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The Baby-Sitters Club #109
Mary Anne to the Rescue
Life's been rough lately for Mary Anne. The members of the Baby-sitters Club are taking an intensive first aid class - and Mary Anne is scared to death. She's not sure she'll ever be prepared for a big emergency.
Mary Anne is even less prepared for Logan's shocking news: his parents want to send him away to boarding school. Effective immediately. It looks as though Mary Anne and Logan will be separated. Unless they can do something about it...before Logan is gone forever.
139 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1997
39 people are currently reading
594 people want to read
About the author
Ann M. Martin
1,120 books3,072 followersAnn 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...
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...
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
June 4, 2018
this is my first time reading this book.
in this mary anne being mary anne book by Peter Lerangis, mary anne freaks out about being unprepared for emergencies after seeing sharon perform the heimlich maneuver on a guy at the airport. the bsc members take a cpr and first aid class to prepare themselves for these types of moments. meanwhile, logan's dad wants him to go to manly summer boot camp (teaching survival skills) and manly boarding school, and mary anne is upset by the thought that she and logan may have to be long distance or break up. mary anne feels hopeless in every aspect of her life: she’s unable to fix logan’s problems, and she gets panicky in her cpr class when they perform cpr on fake babies, because they seem so real, and when they go to the hospital and see a kid who had a febrile seizure. dawn reminds mary anne that she is the best person to have around in case of emergency, as she knows from the events of Mary Anne Saves the Day (which couldn’t they title this book something that wasn’t almost exactly the same as that title? oh well), but mary anne still doesn’t really believe her. the cpr class has a safety day and they need mock victims, so dawn volunteers mary anne to be the heavy bleeder, and this is the low point for mary anne. finally, mary anne and dawn are babysitting for the kormans and the hsus and they decide to go in the pool with the neighbor keeping an eye out in case of emergency. when he steps away for a minute to get a soda, timmy hsu starts drowning and mary anne hops into rescue mode, ordering dawn to call 911 and saving and performing cpr on timmy. at this point, she realizes she’s actually good in an emergency and relates that to what’s going on with logan. she tells him to stop moping and to actually do something about it, and he successfully convinces his dad that he shouldn’t go to boarding school. all of the subplots tie into the safety theme, with a few individual safety-related babysitting anecdote chapters.
highlights:
-this book has one of the all-time most hilarious, awkward, depressing covers on any bsc book ever. congratulations on this achievement, hodges soileau.
lowlights/nitpicks:
-mary anne says dawn is lucky to have found a group of friends in california that share her beliefs, but she was already friends with them before she moved to stoneybrook. it's so mary anne (read: self-centered) to think dawn is gonna be lost without her.
-mary anne says abby’s twin anna wears her hair straight with bangs -- is that true? no one has ever mentioned the straight and bangs before, and on covers it doesn't look like it.
-logan tells mary anne not to be so sensitive about him leaving. god I hate him sometimes. he’s basically just a whiny baby but gets mad when mary anne is upset too. what a jerk.
-kristy says that the roll in "stop drop and roll" is used to refer to rolling away from the fire, but it's actually intended to stifle the fire
-mary anne gets mad about dawn volunteering her to be the heavy bleeding mock victim, but doesn't do anything about it. then after when she's yelling at dawn, dawn says that she needs to speak up for herself. as far as I’m concerned, they're both jerks.
-dawn scolds her friends for eating "processed animal entrails and spun pancreas poison" (aka hot dogs and cotton candy). I HATE DAWN.
-dawn tells mr. sinclair (the neighbor when she's sitting for the hsus/kormans) that he should drink something lower in sugar and caffeine when he's drinking a soda. OH MY GOD I HATE DAWN.
-logan says brie smells like sweat socks, and then his dad complains that the cheese is smelly later. peter lerangis, do you think brie is a different cheese from what it actually is? it’s not a smelly cheese. are you thinking of limburger?
