty-person limit. Then on the fact that she must have heard this from her father and *that’s* why she volunteered. Allison has it all written down. Then she gets embarrassed and dips. Randy is so impressed she says she’s gonna start taking notes everywhere she goes.
Mary and Allison have a project going on that will teach Charlie to treat Ralph more like a dog than a human. It talks about Allison’s dad Nathan and how he’s been working a lot lately. He’s been working on a case with a man shooting another man. Allison keeps relating everything to the psychology exam she’s helping Mary study for. “Conditioning” reminds her of Charlie. “Territoral behavior” reminds her of her father’s client. Nooma gets a invitation to visit a friend at the reservation. Al’s mother says it’s fine for a week. Allison and Mary can help take care of the baby and Charlie. Mary says she has a study group on Friday but the Clouds say it’s fine. Allison tells her family about the contest and her mom suggests putting up advertisements at the store. Nooma says she should put some up at the Knitting Needle. Al thinks this is a great idea and thinks of all the stores they can advertise at and how excited she’ll be to be earning some money.
Saturday they do just that and go to both places suggested. They also decide to Sal’s Sound. They also hit up a toy store, (Fun time Toys), a bakery (Anderson’s). They also plan to put them up at the YMCA and the community center. They put some up also at Sports World. They run into Scottie who works there. (temporarily-just for the day-). He says he’ll give it to his team for the contest. Then rushes off. It bothers Katie because she could have done this (work in the skates department) and the manager is giving him thirty-five dollars. As they put up signs in the library window they see a sign for a Marathon Car Wash. They wonder whose team it is. Sabrina wonders if they should do that instead but Katie says it’s probably not a good idea. They’re only charging five dollars but it might add up if they do a lot of cars. They see Sam trimming a hedge and Sabrina is in disbelief because Sam never does anything around the house. But then they see Billy coming around the other side with dead branches. So, they go check it out. They think they’ll be first to earn the money but Katie burst their bubble and says Scottie’s working too. They just lucked up and a lady asked them did they want to help out when they passed the house. But they plan to finish up so they can play basketball. Now they’re ahead by 45.00. Allison says by the rate their going when they get to Fitzes Jason, Nick, and Arizona will be their waiters and the thought of this makes them all crack up.
Sabrina calls Katie but she isn’t there. She went to a babysitting job. Sabrina calls Al and tells her about Katie’s job. Al is releaved it’s been over a week and Katie’s the only call. Al says she thinks they should be doing more. Sam’s having all the luck. Sabs father even hired them. Next week, they’ll be having a “bake sale” but they’ll be selling stuff they bought at the store. Katie then calls Sabrina from her job (which shouldn’t she be watching the KID?). Katie says it’s a little baby and he’s been sleeping the whole time. Super easy! But she wasn’t given a lot of hours. Then they talk about Sam and Katie says if her parents are gonna help one of them they should help them both. Sabrina calls Al again and tells her she talked to Katie and tells her what Katie said. She says she talked to her mother and she says she’ll give them 10 dollars to clean their attic. Al calls Randy and tells her everything.
The next day, they all go over to the Wells. The attic is packed so it’s a big job. They finish half an hour later. Then they start going through the boxes and find prom stuff (her mom’s prom dress, and photos). Sabs says she’ll try the dress on later. Then they find the guys downstairs with store-bought junk food. They’ll be charging 25 cents. The girls buy eight of the cookies so now the boys have made two more dollars. It takes the girls 3 hours to clean the attic.
Not so surprisingly, the bake sale goes really well and they all wish they’d thought of the idea. Stacey overhears Sabs say it’s better than cleaning attics and she takes the opportunity to tease them. She says they’ll be hostesses at the garden club party. Katie shames Stacey because while she’s talking she’s eating one of Sam’s brownies and bits go flying out her mouth. Laurel’s mom Katie tells them is over the Ladie’s Garden Club. She knows this because they asked her mom to join but she turned them down.
