What's going on with the BSC? Meetings have never been like this before. Members are showing up late, arguing about jobs, even pushing to get rid of Friday meetings. Extra schoolwork is making everybody tense, too. Then a favorite sitting charge gets hurt, right under Kristy's nose.
It feels like the last straw to Kristy. Maybe she's not such a good sitter--and maybe the Baby-sitters Club isn't such a great idea. But Kristy wouldn't disband the club. . .would she?
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.
kristy is back home from her hawaiian vacation & staring down the barrel of another year attending the eighth grade at stoneybrook middle school. she is also anxious because abby was president of the babysitters club while kristy was away & kristy is very concerned that abby was a superior president somehow. (abby as president was the subplot of stacey's broken heart. i forgot to mention it in my review. basically, abby thinks kristy is too bossy & controlling, so she only charges dues every other week, doesn't make people write in the notebook, doesn't force people to be on time to meetings, etc. she organizes a mexican fiesta with the charges to show that she can hold a successful babysitting event without being a dictator about it, but all these things go wrong & she learns, i guess, that kristy may be bossy but she's good at getting shit done.)
anyway, kristy feels the need to prove that she is a good president, & what better way to prove it than to organize another event. she calls it that fall into fall festival block party. she plans to block off mclelland road (the road that wtson's mansion is on) & have all kinds of fun autumn-themed activities, like maple sugarding, cider making, apple picking, etc. the other babysitters are kind of shellshocked by this idea & weakly point out that there are no apple trees on mclelland road. kristy is all, "no problem, we'll hang some." she decides they will hang apples from trees for kids to pick, & use food processors to made cider, & build a fire pit for boiling sap into syrup, & she dispatches claudia to figure out a way to sculpt fallen leaves into statues.
the babysitters kind of idly go along with the plans for a little while, but eventually they're like, "um, kristy? we're all really busy with homework & stuff, & we're worn out from abby's mexican fiesta event, & also, your fall into fall festival ideas are totally batshit crazy." then jessi enrolls in an advanced dance class that meets on thursday afternoon, so she suggests re-scheduling friday babysitters club meetings for thursdays. & then mallory enrolls in a fiction class at the library that meets on wednesday afternoons, & she suggests rescheduling wednesday meetings for tuesdays. kristy completely loses her mind & i all, "i guess i'm the only one who really cares about the babysitters club, huh?" & then she suggests that they disband the club. & EVERYONE VOTES TO DISBAND. it's really weird.
so the babysitters club is kaput. they circulate their phone numbers to their clients & claudia kind of acts as a one-woman phone tree for people calling in for sitters. kristy is completely destroyed that the club is over, but no one else seems to be upset, so she keeps her feelings to herself. some other kids at SMS are taking sitting jobs, including cokie mason, who doesn't seem like a very good sitter. they tell kristy is the babysitters club had a monopoly on stoneybrook babysitting jobs, but now that the club is disbanded, everyone else can have a chance to learn how to change diapers & stuff.
eventually kristy can't take it anymore. she calls everyone to a meeting & asks if they want to re-form the club. stacey is the only one that is like, "i don't know if this is a good idea," but finally everyone votes yes. the end.
this book didn't really make any sense. i feel like shutting down the babysitters club is kind of a huge, disruptive decision & they seemed to make it on a lark. it's kind of hard to go back from something like that, but they do, with pretty much no repercussions at all. & pretty much the only reason they closed down the club in the first place is because kristy seriously went crazy. the scene in which mallory suggests switching wednesday meetings to tursday...holy shit. i would not have been surprised if kristy attacked mallory with a circular saw & then invited some of her regular clients over to dine on mallory's organs. i'd vote to shut the club down too, just to spare myself an hour & a half a week of being confined in a room with kristy the maniac.