-mary anne is so annoying throughout the book. I really can’t deal with her sometimes.
claudia outfit:
-"At our meeting, for example, she was wearing an old-fashioned felt hat, a billowy button-down white shirt, a super-wide tie hand-painted with a Hawaiian sunset, cuffed khaki shorts, and brown-and-white bucks with knee-high white socks."
jackie disaster:
-gets his pants caught in his bike chain and falls off his bike
snacks in claudia’s room:
-yeastless seven-grain molasses bread in her closet
-organic mint tabouli in her closet
-yodels under her bed
-potato chips under her bed
-skor bars (n.s.)
-hostess cupcakes with "mary anne" spelled out in alpha-bits (n.s.)
in this mary anne being mary anne book by Peter Lerangis, mary anne freaks out about being unprepared for emergencies after seeing sharon perform the heimlich maneuver on a guy at the airport. the bsc members take a cpr and first aid class to prepare themselves for these types of moments. meanwhile, logan's dad wants him to go to manly summer boot camp (teaching survival skills) and manly boarding school, and mary anne is upset by the thought that she and logan may have to be long distance or break up. mary anne feels hopeless in every aspect of her life: she’s unable to fix logan’s problems, and she gets panicky in her cpr class when they perform cpr on fake babies, because they seem so real, and when they go to the hospital and see a kid who had a febrile seizure. dawn reminds mary anne that she is the best person to have around in case of emergency, as she knows from the events of Mary Anne Saves the Day (which couldn’t they title this book something that wasn’t almost exactly the same as that title? oh well), but mary anne still doesn’t really believe her. the cpr class has a safety day and they need mock victims, so dawn volunteers mary anne to be the heavy bleeder, and this is the low point for mary anne. finally, mary anne and dawn are babysitting for the kormans and the hsus and they decide to go in the pool with the neighbor keeping an eye out in case of emergency. when he steps away for a minute to get a soda, timmy hsu starts drowning and mary anne hops into rescue mode, ordering dawn to call 911 and saving and performing cpr on timmy. at this point, she realizes she’s actually good in an emergency and relates that to what’s going on with logan. she tells him to stop moping and to actually do something about it, and he successfully convinces his dad that he shouldn’t go to boarding school. all of the subplots tie into the safety theme, with a few individual safety-related babysitting anecdote chapters.
highlights:
-this book has one of the all-time most hilarious, awkward, depressing covers on any bsc book ever. congratulations on this achievement, hodges soileau.
lowlights/nitpicks:
-mary anne says dawn is lucky to have found a group of friends in california that share her beliefs, but she was already friends with them before she moved to stoneybrook. it's so mary anne (read: self-centered) to think dawn is gonna be lost without her.
-mary anne says abby’s twin anna wears her hair straight with bangs -- is that true? no one has ever mentioned the straight and bangs before, and on covers it doesn't look like it.
-logan tells mary anne not to be so sensitive about him leaving. god I hate him sometimes. he’s basically just a whiny baby but gets mad when mary anne is upset too. what a jerk.
-kristy says that the roll in "stop drop and roll" is used to refer to rolling away from the fire, but it's actually intended to stifle the fire
-mary anne gets mad about dawn volunteering her to be the heavy bleeding mock victim, but doesn't do anything about it. then after when she's yelling at dawn, dawn says that she needs to speak up for herself. as far as I’m concerned, they're both jerks.
-dawn scolds her friends for eating "processed animal entrails and spun pancreas poison" (aka hot dogs and cotton candy). I HATE DAWN.
-dawn tells mr. sinclair (the neighbor when she's sitting for the hsus/kormans) that he should drink something lower in sugar and caffeine when he's drinking a soda. OH MY GOD I HATE DAWN.
-logan says brie smells like sweat socks, and then his dad complains that the cheese is smelly later. peter lerangis, do you think brie is a different cheese from what it actually is? it’s not a smelly cheese. are you thinking of limburger?
-mary anne is so annoying throughout the book. I really can’t deal with her sometimes.
claudia outfit:
-"At our meeting, for example, she was wearing an old-fashioned felt hat, a billowy button-down white shirt, a super-wide tie hand-painted with a Hawaiian sunset, cuffed khaki shorts, and brown-and-white bucks with knee-high white socks."
jackie disaster:
-gets his pants caught in his bike chain and falls off his bike
snacks in claudia’s room:
-yeastless seven-grain molasses bread in her closet
-organic mint tabouli in her closet
-yodels under her bed
-potato chips under her bed
-skor bars (n.s.)