Allison gets a job watching Charlie, her baby sister, and a friend of his a black girl named Alexa (who remarkably is the only black person mentioned in this whole series). Allison gets a call from Mrs. Ostroy who wants her to babysit. She has 4 kids. Two of them are twins (Emily and David), a seven-year-old (Peter), and a 10-year-old (whose name is also Allison). Peter is sick and she has to take him to the ER. She says her Al can help with the twins. Al accepts the job and thinks it won’t matter. What’s three more kids? They aren’t in the ho use five seconds before Barett starts crying and Al has to rush to get her. She calms Barett down and then finds Ralph, the twins, Charlie, and Alexa running around the hall in circles. The other Al tries to help but she can’t do anything with them. Al makes Charlie calm down and then the others stop. Barette is crying but then she sees her big brother and she stops. Al says she’ll need Charlie to help out. She tells him to take the twins in the other room to play and they follow him. Allison tells Allison the ten-year-old to call her Allie. While things are calm, Allison decides to make a snack. She decides on PBJ sandwiches. Barette is acting fussy and doesn’t want Allie to put her down. When she gets in the den, David and Emily are fighting over one of the dolls. There are toys all over the place. Charlie is nowhere to be found. Allie makes them clean up. Then she finds Charlie in his room. He comes down with one of his books. Allie reads them a story about a Chipawah fairy tale. This puts them all to sleep. Al thinks about the night and thinks it was fun but harder than she thought. It would have been easier if her friends were there. Then she gets an idea. (She earned 22.00. It probably should have been fifty).
The next day she tells her friends they can all have an activity day and the mothers can drop off their kids and have a day off. Al says they can use the whole upstairs at her house and the backyard. Charlie will be their first customer. Katie says she can play some active games with them (running and ball). Sabs says she can do drama with them (Drama??). They’ll give them juice and crackers and Al will have a story hour with them and have them make their own books. Randy says they should have music and she’ll have them form a band. Randy says leave the instruments up to her. Then they start planning a new flier. They’ll charge 10,00. They’ll call it Play Day. Al wonders if it’ll work.
On the day of a lady calls and asks if they can pick her daughter up. Al says she can have someone come over and walk her back. Randy comes by with a box full of “homemade” instruments (an empty oatmeal box as a drum, a show box as a guitar with rubber bands, tambourines made out of pie plates, and maraca’s made of bags full of beans). Mary’s room will be “The Music Room”. Barette’s will be “The Drama Room”. Randy goes to get the girl. Katie, Sabs, and Al play a game called “Steal the Bacon” There’s a girl Amanda who thinks it's babyish so she helps keep score. It actually goes into depth with this game. (Of course, it would). There’s a kid named Ben who's upset because his team didn’t win.
Next, they play in the Music Room. Ben and the twins want to play the drums so Randy comes up with the idea that when she switches the lights on and off they’ll switch instruments. Sab’s for her part plays “The Mirror Game”. Amanda doesn’t think much of this game either so Al takes her into her room and tells her she can look through her books and magazines and swing on her swing if she wants. This seems to be more acceptable to her. After the mirror game, Sabs makes them guess the actions she’s taking. Then the kids pretend to be different animals and objects like a leaf blowing in the wind. Ben does a piece of bacon frying in a pan. The last thing is Al’s activity and she has them make a book about their day. The ones who can’t write they say they’ll help out if they want words or they can just draw pictures. Then they pass out the snacks. There’s a little girl named Jennifer (the one who Randy picked up) that asks all through the day when her mother is coming. At the end of the day, she asks when her mother is coming to Al because she doesn’t want to go home, Randy and Al form a chain and pull Sabs along. Then Katie joins. Al thinks about how great they did and how great it is to have friends like hers.
They won second prize. This is what they get from DARE. Al (a cropped white stripped T-shirt, a gathered black mini-skirt, and black bicycle shorts), Sabrina (a ruffled purple top, a denim mini-skirt, and purple and pink stripped tights), Katie (pink, polka-dot T-shirt, gray knit leggings) Randy(daisy covered capri pants and a black boat neck Tshirt). It’s now Friday and six days after the Play Day. They all agree winning second prize worked out. Sam’s team won two hundred and seventy-nine dollars. They raised one hundred and ten dollars. Stacey’s team comes in third. The party looks amazing! I was wrong this is a roller-blading party. Apparently, there’s a difference between roller skating. For this you need elbow and knee pads. Sabs immediately falls. Katie of course is good at it. Al sees Billy and she tells him she’s getting the hang of it. Katie and Scottie are having a ball. She and he are the fastest and they’re skating backward.