in this oddly almost fanfic (alternate universe-style) installment by ghostwriter Peter Lerangis, kristy comes back from hawaii and is bummed out that the club didn’t completely fall apart without her. in fact, after the events of Stacey's Broken Heart, abby kind of got it together, and the other bsc members have started to vibe with her more lax presidential style. they have a meeting on labor day and everyone but kristy is surprised/bummed about it and then KRISTY is surprised/bummed that they don’t want to work on labor day because kristy is the job. like, not just married to the job, but IS the job. then jessi’s new ballet class is gonna be on fridays so they vote to change the friday bsc meetings to thursdays, which kristy freaks out about but agrees to anyway, and then mallory wants to do a writing class that meets on wednesdays which would mean changing those meeting dates too and kristy basically doubts everyone’s commitment to sparkle motion (a meme I’m sure I’ve used in bsc reviews before but it’s never not funny). and as a sort of last ditch effort kristy attempts to force this fall festival block party in spite of the fact that to do it as she wants to they will have to hang literally hundreds of apples from trees, and they will have to get an expensive block party permit, and also there’s already a similar fall party the town is hosting on the same day. and then when kristy is babysitting for the rodowskys jackie does something incredibly irresponsible because it’s a day that ends with a y and he always does that on those days and he ends up spraining his ankle and kristy blames herself. and claudia and mary anne aren’t getting along because they get into a fight while sitting for the barrett-dewitts because the kids are playing a game and claud wants them to stop so they can do an art project and mary anne is mad because she thinks claudia thinks she is boring and claudia is mad because she thinks mary anne thinks she is stupid. WHEW. sorry, I needed to take a second to get away from all the 13-year-old drama. okay, where were we? since the bsc is essentially imploding and because kristy thinks she is a terrible babysitter she suggests they disband. and they put it to a vote, and they all vote to disband, so they actually do. and then it turns into an interesting alternate universe-y plotline: the other middle schoolers in town are finally getting a chance to babysit and are not actually all that good at it because they don’t have any practice because the bsc has had a monopoly on all babysitting since its formation. claudia gets calls nonstop from parents asking for all the other sitters’ numbers who just complain to her that it was so much easier when the bsc existed. jamie newton thinks that since other people have been sitting for him it means everyone in the bsc hates him and that’s why they broke up. abby never gets any sitting jobs because she’s the newest member so the parents don’t know her well. eventually jackie rodowsky, who blames himself for the bsc breaking up since his injury set kristy’s idea for the bsc to break up in motion, tries to bike to kristy’s house sans helmet and ends up badly injured and hospitalized. the bsc realizes how much they care about kids and sitting and all that jazz so they get back together.
highlights: -it’s interesting to see what actually happens when the bsc disbands, in the world imploding/angry parents ways and also the world being better off without the bsc/other kids finally getting a chance to babysit ways -kristy seems to think it’s cool that other kids are getting a chance to babysit and even considers starting a business where she teaches babysitting basics. but then she finds cokie babysitting for a family and she can’t abide that, and it’s one of the things that makes her want to get the bsc back together. ah, nothing like blind cokie hatred. -I like how personally the bsc kids take it, especially jamie newton and jackie rodowsky -mr. papadakis tries to get the club to stay together by giving them a weekly retainer. ah, rich people who think they can get anything they want if they pay enough money. -shea rodowsky claims while doing mad libs that an adverb is a verb from an advertisement, "like brush teeth or eat wheaties," and that a pronoun is the name of a pro team like the new york knicks. -kristy thinks about how she could've prevented jackie from climbing a tree and mentions the prospect of coating the tree with vaseline. like what the philly cops did to the eagles fans this year! -they're discussing the direction they want the club to go in, and some of the jokes are babysitting by fax, using the net, or virtual babysitting. man, 1996 was a long time ago.