-hostess cupcakes with "mary anne" spelled out in alpha-bits (n.s.)
January 24, 2021
This one wasn’t as fun as the other BSC books. (See that it took me three days to read it. 🤦🏼♀️)
September 27, 2024
This was a bit boring, but it started off exciting and ended exciting and the cover is hilarious so three and a half stars. It's summer yet again and Dawn and Jeff are coming to visit. Oh joy Dawn. Anyway while waiting at the airport a man starts choking and Sharon saves his life by doing the heimlich on him. Mary Anne is traumatized and the BSC decides to take first aid which surprised me. I thought they would've done it years ago. Mary Anne is squeamish all through the course not helped by the fact that Alan Grey and crew are also taking the course. Dawn is obnoxious and nominates Mary Anne as a heavy bleeder in a safety demonstration and is just generally Dawn like. Logan is also acting weird and we learn his dad is sending him to a boot camp and boarding school which he doesn't want to go. Mary Anne spends most of the book thinking she's a chicken and a failure until one of the boys they're sitting for starts to drown and she jumps in to save the day. Go Mary Anne! Logan gets the nerve to say no to his dad and this book is basically Mary Anne Saves the Day for Logan. Except for the lifesaving moments and the cover making me giggle this one was kind of boring.
November 1, 2013
In which Mary Anne is a buttinski but she's super sensitive so it's okay. Also, she saves some brat from drowning. Everything about this book bugs me.
June 7, 2011
yet another dreadful mary anne book. this one opens with mary anne, sharon, richard, & all the members of the babysitters club hanging out at the airport, waiting for dawn & jeff's plane to arrive. they are coming for their summer visit. didn't dawn just finish up a summer visit like five books ago? the time warp is completely out of control by this point. dawn & jeff's plane is delayed for an hour, & the welcome party is just schlumping around the airport food court, eating snacks & trying to pass the time. suddenly a man at the next table starts banging on the table. mary anne thinks he is being very rude. he then pushes back his chair, knocking it over, & starts waving his arms around. mary anne then thinks he is doing some kind of goofy pantomime for his kids. he starts pointing at his throat & his face is turning red. suddenly it occurs to everyone simultaneously that he is choking, but sharon is the only one who does anything. she runs over, gives the dude the heimlich, & he recovers. everyone crowds around sharon, making a big fuss over how she just saved a dude from choking to death on a whopper in front of his kids. she's all, "it's nothing, it's just instinct, i knew how to do the maneuver, so i did it." meanwhile, mary anne wells up with tears & castigates herself for just standing there, doing nothing. this is yet another example (out of approximately two million) of the writer trying to make mary anne seem very sensitive to other people via a behavior or thought that i find totally selfish. the important thing here is that someone helped the dude, not that you didn't, mary anne. & i don't think anyone is judging anyone in the crowd, least of all some random 13-year-old, for not leaping up to do the heimlich maneuver. just make a note to maybe learn some first aid & move on.
that's what all of the other members of the babysitters club decide to do. kristy points out that it will be helpful for them to have a better foundation in emergency responses while they are babysitting. she enrolls the whole club in a first aid for teens class at the stoneybrook community center. at first, mary anne is excited about the class because she hopes it will make her less wimpy about taking the reins in an emergency. but when she walks into the classrooms & sees it decorated with all kinds of very basic first aid posters & she apparently finds gory & graphic, she starts to wuss out again. & this, folks, is why you don't force your daughter to dress like a first-grader until she's twelve years old. maybe if richard had allowed mary anne to get a little rough & tumble as a child, she wouldn't be such a weirdo today.