My Thoughts
When I read this I had two main thoughts. The first was about the boys selling things they’d already bought. The girls act like they can’t believe they’d do this. Actually, it’s not a new concept. When I was in middle school, I remember being told the older guys would buy bags of candy (probably from K-mart or Walmart) and then sell it to the other kids sat the school. It was just candy but I’m sure if they’d have thought of cookies and brownies they would have sold those too. Candy tho was probably easier to keep in a hot locker during the day.
The other thought I had was ironically the Magic Star Foundation struck a chord with me because recently I’ve been thinking of how if the book series I’m working on ever gets published I’d like to do something like that. In my head I’d named it “Dream Makers” or “Sky High” Only it wouldn’t be for kids. Sooooo many people form organizations and charities and programs to help kids and I think it’s wonderful. BUT at the same time, I know that there probably are a lot of adults that are struggling and have talent but just don’t have the resources to make something big of their talents. There are probably people not just where I’m from but in other places that are older and just feel “stuck” and “trapped” in situations that just feel like there’s no way out. So, that’s what I want to do is provide the help they need for FREE (because the US is SO damn money hungry). I think that just helping people achieve their dreams would be payment enough. That’s why I really like what Magic Star is doing in this book.
I did however think the Play Day idea was ripped from the babysitters Claudia and Mean Janine. I think they could have come up with something more original.
Rating: 6
The story really starts when Mr. Handson makes an announcement about The Magic Star Foundation which grants the wishes of sick children. Their local chapter has sponsored a give-a-thon to see who at Bradley can raise the most money. They get to pick how to do this. You have to register your teams and turn in the forms. There will be prizes given by the community. Of course, Stacey volunteers herself and her friends. Allison sees that Randy and Katie are down/ The first prize will be a skating party, the second a certificate to DARE, and the third are tickets to the Nature lecture series. So, Allison volunteers the rest of her friends. Sam, Nick, Arizona, and Jason form a team. The teacher says the deadline is in three weeks. Allison hopes they’ll be able to think of something fun to do.
Sabrina suggests a garage sale but neither Katie nor Randy say they have a lot to sell. Then Katie suggests a bake sale. But they all agree they can’t cook. UH, WHAT/ Didn’t Allison win a baking contest with a killer chocolate cherry pie? Then they decide to babysit. UH BUT ISNT THAT RIPPING OFF THAT OTHER CLUB? So far, Sam and the guys haven’t thought of anything, but they say they’ll think of something. They discuss the prizes. They think the party is cool but the other two are lame. But they all agree that if each other win the party, they’ll invite theother.. Stacey of course does her bragging thing. As usual she and Randy argue. Stacey hasn’t thought of anything either yet. They will NOT be invited to the party if Stacey wins. You can only invite 50 people and she’s just planning on inviting eighth graders. But they call her on this because the teacher didn’t say anything about the fifty-person limit. Then on the fact that she must have heard this from her father and *that’s* why she volunteered. Allison has it all written down. Then she gets embarrassed and dips. Randy is so impressed she says she’s gonna start taking notes everywhere she goes.
Mary and Allison have a project going on that will teach Charlie to treat Ralph more like a dog than a human. It talks about Allison’s dad Nathan and how he’s been working a lot lately. He’s been working on a case with a man shooting another man. Allison keeps relating everything to the psychology exam she’s helping Mary study for. “Conditioning” reminds her of Charlie. “Territoral behavior” reminds her of her father’s client. Nooma gets a invitation to visit a friend at the reservation. Al’s mother says it’s fine for a week. Allison and Mary can help take care of the baby and Charlie. Mary says she has a study group on Friday but the Clouds say it’s fine. Allison tells her family about the contest and her mom suggests putting up advertisements at the store. Nooma says she should put some up at the Knitting Needle. Al thinks this is a great idea and thinks of all the stores they can advertise at and how excited she’ll be to be earning some money.