lowlights/nitpicks: -kristy grasping at straws with the fall festival is truly, truly depressing -kristy makes a new sign advertising the new bsc hours in which she says it's instead of its. this is so unlike kristy. -mary anne theorizes that the cafeteria dilutes their pesto with spinach and that's what makes it taste bad. I make spinach pesto and it's delicious! -claudia having to deal with all the angry parents is truly, truly depressing -kristy blaming herself for jackie’s latest disaster and refusing to babysit is truly, truly depressing -when all the bsc members move on quickly kristy gets upset and thinks the bsc wasn't a good idea in the first place and it’s truly, truly depressing -when sitting for the pikes, mal smashes claire's finger in a door by accident. when telling her it's wrong for her to take the blame, kristy realizes it's not her fault that jackie is a disaster. what a lovely coincidence that the first time kristy decides to actually babysit she gets to see a perfect parallel to her situation so she can learn her lesson -ann's letter says that the bsc series has spawned three other series: the bsc mysteries, the little sister series, and the kids in ms coleman's class series. what about the super specials, portrait collections, special edition readers requests, and super mysteries?
jackie disasters: -falls out of a tree and sprains his ankle -crashes his bike and is not wearing a helmet and is actually badly hurt
gifts kristy brings everyone from hawaii: -claudia: a huge pineapple-shaped clock whose two hands were a surfer and a surfboard -abby: hula-grass hat -stacey: toy ukulele -mary anne: mirrored sunglasses -mallory: pink-and-blue lei-shaped clip-on earrings
claudia outfit: -"She was wearing a bracelet of dyed, braided shoelaces, along with a blousy ruffled shirt that looked as if it once belonged to Captain Hook; mismatched high-top Converse sneakers; and baggy, pinstriped men's suit pants, gathered at the waist with a bungee cord."
snacks in claudia’s room: -caramel corn -gumballs (from a mini gumball machine in the shape of a dolphin) in her closet -doritos (n.s.) -snickers bars in her closet -milk duds (n.s.) -tortilla chips in her closet
oh brother :( i know anything coming from kristy's pov was going to be unnecessarily dramatic. i'd never read this one and i have to say that kristy's "worst idea" wasn't actually all that bad - they disbanded the club and got back together kind of bc they missed each other but mostly because not being in the club was....too complicated? some of these girls straight up do not like each other and i understand needing conflict but it's hard to keep a series about friends going if they're not actually friends. abby and kristy, figure it out! you're both kind of insufferable! mary anne and claudia, figure it out! you're both the best of the best.
I read and reread and loved these books as a kid. And rereading several of them as an adult, I find that some of them are actually really good, enjoyable and even mooving at times. But the series clearly suffers from being WAY TO LONG! ( and ghostwritten from nr 36 and out) The girls do not seem like real people anymore,more like simplyfied cartoonish versions of what they once were. Kristy was super annoying in this book, and whats the deal with this new kid Abby? She is even worse! I guess being stuck in middle school for like eight years or so does something to a person. And poor little Lucy Newton. She was born at the end of the very first book, and here she is ,years later, in the 100th book ,still inn diapers and spilling her babyfood om the floor. Maybe the town of Stonybrook is under some kind of spell? Seems nobody has gotten any older since the arrival of Logan Bruno in book 10. I blame him...
(LL) The following review is still relevant, but I downgraded it from five stars to three stars since THEY GLOSSES OVER THE WHOLE THING IN THE NEXT TWO BOOKS. They did probation with no issues and the club went back to normal without changing a thing. Ugh. It could have been such a good thing to change some of the rules/routine of the BSC for the series overall, but I guess they changed their minds.
I think it was time that they broke up the club, even if for only a few weeks. Schedules get more complicated and full as you get older, and meeting three times a week once they get into high school would be a difficult task. I also liked that they didn’t just go back to usual like nothing happened, as that would have made the break up kind of pointless. It’s difficult growing up, and that’s what the members of the BSC are doing, and sometimes that means somethings gotta give. It also gave the series some real drama for the first time: will the book series be over soon? Will the trial period work out or no? Can the BSC work together to find meeting times that works for everyone? It’s just the shake up that the series needed.
I feel like it would've made more sense to put the club on temporary hiatus rather than shutting it down completely, but ehh I'll give them a pass. I can definitely relate to the burnout they seem to have been feeling before the decision. Friendships aside, being a BSC member is a HUGE commitment, and I don't blame them for wanting a break. I can also sympathize with Kristy suddenly doubting herself after Jackie's accident.