logan is taking the class too, & mary anne notices that he looks sad & distracted. he asks to speak with her privately after class, & she immediately assumes that he is going to break up with her or move away or something. i find her constant catastrophizing very, very tedious. turns out, mr. bruno has decided that logan should attend his alma mater, an all-boys' boarding school in the woods of new hampshire. he has already enrolled logan & put down the deposit. mary anne says, "at least we still have the summer," & logan goes on to inform her that mr. bruno also wants him to attend a survival camp for the summer. he leaves in like two weeks. mary anne beseeches logan to tell his father he doesn't want to go, to the survival camp or to boarding school, or to appeal to his mother to speak with his dad, but logan gets kind of grumpy & says, "once my dad makes up his mind, that's it."
they walk back to mary anne's house together, where dawn teases them about looking so gloomy. they let her in on logan's bad news, & she also encourages logan to ask his mom to intervene on his behalf. logan gets all angry & says, "you don't know my mom! she just does whatever my dad wants." um...really? 'cause that seems kind of fucked up. she doesn't get any say in whether or not they ship out their 13-year-old son to boarding school for the rest of his adolescence?
at the next first aid class, the instructor demonstrates performing CPR on a baby, using a baby-sized dummy. mary anne gets all choked up because the dummy looks so life-like. all she can think about is the fact that it really resembles a dead baby. that's great, mary anne, but the point of the demonstration is teaching you how to possibly prevent having a dead infant on your hands, so stop with the waterworks & get your shit together. god, i hate mary anne so fucking much. at least she has the sense to feel bad about being so emotional.
abby takes a sitting job at the hobarts' house (& can i just mention that in recent books, ben hobart has often been portrayed as a sitting charge, making mischief & getting into trouble with kids several years younger than him? whatever happened to his role as mallory's boyfriend?). the kids are riding their bikes, & abby discovers that there is a lot they don't know about basic bike safety. some other neighborhood kids stop by on their bikes & not all of them are wearing helmets, even after jackie rodowsky's concussion-inducing bike accident. jackie is wearing a helmet (plus knee & elbow pads), but he gets his pants caught in his chain & falls off his bike anyway. abby wonders if there is some way that she can make safety tips fun for kids.
the stoneybrook fire department is having an upcoming fire safety fair, & kristy suggests that the babysitters club try to organize a general safety fair for the day before. she pitches it to the first air instructor, who loves it & gets a bunch of other folks involved, like paramedics & shit. the members of the first aid class will portray victims so the residents of stoneybrook can see how helpful the paramedics are at rescuing them. i am not really seeing what this has to do with first aid. if i get into a car crash, i am hoping that a bystander will call the paramedics regardless of whether or not they have ever seen a live-action demonstration of paramedics doing their jobs. & i'm not sure how seeing paramedics strapping an actor to a stabilizing board is really going to motivate me to learn to administer the heimlich maneuver. once again, a babysitters club makes no fucking sense. & needless to say, mary anne is not psyched about portraying a victim of some grisly accident.
the first aid class takes a field trip to the stoneybrook hospital emergency room, where they get to shadow dr. johanssen while she treats patients suffering febrile seizures & broken arms & shit. am i alone in feeling that this has GOT to be illegal? hello, doctor-patient confidentiality? they don't let just anyone troop around behind the scenes in an ER--especially not a pack of 13-year-olds. a lot of hospitals won't even let a 13-year-old visit a patient in the ER even when they are actually related to said patient. i think this entire scene was just a big plot device so that a) mary anne could act wussy about sick & injured people YET AGAIN, & b) the concept of febrile seizures could be introduced, because then all the kids in stoneybrook find out about them & are scared, & the babysitters club calms them down by inviting them to safety day or whatever it's called.
safety day rolls around & the first aid instructor is doling out assignments for the emergency rescue demonstrations. she says she needs a "heavy bleeder," who will lay in a pool of fake blood in the middle of the street. dawn says, "mary anne will do it!" mary anne glares at dawn, but obediently lays down in the fake blood. the whole time she's laying there, all she can think about is how gruesome the scene would be if she were laying in real blood. um, i guess, BUT YOU'RE NOT. so shut up. she is really crabby about the whole thing & kind of short with the emergency workers. when she arrives home post-fair, she is for some reason surprised to discover that she is covered in fake blood. yeah, dude, that's usually what happens when you spend all day laying in a pool of it. dawn's like, "no big whoop. just take a shower." mary anne hulks out on dawn for volunteering her & dawn is like, "you're the one that went & did it. the next time you don't want to do something, you need to say so."