Saturday they do just that and go to both places suggested. They also decide to Sal’s Sound. They also hit up a toy store, (Fun time Toys), a bakery (Anderson’s). They also plan to put them up at the YMCA and the community center. They put some up also at Sports World. They run into Scottie who works there. (temporarily-just for the day-). He says he’ll give it to his team for the contest. Then rushes off. It bothers Katie because she could have done this (work in the skates department) and the manager is giving him thirty-five dollars. As they put up signs in the library window they see a sign for a Marathon Car Wash. They wonder whose team it is. Sabrina wonders if they should do that instead but Katie says it’s probably not a good idea. They’re only charging five dollars but it might add up if they do a lot of cars. They see Sam trimming a hedge and Sabrina is in disbelief because Sam never does anything around the house. But then they see Billy coming around the other side with dead branches. So, they go check it out. They think they’ll be first to earn the money but Katie burst their bubble and says Scottie’s working too. They just lucked up and a lady asked them did they want to help out when they passed the house. But they plan to finish up so they can play basketball. Now they’re ahead by 45.00. Allison says by the rate their going when they get to Fitzes Jason, Nick, and Arizona will be their waiters and the thought of this makes them all crack up.
Sabrina calls Katie but she isn’t there. She went to a babysitting job. Sabrina calls Al and tells her about Katie’s job. Al is releaved it’s been over a week and Katie’s the only call. Al says she thinks they should be doing more. Sam’s having all the luck. Sabs father even hired them. Next week, they’ll be having a “bake sale” but they’ll be selling stuff they bought at the store. Katie then calls Sabrina from her job (which shouldn’t she be watching the KID?). Katie says it’s a little baby and he’s been sleeping the whole time. Super easy! But she wasn’t given a lot of hours. Then they talk about Sam and Katie says if her parents are gonna help one of them they should help them both. Sabrina calls Al again and tells her she talked to Katie and tells her what Katie said. She says she talked to her mother and she says she’ll give them 10 dollars to clean their attic. Al calls Randy and tells her everything.
The next day, they all go over to the Wells. The attic is packed so it’s a big job. They finish half an hour later. Then they start going through the boxes and find prom stuff (her mom’s prom dress, and photos). Sabs says she’ll try the dress on later. Then they find the guys downstairs with store-bought junk food. They’ll be charging 25 cents. The girls buy eight of the cookies so now the boys have made two more dollars. It takes the girls 3 hours to clean the attic.
Not so surprisingly, the bake sale goes really well and they all wish they’d thought of the idea. Stacey overhears Sabs say it’s better than cleaning attics and she takes the opportunity to tease them. She says they’ll be hostesses at the garden club party. Katie shames Stacey because while she’s talking she’s eating one of Sam’s brownies and bits go flying out her mouth. Laurel’s mom Katie tells them is over the Ladie’s Garden Club. She knows this because they asked her mom to join but she turned them down.
Allison gets a job watching Charlie, her baby sister, and a friend of his a black girl named Alexa (who remarkably is the only black person mentioned in this whole series). Allison gets a call from Mrs. Ostroy who wants her to babysit. She has 4 kids. Two of them are twins (Emily and David), a seven-year-old (Peter), and a 10-year-old (whose name is also Allison). Peter is sick and she has to take him to the ER. She says her Al can help with the twins. Al accepts the job and thinks it won’t matter. What’s three more kids? They aren’t in the ho use five seconds before Barett starts crying and Al has to rush to get her. She calms Barett down and then finds Ralph, the twins, Charlie, and Alexa running around the hall in circles. The other Al tries to help but she can’t do anything with them. Al makes Charlie calm down and then the others stop. Barette is crying but then she sees her big brother and she stops. Al says she’ll need Charlie to help out. She tells him to take the twins in the other room to play and they follow him. Allison tells Allison the ten-year-old to call her Allie. While things are calm, Allison decides to make a snack. She decides on PBJ sandwiches. Barette is acting fussy and doesn’t want Allie to put her down. When she gets in the den, David and Emily are fighting over one of the dolls. There are toys all over the place. Charlie is nowhere to be found. Allie makes them clean up. Then she finds Charlie in his room. He comes down with one of his books. Allie reads them a story about a Chipawah fairy tale. This puts them all to sleep. Al thinks about the night and thinks it was fun but harder than she thought. It would have been easier if her friends were there. Then she gets an idea. (She earned 22.00. It probably should have been fifty).
The next day she tells her friends they can all have an activity day and the mothers can drop off their kids and have a day off. Al says they can use the whole upstairs at her house and the backyard. Charlie will be their first customer. Katie says she can play some active games with them (running and ball). Sabs says she can do drama with them (Drama??). They’ll give them juice and crackers and Al will have a story hour with them and have them make their own books. Randy says they should have music and she’ll have them form a band. Randy says leave the instruments up to her. Then they start planning a new flier. They’ll charge 10,00. They’ll call it Play Day. Al wonders if it’ll work.