The parents all being legit devastated by the news is a bit 🤨 but also kinda sweet. And Jamie Newton's hurt feelings is super awww.
Erica made a good point that the BSC had a monopoly in the neighbourhood so it was kinda nice that the breakup gave other kids a chance to learn how to baby-sit. And lolllll on Cokie taking her charges on a personal shopping trip! Personally, I wouldn't wanna bring kids to a mall but lolllll coz the sale was only on for that one more day.
Kristy and all the other girls decide to disband the BSC, because it's not fun anymore. They're always arguing, Abby is never taking things seriously, and there are big scheduling problems. They do relatively well without the club, although the parents and kids in town are quite sad. As you'd expect, the book ends with the girls deciding to restart the club.
I rate this book as slightly below average. I thought it did a pretty good job, with a pretty bad premise. No one wants to see the Baby-Sitters Club get destroyed, especially if the girls have to act out of character, to get to that point. Surely, they could have gone with a more upbeat story to celebrate the series reaching 100 books! Or at least, they could have gone with a story which does not have "the girls hate the baby-sitters club" in the premise.
I haven't gotten this engrossed in a BSC book in a while. The beginning was on the slow side and the ending felt unresolved, but the middle bits were a lot of fun. Apparently I like relationship drama, which is what this boils down to, a lot more as an adult than I would have as a kid because this definitely wouldn't have been my jam back then. I am missing having one client be the focus of the book though--and I'm missing some of the old clients. Maybe I, as a reader, need a refresh like the BSC.
I know that the end of the Baby-sitters Club would be the end of the world, but I enjoyed reading about the chaos of a world without them. Sure, it was a little sad to think that their friendships seemed to suffer without the club as a backbone, but it's nice to see things shaken up a little. Although I know that nothing will change; no more leniency for being late or missing meetings, no chances for the other teens of SMS to baby-sit (and learn about wet diapers.) Just right back to the Baby-sitters Cult. But still. Sometimes you just want to watch the world burn.
This is a great book in the series because we get to see Kristy falter as a leader. She was rude and mean and I enjoyed the tension. Also Mary Anne and Claudia hating on each other. Plus it was nice to see the members have other interests. Seeing the club disbanded and what they would get up to without it was an interesting idea. It really showed how much they needed each other. Also, Jackie Rodowsky being Jackie Rodowsky bringing everyone together.
I think they truly just needed a break from sitting and from each other.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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
When I was 10 I joined a readers club/group where we got a new book every week. I chose The babysitters club. The books are fantastic! So enjoyable. I loved getting the book every week. They are super quick reads and I was able to read it in one day. Highly recommend for young teenagers to read or even younger if they are able too read well.
The Baby-Sitters Club" by Ann M. Martin. In this book, Kristy comes up with the idea to form a boy's branch of the club, which causes a lot of drama and conflict among the members. Ultimately, the idea is abandoned and the girls learn the importance of sticking together and valuing their friendships.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
After two bad babysitting jobs and a meeting that left many club members upset, Kristy decides to disband the Baby-Sitter's Club. At first she enjoys the free time and freedom...but soon all of the BSC members want the club back!
I wasn't sure how much I was going to enjoy this book when I started it, but I really did! It was an interesting concept that was explored very well. I really enjoyed the ending scene, especially between Claudia and Mary Anne.
I just finished reading this with my 11 year old daughter and it's probably a good thing I was already in high school by the time this one came out or I would have had a major life crisis. The BSC is considering a break up? No!!!
“That’s what they said about Picasso’s theory of relativism,” I said. “You mean Einstein,” Jessi said. “Picasso’s theory of Einstein,” I corrected myself.
This was an interesting read with a lot more interpersonal stuff going on than usual. While it didn't resolve in an "everything's perfect" way, I did enjoy the realism.
1.5 stars I'm 10 books behind on my reading goal (probably because I'm reading an almost 1300 page book that I don't want to put down), I need something short. The cover is kind of the most 90s cover ever, so...