FUCKING EXACTLY. i have said this before, but i'll say it again: mary anne is NOT "sweet & shy & sensitive". she's selfish & passive-aggressive. she uses emotion to manipulate other people. THERE'S A BIG DIFFERENCE.
for whatever weird reason, this exchange makes her realize that she needs to put her foot down with logan. the next time she sees him, she's like, "you need to tell your dad you don't want to go to survival camp or boarding school. what's the worst that can happen? you'll have a fight & be upset? you're upset already. maybe this way you can stay in stoneybrook." logan agrees to try it as long as mary anne comes with him.
when logan & mary anne show up & ask to speak with mr. bruno, he cracks a joke about them getting married. there's a whole paragraph in which mary anne frets over how embarrassed she is by this joke. how the fuck does she get through the day? anyway, logan says his piece & mr. bruno says that boarding school will be great. he went to this same school & it changed him. before enrolling, his grades were bad, he got into trouble all the time, & he never played sports. the school turned him around & made him the man he is today. logan points out that he's already a good kid who plays sports & gets good grades. mrs. bruno jumps in to say she's not real pumped about logan going to boarding school. mr. bruno considers for a while & then tells logan he can stay in stoneybrook. i guess this is supposed to be a valuable lesson about sticking up for what you want or something? it's not very subtle.
there's an annoying chapter in which jamie newton loses his shit at fire safety day at all the fake demonstration fires but it's so boring. mary anne & dawn patch up their differences & dawn points out that mary anne "saved" jenny prezzioso when she spiked a fever back in book #4, so mary anne has already proved that she can handle an emergency. she handles a much, much more significant one while she & dawn are babysitting at the kormans' house for half the neighborhood kids. timmy hsu swims into the deep end, even though he can't swim, & he starts to drown. mary anne dives in after him, pulls him out of the pool, & administers mouth-to-mouth. by the time she gets him out of the pool, he's unresponsive & not breathing, but mary anne saves him. she realizes that once you know what to do in an emergency, actually acting on the knowledge comes pretty easily. great. maybe now she'll stop blaming herself for not administering a life-saving emergency technique she'd never heard of at the fucking airport food court.
at the end of this book, i thought about how the babysitters club series could be improved if a charge died every now & again.
that's what all of the other members of the babysitters club decide to do. kristy points out that it will be helpful for them to have a better foundation in emergency responses while they are babysitting. she enrolls the whole club in a first aid for teens class at the stoneybrook community center. at first, mary anne is excited about the class because she hopes it will make her less wimpy about taking the reins in an emergency. but when she walks into the classrooms & sees it decorated with all kinds of very basic first aid posters & she apparently finds gory & graphic, she starts to wuss out again. & this, folks, is why you don't force your daughter to dress like a first-grader until she's twelve years old. maybe if richard had allowed mary anne to get a little rough & tumble as a child, she wouldn't be such a weirdo today.
logan is taking the class too, & mary anne notices that he looks sad & distracted. he asks to speak with her privately after class, & she immediately assumes that he is going to break up with her or move away or something. i find her constant catastrophizing very, very tedious. turns out, mr. bruno has decided that logan should attend his alma mater, an all-boys' boarding school in the woods of new hampshire. he has already enrolled logan & put down the deposit. mary anne says, "at least we still have the summer," & logan goes on to inform her that mr. bruno also wants him to attend a survival camp for the summer. he leaves in like two weeks. mary anne beseeches logan to tell his father he doesn't want to go, to the survival camp or to boarding school, or to appeal to his mother to speak with his dad, but logan gets kind of grumpy & says, "once my dad makes up his mind, that's it."
they walk back to mary anne's house together, where dawn teases them about looking so gloomy. they let her in on logan's bad news, & she also encourages logan to ask his mom to intervene on his behalf. logan gets all angry & says, "you don't know my mom! she just does whatever my dad wants." um...really? 'cause that seems kind of fucked up. she doesn't get any say in whether or not they ship out their 13-year-old son to boarding school for the rest of his adolescence?