On the day of a lady calls and asks if they can pick her daughter up. Al says she can have someone come over and walk her back. Randy comes by with a box full of “homemade” instruments (an empty oatmeal box as a drum, a show box as a guitar with rubber bands, tambourines made out of pie plates, and maraca’s made of bags full of beans). Mary’s room will be “The Music Room”. Barette’s will be “The Drama Room”. Randy goes to get the girl. Katie, Sabs, and Al play a game called “Steal the Bacon” There’s a girl Amanda who thinks it's babyish so she helps keep score. It actually goes into depth with this game. (Of course, it would). There’s a kid named Ben who's upset because his team didn’t win.
Next, they play in the Music Room. Ben and the twins want to play the drums so Randy comes up with the idea that when she switches the lights on and off they’ll switch instruments. Sab’s for her part plays “The Mirror Game”. Amanda doesn’t think much of this game either so Al takes her into her room and tells her she can look through her books and magazines and swing on her swing if she wants. This seems to be more acceptable to her. After the mirror game, Sabs makes them guess the actions she’s taking. Then the kids pretend to be different animals and objects like a leaf blowing in the wind. Ben does a piece of bacon frying in a pan. The last thing is Al’s activity and she has them make a book about their day. The ones who can’t write they say they’ll help out if they want words or they can just draw pictures. Then they pass out the snacks. There’s a little girl named Jennifer (the one who Randy picked up) that asks all through the day when her mother is coming. At the end of the day, she asks when her mother is coming to Al because she doesn’t want to go home, Randy and Al form a chain and pull Sabs along. Then Katie joins. Al thinks about how great they did and how great it is to have friends like hers.
They won second prize. This is what they get from DARE. Al (a cropped white stripped T-shirt, a gathered black mini-skirt, and black bicycle shorts), Sabrina (a ruffled purple top, a denim mini-skirt, and purple and pink stripped tights), Katie (pink, polka-dot T-shirt, gray knit leggings) Randy(daisy covered capri pants and a black boat neck Tshirt). It’s now Friday and six days after the Play Day. They all agree winning second prize worked out. Sam’s team won two hundred and seventy-nine dollars. They raised one hundred and ten dollars. Stacey’s team comes in third. The party looks amazing! I was wrong this is a roller-blading party. Apparently, there’s a difference between roller skating. For this you need elbow and knee pads. Sabs immediately falls. Katie of course is good at it. Al sees Billy and she tells him she’s getting the hang of it. Katie and Scottie are having a ball. She and he are the fastest and they’re skating backward.
My Thoughts
When I read this I had two main thoughts. The first was about the boys selling things they’d already bought. The girls act like they can’t believe they’d do this. Actually, it’s not a new concept. When I was in middle school, I remember being told the older guys would buy bags of candy (probably from K-mart or Walmart) and then sell it to the other kids sat the school. It was just candy but I’m sure if they’d have thought of cookies and brownies they would have sold those too. Candy tho was probably easier to keep in a hot locker during the day.
The other thought I had was ironically the Magic Star Foundation struck a chord with me because recently I’ve been thinking of how if the book series I’m working on ever gets published I’d like to do something like that. In my head I’d named it “Dream Makers” or “Sky High” Only it wouldn’t be for kids. Sooooo many people form organizations and charities and programs to help kids and I think it’s wonderful. BUT at the same time, I know that there probably are a lot of adults that are struggling and have talent but just don’t have the resources to make something big of their talents. There are probably people not just where I’m from but in other places that are older and just feel “stuck” and “trapped” in situations that just feel like there’s no way out. So, that’s what I want to do is provide the help they need for FREE (because the US is SO damn money hungry). I think that just helping people achieve their dreams would be payment enough. That’s why I really like what Magic Star is doing in this book.
I did however think the Play Day idea was ripped from the babysitters Claudia and Mean Janine. I think they could have come up with something more original.
Rating: 6
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 9, 2013
these books were like reading a diary each book was different though it was like you were in school again.
June 24, 2016
all books from this serial were with me in my childhood and puberty-time ;) and in that time it was great. One time...I will read it with my daughters
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews