Kristy's first book since finding a new station in life, thanks to her mother's marriage to Watson. We watch as she finds footing in her new neighborhood with her new wealthy neighbors, who are suprisingly (and worryingly) eccentric. Her new baby sitting charges have no problem spouting off the price of everything they own. (They think their cat has never been sick because she cost $400.) Her fellow neighborhood baby sitters have no problem acting like spoiled sociopaths to punish Kristy for monopolizing the baby sitting trade in their hood. Mrs Porter aka Morbidda Destiny hovers in the background. Karen acts like a manic depressive on cocaine.
Things I remember from reading this as a kid:
Louie the dog becoming sick, and eventually dying. I was pretty cold-hearted about pets dying when I was young. We lived in a rural area and our cats were constantly being picked off by owls and coyotes, so I was used to the death of my pets. However, reading about Louie was so sad because I could see what losing an animal you've had since birth did to David Michael.
Things I've considered since reading this as an adult:
I never before realized that Stoneybrook is so wealthy that there are two private schools: Stoneybrook Day School, and Stoneybrook Academy. I thought there was just one private school in Stoneybrook.
I think the pranks that Kristy and Shannon play on each other are horrible. There is nothing at all funny about telling a baby sitter and the children that you baby sit for on a regular basis that there is a fire in their house. I think you can get arrested, or fined for that, although the idea of a fine probably doesn't faze someone as wealthy as Shannon. This prank seems to border on psychotic behavior, as does the one where Shannon asks Kristy to help her with a crying child, sending Kristy running out the door, only to find there is no crying child. Kristy's prank of having diapers delivered to Shannon's house made no sense either. I'm not sure how this is annoying to Shannon. I can see her parents being confused, and possibly calling the business, and maybe yelling at them for delivering things they didn't ask for. I can see the business losing out on profit and time. Who is paying them for this nonsense? I assume it's not Kristy. In the days before online ordering did businesses just send a bill to the address and hope to get paid? It's horrible that businesses are losing time and money on the bored escapades of two rich brats who hate each other for no reason. Maybe Kristy assumes that the Kilbournes will just pay the bill without thinking about it? The prank with the pizza bothered me in the same way. Why are they harassing local businesses, and trying to get out of paying for something they just ordered arbitrarily?
I didn't realize that this is the book where Jeff turns from an easygoing kid to a monster, because he misses his dad and his life in California. Because this book was written by Ann M Martin and not her ghostwriters, I think this is well done, and the kind of thing was appropriate to draw out over several books. Just because a ten year old acts out doesn't mean that he gets what he wants, and it would take a long time for the adults in his life to figure out something as huge as letting him move back to his father in California. Later on in the series Dawn spends more and more time visiting California until she decides to move back for good, and I always thought her parents were much too indulgent with her. I knew plenty of kids whose parents were divorced and who lived in different states from one of their parents, and there was never, ever a family who just said, "Ok, let's draw up new custody papers," if a kid suddenly wanted to live with a different parent. It seemed ridiculous that Dawn was just able to decide on a whim that she missed California so much that she absolutely had to live there, then come back to her mother, then move back to California. . . if I were her mother I wouldn't have let her bounce back and forth so much. However, Jeff seems to have a different motivation from Dawn's driftless decisions. He is young enough to desperately miss his father, to take his anger out on his peers, and to rage at Dawn because he doesn't know what else to do. If I had to put up with that for a long time, I would consider Jeff's request to live his father full time.
Stacey brags about how she knows psychology because she read a magazine article called, "Getting What You Want: Dealing With Difficult People the Easy Way". Then she does some kind of pseudo reverse psychology with the Delaney kids to get them to stop being brats. I don't think what she did is strictly reverse psychology, and it's actually weird that the kids fell for it. In my experience, this type of thing doesn't work well, and it certainly wouldn't turn bossy, bratty kids into happy, cooperative kids over the course of one afternoon. I seem to remember in later books that some of the baby sitters tried to use this tactic with varying degrees of success on other BSC charges. I do like that this baby sitting technique doesn't always work.
Louie's demise and death was much sadder than I remember it being, but I thought it was very well done. It was honest, and heartfelt without being over the top. It's too bad that Kristy had to have her dog die to realize that her neighbors were nice people, but that's the way it goes sometimes. It's only now when I read the books that I realize what an incredibly generous thing it was for the Kilbournes to agree to give one of their purebred puppies to Kristy's family. These days a purebred puppy would probably cost upwards of $1000.
I found this book to very inconsistent with some of the BSC policies that they obsess so much over later. For one thing, Kristy is nuts about taking on new baby sitters just a few books later when Mallory and Jessi join, and her reluctance to add unapproved sitters to their roster is a theme that pops up in other books. I don't understand why she is fine with letting Shannon join the BSC after those dangerous pranks she played on Kristy while she was baby-sitting. That is not a harmless, funny prank. If Kristy is so nuts about hiring professional sitters, then she shouldn't have allowed Shannon to join the BSC, even as an associate member. Also, Shannon makes a big deal in this book about how her sister Tiffany baby sits too. Tiffany is eleven, which is the same age as Mallory and Jessi, so I guess in Stoneybrook that's an appropriate age to baby sit, although I would never hire an eleven year old to watch my kids. However, later in the series, the baby sitters often baby sit FOR Tiffany, and no one seems to remember that she was angry at Kristy too, when she thought she was stealing her baby sitting jobs. And why does she need a sitter when Mallory and Jessi do not? Even supposing her parents decide that she shouldn't baby sit for the neighbors anymore, why isn't OK for Tiffany to be in charge of Maria (who's eight, and really shouldn't be left alone) while her parents are out?