at the next first aid class, the instructor demonstrates performing CPR on a baby, using a baby-sized dummy. mary anne gets all choked up because the dummy looks so life-like. all she can think about is the fact that it really resembles a dead baby. that's great, mary anne, but the point of the demonstration is teaching you how to possibly prevent having a dead infant on your hands, so stop with the waterworks & get your shit together. god, i hate mary anne so fucking much. at least she has the sense to feel bad about being so emotional.
abby takes a sitting job at the hobarts' house (& can i just mention that in recent books, ben hobart has often been portrayed as a sitting charge, making mischief & getting into trouble with kids several years younger than him? whatever happened to his role as mallory's boyfriend?). the kids are riding their bikes, & abby discovers that there is a lot they don't know about basic bike safety. some other neighborhood kids stop by on their bikes & not all of them are wearing helmets, even after jackie rodowsky's concussion-inducing bike accident. jackie is wearing a helmet (plus knee & elbow pads), but he gets his pants caught in his chain & falls off his bike anyway. abby wonders if there is some way that she can make safety tips fun for kids.
the stoneybrook fire department is having an upcoming fire safety fair, & kristy suggests that the babysitters club try to organize a general safety fair for the day before. she pitches it to the first air instructor, who loves it & gets a bunch of other folks involved, like paramedics & shit. the members of the first aid class will portray victims so the residents of stoneybrook can see how helpful the paramedics are at rescuing them. i am not really seeing what this has to do with first aid. if i get into a car crash, i am hoping that a bystander will call the paramedics regardless of whether or not they have ever seen a live-action demonstration of paramedics doing their jobs. & i'm not sure how seeing paramedics strapping an actor to a stabilizing board is really going to motivate me to learn to administer the heimlich maneuver. once again, a babysitters club makes no fucking sense. & needless to say, mary anne is not psyched about portraying a victim of some grisly accident.
the first aid class takes a field trip to the stoneybrook hospital emergency room, where they get to shadow dr. johanssen while she treats patients suffering febrile seizures & broken arms & shit. am i alone in feeling that this has GOT to be illegal? hello, doctor-patient confidentiality? they don't let just anyone troop around behind the scenes in an ER--especially not a pack of 13-year-olds. a lot of hospitals won't even let a 13-year-old visit a patient in the ER even when they are actually related to said patient. i think this entire scene was just a big plot device so that a) mary anne could act wussy about sick & injured people YET AGAIN, & b) the concept of febrile seizures could be introduced, because then all the kids in stoneybrook find out about them & are scared, & the babysitters club calms them down by inviting them to safety day or whatever it's called.
safety day rolls around & the first aid instructor is doling out assignments for the emergency rescue demonstrations. she says she needs a "heavy bleeder," who will lay in a pool of fake blood in the middle of the street. dawn says, "mary anne will do it!" mary anne glares at dawn, but obediently lays down in the fake blood. the whole time she's laying there, all she can think about is how gruesome the scene would be if she were laying in real blood. um, i guess, BUT YOU'RE NOT. so shut up. she is really crabby about the whole thing & kind of short with the emergency workers. when she arrives home post-fair, she is for some reason surprised to discover that she is covered in fake blood. yeah, dude, that's usually what happens when you spend all day laying in a pool of it. dawn's like, "no big whoop. just take a shower." mary anne hulks out on dawn for volunteering her & dawn is like, "you're the one that went & did it. the next time you don't want to do something, you need to say so."
FUCKING EXACTLY. i have said this before, but i'll say it again: mary anne is NOT "sweet & shy & sensitive". she's selfish & passive-aggressive. she uses emotion to manipulate other people. THERE'S A BIG DIFFERENCE.
for whatever weird reason, this exchange makes her realize that she needs to put her foot down with logan. the next time she sees him, she's like, "you need to tell your dad you don't want to go to survival camp or boarding school. what's the worst that can happen? you'll have a fight & be upset? you're upset already. maybe this way you can stay in stoneybrook." logan agrees to try it as long as mary anne comes with him.
when logan & mary anne show up & ask to speak with mr. bruno, he cracks a joke about them getting married. there's a whole paragraph in which mary anne frets over how embarrassed she is by this joke. how the fuck does she get through the day? anyway, logan says his piece & mr. bruno says that boarding school will be great. he went to this same school & it changed him. before enrolling, his grades were bad, he got into trouble all the time, & he never played sports. the school turned him around & made him the man he is today. logan points out that he's already a good kid who plays sports & gets good grades. mrs. bruno jumps in to say she's not real pumped about logan going to boarding school. mr. bruno considers for a while & then tells logan he can stay in stoneybrook. i guess this is supposed to be a valuable lesson about sticking up for what you want or something? it's not very subtle.
there's an annoying chapter in which jamie newton loses his shit at fire safety day at all the fake demonstration fires but it's so boring. mary anne & dawn patch up their differences & dawn points out that mary anne "saved" jenny prezzioso when she spiked a fever back in book #4, so mary anne has already proved that she can handle an emergency. she handles a much, much more significant one while she & dawn are babysitting at the kormans' house for half the neighborhood kids. timmy hsu swims into the deep end, even though he can't swim, & he starts to drown. mary anne dives in after him, pulls him out of the pool, & administers mouth-to-mouth. by the time she gets him out of the pool, he's unresponsive & not breathing, but mary anne saves him. she realizes that once you know what to do in an emergency, actually acting on the knowledge comes pretty easily. great. maybe now she'll stop blaming herself for not administering a life-saving emergency technique she'd never heard of at the fucking airport food court.
at the end of this book, i thought about how the babysitters club series could be improved if a charge died every now & again.
June 24, 2023
A bit of a rehash of Mary Anne's growth in Mary Anne Saves the Day, where she feels like the scaredy-cat crybaby of the group, but actually turns out to be the best in emergencies. But this does acknowledge her growth since then, and then hits her with a slew of new challenges, so the rehash works.
I like the insight that there are lots of emergencies and emergency-like situations in life, and people either jump in or fall back. Mary Anne thinks she's the type to fall back, but really is the type to jump in. And she thinks Logan is the type to jump in, but when confronted with a crisis in his own life (his dad wants to send him to boarding school), he's afraid to speak up. So I like that Mary Anne, usually the meek one, demonstrates her growth by helping Logan with his problem.
And also that she literally saves a life because of her quick reflexes.
Also, side-eye to Dawn for volunteering Mary Anne to be the 'bleeder' during the first aid demo. Sure, Mary Anne could've been louder in saying no, but you should know your sister enough by now to know she wouldn't want to do it, so boo on you for volunteering her anyway, and then telling her that it was her fault for not saying no more loudly. Mary Anne should not have had to apologize for that one, and while I'm glad Dawn apologized eventually, I hated that Mary Anne did too.
I like the insight that there are lots of emergencies and emergency-like situations in life, and people either jump in or fall back. Mary Anne thinks she's the type to fall back, but really is the type to jump in. And she thinks Logan is the type to jump in, but when confronted with a crisis in his own life (his dad wants to send him to boarding school), he's afraid to speak up. So I like that Mary Anne, usually the meek one, demonstrates her growth by helping Logan with his problem.
And also that she literally saves a life because of her quick reflexes.
Also, side-eye to Dawn for volunteering Mary Anne to be the 'bleeder' during the first aid demo. Sure, Mary Anne could've been louder in saying no, but you should know your sister enough by now to know she wouldn't want to do it, so boo on you for volunteering her anyway, and then telling her that it was her fault for not saying no more loudly. Mary Anne should not have had to apologize for that one, and while I'm glad Dawn apologized eventually, I hated that Mary Anne did too.
March 15, 2023
Having only read this book once before, I couldn't remember overly being a fan of it. And there were parts that I didn't love (okay, the whole Logan plot. Even the cover is pretty awful.) But the climax, Mary Anne going from meek to in charge - just like in
Mary Anne Saves the Day
, which Dawn reminds her of a little earlier in the story - that part kicks butt.
Read
July 29, 2020As 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.
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.
January 17, 2021
(LL)
The only reason this has three stars is because of all the great first-aid material in the book.
It was extremely boring and unnecessary of a book besides the emergency situations on the Heimlich maneuver and lifeguarding.
Again we get to see that Mary Anne’s life would be over if her boyfriend, Logan, wasn’t around all the time...and his parents wouldn’t listen to him saying he didn’t want to go until Mary Anne was in the room? Yeah, sure.
The only reason this has three stars is because of all the great first-aid material in the book.
It was extremely boring and unnecessary of a book besides the emergency situations on the Heimlich maneuver and lifeguarding.
Again we get to see that Mary Anne’s life would be over if her boyfriend, Logan, wasn’t around all the time...and his parents wouldn’t listen to him saying he didn’t want to go until Mary Anne was in the room? Yeah, sure.
January 26, 2023
It's turning out to be Mary Anne's worst summer...she feels like a coward after witnessing someone almost die and Logan is being sent away to boarding school. The BSC decides to take a teen safety course, and through the class Mary Anne finds the courage to stand up for herself and respond well in a crisis.
March 18, 2023
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 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.
May 8, 2023
I usually don't have a lot of patience for Mary Anne, but...I get it. Being in an emergency situation is hard, especially if you're unprepared. The Logan storyline, though? Didn't tie in so well. It feels like in all of Mary Anne's books, the audience and Mary Anne have to be constantly convinced that she can be assertive.
October 20, 2017
An improved Mary Anne book! At least there isn't a freaking princess in this one, oh man. Just Mary Anne being her usual neurotic self. She does blow up at Dawn, which was momentarily fun.
Did anyone else think the whole Logan boarding school thing was really, REALLY left field?
Did anyone else think the whole Logan boarding school thing was really, REALLY left field?
July 25, 2021
Whew. I was not expecting the emotional roller-coaster of this one. I mean, I was set for an emergency, but not the one that happened -- more severe than I anticipated! But I was definitely emotionally invested!
November 24, 2019
Review on www.audible.com please listen to this book first aid discussed.
June 15, 2020
The title says it all!
Mary Anne + Logan 😍
BSC 4ever 🖤
Mary Anne + Logan 😍
BSC 4ever 🖤
July 8, 2020
Four stars for two life threatening emergencies in its short 15 chapters.
Mary Anne manages to save the day significantly more in this tome than she did in Mary Anne Saves The Day.
Mary Anne manages to save the day significantly more in this tome than she did in Mary Anne Saves The Day.
Read
February 24, 2021Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blog/mary-a...
January 17, 2024
I think that Logan didn’t need to be so grumpy a good book it all worked out well.
August 19, 2024
Terrible first-aid and CPR advice. (I think some of the lessons were wrong even for 1997.)
Read
February 1, 2026Mary-Anne's life is turned upside down when the Club members participate in a scary and intensive first aid class and Logan's parents decide to send him to a boarding school.
May 1, 2013
Fantastic books for young girls getting into reading!! Great stories about friendship and life lessons. The characters deal with all sorts of situations and often find responsible solutions to problems.
I loved this series growing up and wanted to start my own babysitting business with friends. Great lessons in entrepreneurship for tweens.
The books may be dated with out references to modern technology but the story stands and lessons are still relevant.
Awesome books that girls will love! And the series grows with them! Terrific Author!
I loved this series growing up and wanted to start my own babysitting business with friends. Great lessons in entrepreneurship for tweens.
The books may be dated with out references to modern technology but the story stands and lessons are still relevant.
Awesome books that girls will love! And the series grows with them! Terrific Author!
November 22, 2011
One of the better BSC books. I liked it - probably because it reminded me a lot of "Mary Anne Saves the Day" which is one of my favourites.
I missed BSC time though - there wasn't a single meeting in this book!
I missed BSC time though - there wasn't a single meeting in this book!
August 6, 2008
This whole series is great for girls between 11-15 years old. I read every last one of them as I was growing up.
December 31, 2011
I know I read this but even though it's only been a few months I've forgotten most of it... glowing recommendation, huh?
November 23, 2015
I've been operating this whole time as if Skylar Korman (a 2 year old sitting charge) were a girl. This book tells me Skylar is a younger brother. I don't know what's real anymore!
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